Has Labour spied an opportunity in the Tory National Insurance pledge?

A curious attack from Labour in the Commons this afternoon: shadow work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall used her slot at the regular departmental questions to ask how a policy that the government doesn’t yet have would work. She referred to the statements made by the Chancellor and the Prime Minister about their ambition over the long term to scrap National Insurance as a ‘double taxation’, pointing out:

‘Your NICs record helps determine your entitlement to the state pension. So if that’s scrapped, how will people know what pension they will get?’ 

Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride insisted that this was not yet policy, saying:

‘She will know very clearly in her own mind that the Chancellor has not guaranteed that we will be reducing at one stroke national insurance contributions, it is an aspiration, it has been spoken about as occurring over a number of years if not parliaments.