A leading rural insurance company have issued a statement on the Chancellors U-turn on National Insurance contributions, saying that self-employed people could now face further attacks.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond initially said that he planned to raise the Class 4 NI contributions for self-employed workers.

This would have affected millions of people, and was designed to bring the level of NI payments up to the same as those in employment.

But this week the Chancellor announced that he was scrapping the increase, and now Sean McCann from NFU Mutual fears the self-employed could be targeted in other ways.

Mr McCann, a chartered financial planner at NFU Mutual, said: "The Chancellor’s U-turn on increasing National Insurance contributions for self-employed people will come as a huge relief to the majority of farmers who are self-employed.

"These measures would have increased financial pressure on self-employed farmers, contractors and the many country people who are already facing a difficult period in the run-up to Brexit.

"It may be that Philip Hammond goes after tax reliefs available to farmers and businesses, such as Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief, which he may think could be eroded without triggering the massive backlash that his measures to increase National Insurance for the self-employed generated.

“We’ll be watching the Chancellor’s Autumn Budget closely and alerting farmers to measures we feel could unfairly affect their finances.”