Value Added Tax (Place of Supply of Services) (Supplies of Electronic, Telecommunication and Broadcasting Services) Order 2018

Angela Crawley Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2018 General Committees

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Hosie. The order amends paragraph 15 of schedule 4A of the Value Added Tax Act 1994, which determines the place of supply of electronically supplied telecommunication and broadcasting services. The order relates to the supply of services made on or after 1 January 2019.

The order is required to implement amendments made to article 58 of EU Council directive 2006 on the common system of value added tax, which take effect on 1 January 2019. While the Prime Minister struggles to get her deal through Parliament, the EU is pressing on with such technical changes to ensure that it is the best place to do business. To replace that expertise with the UK Government, who are unable to even get support from their own Back Benchers, is a recipe for chaos from which Scotland must protect itself.

If it has taken this long to be able to deal with this technical statutory instrument, it is totally unrealistic to expect the UK Government to be able to pass a raft of legislation via statutory instruments in time for Brexit. I therefore seek clarifications on the implementation of the order, as well as the thresholds and timescales implied.