Caroline Lucas
Main Page: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)Department Debates - View all Caroline Lucas's debates with the Leader of the House
(12 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Hugh Robertson
One of the joys of my job is that I end up having round-table discussions with the media on a pretty regular basis—we did five hours of it yesterday. The great thing provided by the Olympics, above almost any other sports event I can think of, is the opportunity to promote the equality of sport. In Team GB, some of the most exciting prospects are our female sportswomen. I wish them all the very best and hope that they will drive the sort of improvement that my hon. Friend seeks.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Does the Secretary of State accept that a reduction in VAT for hotel accommodation and tourist attractions would deliver a huge boost to jobs and tourism in places such as Brighton and Hove, would bring us into line with the rest of the EU, most of which has much lower VAT on hotels and visitor attractions, and would deliver a net benefit to the Treasury? What’s not to like?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (John Penrose)
The industry is making this case very strongly to the Treasury and it is clearly an issue for the Treasury to respond to. What is causing problems at the moment is that the industry is promising higher returns, as the hon. Lady rightly points out, but the Treasury gets an awful lot of such promises from a whole variety of different parts of the economy and it would need some positive proof before it would be willing to engage on such an issue.