Static Caravans (VAT)

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Stuart]

That would be consistent, because the qualities of a mobile caravan are completely different from those of a static caravan or a house. What are static caravans used for? They are second homes. Someone who buys a £240,000 cottage in one of the rural areas represented by my colleagues, which often means pricing out local workers, will pay tax of 1%, whereas it is proposed that someone who buys a static caravan for £24,000, a tenth of that amount, should pay 20%— 20 times as much—on a home that is used for precisely the same purposes. That is not getting rid of an anomaly, as Treasury civil servants originally suggested; it is creating an anomaly.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

BCA Leisure is a large company in the Calder valley. It does not employ thousands of people, but it does employ a couple of hundred. It does not own caravan parks or manufacture caravans; it produces parts that supply the caravan trade. The chief executive officer tells me that the proposed measure will deal a huge blow to his company and to other employers in the Calder valley. Does my hon. Friend agree that it will be devastating not only to the tourism industry, but to manufacturing?

[Mr Stuart]

My hon. Friend is right.