Spending Review and Autumn Statement

James Heappey Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I think the hon. Lady should be fair about the situation that the United Kingdom finds itself facing. When she was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) gave a very clear explanation of why, because of EU rules, the United Kingdom cannot reduce VAT on sanitary products below 5%. It is no good just standing up and asserting that we can do this, when Labour Ministers have stood at the Dispatch Box and explained why it is not possible. We will continue to campaign, as the previous Labour Government did, to get rid of that tax in the EU, but in the meantime, we are doing something they did not do, which is to take the money and put it into a fund. I ask the hon. Lady to come forward with some good causes that help both women who suffer from domestic violence and women’s health charities so that they can be funded from that pot.

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

Amid the all the wonderful news for Somerset on road and rail infrastructure, will the Chancellor reassure us that he remains fully committed to connecting 100% of homes to superfast broadband?

[Mr Osborne]

There is a £1.7 billion superfast broadband programme, which will help in the west country. Of course, we are also looking at a universal service obligation on telecom providers—as we have on other utilities—to help my hon. Friend’s constituents.