Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Duncan Baker

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

First of all, may I wish the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), a merry Christmas in her absence and a speedy recovery from the lurgy that I gather she has? I look back on the last 12 years of this Conservative Government with a great deal of pride. What the right hon. Gentleman never likes to mention in his comparisons is that Labour had a golden economic inheritance from the Conservatives in 1997 and left us with an economy that had run out of money. What have we done? We are the third highest-growing economy in the G7.

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

T4.   Before I came into this House I was a chartered accountant. The VAT threshold rate has remained at £85,000 for the last six years, including at the moment when inflation is at nearly 10%. Many of my constituency businesses are smaller trader entities in the leisure, tourism and hospitality sectors, and they are really struggling. What assessment has the Chancellor made of increasing the VAT threshold, and, if he will not look at that, of lowering VAT rates on the sectors I mentioned?