Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateKarin Smyth
Main Page: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)Department Debates - View all Karin Smyth's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(6 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberThere are no plans to hold discussions with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the VAT status of NHS trusts.
I am grateful for that reply, although I suggest it ought to be reconsidered. NHS trusts desperate to avoid financial difficulties appear to have found a new magic money tree: setting up wholly owned subsidiaries to avoid paying substantial amounts of tax to the Treasury. Rather than encouraging this tax dodging and further fragmenting the NHS, why do the Secretary of State and his friend the Chancellor not either ban this practice or agree to let them all have the VAT exemptions?
The Department wrote to all NHS and foundation trusts in September 2017 to remind them that tax avoidance schemes should not be entered into in any circumstances, but the hon. Lady makes a slightly strange point. She seems to be arguing that NHS hospitals are, in essence, paying too much tax to the Treasury, rather than having that money within the NHS. These subsidiaries are 100% owned by trusts themselves.