Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kirsty Blackman and Steve Baker

Thursday 29th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

Have the Government made any assessment of the additional cost to SMEs of these changes—the red tape they have had and will have to wrangle with—and how many businesses will go under as a result?

[Mr Baker]

We are not expecting businesses to go under as a result of this, but I refer the hon. Lady to the answer I just gave: it is vital that we protect our borders. The reality is that there are risks to public health from food and we need to make sure that we are not cavalier about these checks. It is vital that we protect our borders and protect the public, and that is what we are going to do. We are continuing to engage with businesses, we expect there to be very few problems, and we will work our way through. There is no question of being cavalier: we have been working very carefully to consult stakeholders and make sure there have not been great problems.

[Kirsty Blackman]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Baker]

The hon. Lady shakes her head, but I just point out that the 31 January deadline for export health certificates passed by and there were not the problems that were forecast.

Value Added Taxation

Debate between Kirsty Blackman and Steve Baker

Tuesday 21st February 2017 General Committees

[Kirsty Blackman]

We will not be in a single EU VAT area because we will not be an EU member state. However, the paragraph that I have just read out says that it should be

“possible to extend the EU system of administrative cooperation to non-EU countries, particularly to ensure effective taxation of e-commerce”,

so we will be involved as a third country. Given the way the EU does trade deals, it will look to ensure that there is as much equivalence and commonality as possible in a number of areas. We therefore need to make the case for the industries, sectors and products that we think are important. Ensuring that our voice is as loud as possible in these negotiations will benefit us as a country.

The likelihood is that the EU will look to include some commonality or equivalence in relation to VAT systems in a post-Brexit deal with the UK. The EU is a much bigger entity than the UK, so we need to think carefully about how the EU is currently structured and what it is currently doing to ensure that it is as favourable as possible for us when we become a third country and try to make a trade deal with it.

[Mr Baker]

I have been listening carefully to what the hon. Lady has said, which has been interesting. What consideration has she given to the need to co-operate on issues such as VAT in a world of global e-commerce that necessarily extends to many nations and millions of people outside the European Union?

[Kirsty Blackman]

That is a really interesting point, which highlights how much sovereignty has to be given away when agreeing a trade deal with another country. As the EU is a major player and a major consumer of our services exports—that is particularly relevant for e-commerce—we probably need to concentrate on agreeing a trade deal with it before thinking about deals with other countries. It is likely that the EU will want to talk about VAT when it makes trade deals with other third countries, too, so having a common relationship with the EU will probably be positive for us when we make deals with third countries.

I very much appreciate the chance to talk in this debate and make our priorities clear. If there is more flexibility over VAT and its devolution once the UK leaves the EU, I will call for the entirety of VAT to be devolved to Scotland. We have mentioned that before. Under the Scotland Act 2016, the top share of VAT is devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Although that is nice, it does not give us flexibility over policy levers, so I would call for further devolution in that situation.