Budget: Cost of Changes Debate

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Department: HM Treasury

Budget: Cost of Changes

Lord Peston Excerpts
Tuesday 12th June 2012

(12 years, 5 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Sassoon Portrait Lord Sassoon
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My Lords, I am not rewriting history.

Lord Peston Portrait Lord Peston
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Will the Minister clarify his answer? Are we to assume that £125 million is a small number and that all the changes are therefore no big deal or that it is a large number and that the changes are therefore of overwhelming significance? What message is he trying to give us and, for that matter, the public at large?

Lord Sassoon Portrait Lord Sassoon
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The message I am trying to give the House is that there were changes that we felt appropriate—on VAT on hot food, VAT on static caravans and the proposed cap on giving to charities—and that the total cost of the changes in those three areas was in the range of £120 million to £150 million a year. That is the only message that I am trying to give to the House.