Finance (No. 4) Bill

Mark Garnier Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2012 Commons Chamber

How will the proposed regulation be monitored? Are we going to see hordes of VAT inspectors armed with thermometers swooping down on bakers’ customers as they leave the shop and sticking their thermometers in their pies to see whether they are hotter than the ambient temperature?

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

My hon. Friend may be interested to hear that the written evidence given to the Treasury Committee by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales states that these VAT changes are broadly sensible reforms

“but will still leave plenty of anomalies”.

[Gordon Henderson]

I can only agree with that:

I accept that there is an argument for trying to address the current situation whereby some shops sell hot pies without charging VAT but others, such as my local chippy, have to charge VAT on the hot pies that they sell. However, the Government’s proposal is not an answer. Nor, sadly, is the Opposition’s new clause 1, which is why I cannot support it. I very much hope that the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) will withdraw it, and that he and his colleagues will support new clause 5, which I believe would achieve the Government’s objectives while protecting businesses such as that run by my friend.