Hot Takeaway Food (VAT)

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Westminster Hall

[Dan Rogerson]

I entirely agree with the hon. Lady.

In conclusion, I wish to add a little extra plea for the Cornish pasty. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay was generous, and hands have been stretched across the river Tamar between Cornwall and England as people have spoken about their respective products that they value and support. In Cornwall, however, there is a feeling that the Government are taxing something that people might eat instead of a sandwich or some other cold product that they would find elsewhere. There is a cultural element to that. People love a pasty; it is what they grew up with and what their mums, grannies or aunties made at home. Everyone has a favourite shop to go to, and that is part of what it means to grow up in Cornwall. Furthermore, we are a very low-income part of the country.

[Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

rose—

[Dan Rogerson]

I will happily give way to the hon. Gentleman who has experience of this issue.

[Mr Offord]

The hon. Gentleman is making a good speech. Does he agree that the pasty was originally created for miners going to work? Nowadays, people around the country who are not able to have a plated meal often have a pasty or another baked product as a substitute. Does the hon. Gentleman feel that this tax discriminates against those people as it may not allow them to have a proper nourishing meal at midday?

[Dan Rogerson]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and having been educated in Cornwall, he knows all about the importance of the pasty. As he said, the pasty was designed for taking down the mine and has a crust that can be left behind after being held with a dirty hand. It would have been baked hot, taken down the mine and consumed cold, as it was unlikely to still be hot by the time the miners got to it. Many other people will buy something hot from a bakery and eat it later in the day, which is different from the cold fish and chips that we have been hearing about.

To return to the Cornish perspective, the feeling is that there is a lack of recognition of a strong sense of identity and of Cornishness. To mention another visual aid, when the last runner with the Olympic flame left Cornwall and set off across the Tamar bridge, he held in his hands a Cornish flag that was sadly confiscated by the police who were running alongside. To many in Cornwall, such things send out a signal that English, Welsh or Scottish identity is fine, but we do not really want to know about Cornish identity. I know, however, that that is not the case in the Treasury, which understands the issue. As a Scot, my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury understands that sense of Celtic identity, and I know that the Treasury will listen sympathetically. Along with my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay, and other hon. Members, I urge all Treasury Ministers to look at the sensible alternative that has been proposed. It has a clear cut-off point and is enforceable, and I hope that the Treasury will respond positively to the consultation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Scott. I join in the congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) on securing the debate. Those of us with a history in taxation wish that every new tax measure could be the subject of an hour and a half of detailed debate. I suspect that we would make much better law if that were the case.

This is an interesting situation. I think that we all agree that tackling tax avoidance and sorting out anomalies is something that the Government should do, but when they come forward with proposals, there is a huge outcry about them, because trying to sort out some of those anomalies is much harder than people think. The reason why this anomaly has lasted for nearly 30 years is that it is incredibly hard to sort out. I jokingly wonder whether, if the Government had called this a fat tax, it would have received a lot more support, but I am not sure that that is a road I would like to encourage them to go down.

Like many other hon. Members, I am concerned about the impact on high street bakeries, especially the small local ones that are a real attraction on the high street. I am talking about those shops on the high street that drag people in to shop there because they like the better-quality product, the choice and the service that they get, compared with the standard, bland products that they might think they get from a supermarket.

I can list many bakeries in my constituency. There is Luke Evans, which has a factory shop that has been in existence for 200 years. There is the Birds chain of bakeries, which I suspect the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) will know well; it is a big chain in the area. It has just opened a new shop on Heanor high street, and given that Heanor is a high street with some challenges, anyone opening a new or revamped shop there is very welcome.

I have real sympathy for such businesses. Their shops sell a wide range of products. Pasties and sausage rolls are a sizeable part of that range, although nowhere near the majority of their trade. They are one very useful way of getting income and dragging customers in. However, they are clearly craft bakeries, selling freshly baked products. That is how they make their money. They are not trying to be a disguised takeaway or to flout the law. They are trying to run a perfectly sensible, viable and valuable business of long standing that we desperately want to support in our high street.

[Mr Offord]

My hon. Friend is making an eloquent speech. Does he agree with my constituent Jonathan Grodzinski who runs Grodzinski’s bakeries, a business that has been in his family for well over 120 years, who says that the difference between his products and supermarket foods is the quality, which my hon. Friend has already mentioned? Mr Grodzinski’s concern is that customers will decide that they would rather buy cold food and that that will mean that they are buying food that is less than fresh, compared with when it first comes out of the oven.

[Nigel Mills]

Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend for the intervention. The last thing that we want to do is to encourage people to buy horrible cheap food with only processed ingredients. That is much less healthy for us than buying proper quality stuff. I therefore have some sympathy for my hon. Friend the Minister in his predicament. It would be useful if he could set out what has tipped the Treasury over the edge into making the change. Was it a case of having to get the train home and thinking, “I’m a bit hungry. It’s been a long day in the Treasury. I can’t face the Chancellor’s bowl of jelly. I’ll have something from the station on my way. If I go to McDonald’s and buy a burger, I pay VAT, but if I go to that nice-looking pasty stand, which seems to be selling only hot pasties, for some reason there is no VAT”? Is that the contrast that tipped him over the edge or is it the fact that supermarkets are selling things that clearly should be VATable but they are manipulating their way around that? Is that what tipped the Treasury over the edge? It would be interesting to know.