Oral Answers to Questions

Philippa Whitford Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

One of the areas in which we can make progress is the digitisation of the tax system, which could help a lot businesses. I would also make the point that the Office of Tax Simplification has been strengthened and we are putting it on a statutory footing. We are looking forward to seeing a couple of reports from it over the next few days on what we can do to help small businesses in particular.

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

T9. When services that have been removed from local authority control and centralised in England have been granted the right to reclaim VAT, does the Chancellor accept that the refusal to grant that right to Police Scotland—making it the only UK force to pay VAT—just looks vindictive? Will he not reconsider that decision?

[Mr Gauke]

To be fair, the position on reclaiming VAT was made perfectly clear when the Scottish Government made the decision to go down this course. The UK Government are simply pursuing the policy that we always said we would pursue.