Protective Clothing: VAT Zero Rating

(asked on 30th October 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the 31 October 2020 expiry date for the zero VAT rate for the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) on the projected level of compliance of the public with Government guidelines on PPE.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 11th November 2020

The introduction of temporary VAT relief was an extraordinary measure designed to relieve the burden of VAT on the price of purchasing personal protective equipment (PPE) used for protection from COVID-19 by frontline workers and has particularly aided sectors that cannot recover VAT on such goods due to their VAT exempt status, such as care homes. This was needed during the initial period of the COVID-19 crisis when the global supply of PPE did not meet demand, resulting in inflated prices.

Since then, the Department has stabilised the United Kingdom PPE supply chain to meet current demand and this month, we will have a four-month stockpile of all COVID-19-critical PPE in place, with a tremendous contribution from UK manufacturers.

The Department has committed in the Winter Plan to provide free PPE for COVID-19 needs to Care Quality Commission-registered care homes and domiciliary care providers via the PPE portal until the end of March 2021. Now that supply has increased and prices have stabilised, the temporary zero-rate of VAT on PPE is therefore no longer required and ended on 31 October 2020 as planned.

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