Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of excluding privately run social care day centres from the requirement to pay VAT.

Many care services provided by charities, public bodies and regulated private welfare institutions to elderly people are exempt from VAT, meaning no VAT is charged on their services.

Introducing a zero-rate of VAT on adult social care would cost nearly £2 billion per year, and this must be viewed in the context of about £50 billion of other requests for relief from VAT since the EU referendum.

The Government has no current plans to review the VAT treatment of these services.