Pasty Tax

If confirmed, the Cornish people will have won and there will be dancing in the streets from Land’s End to the Tamar.

The strength of feeling from local people and the national baking industry has been clear since these proposals were announced. Plans to extend VAT to batch-baked goods would be unfair, unenforceable and cost jobs and investment across the country.

Since the budget, I have worked with the industry to find an alternative and it seems the Government has listened and agreed. I proposed an alternative, workable solution that would creates a level playing field with other sorts of hot food and won’t endanger jobs, investment or growth.

This is great news for the Cornish pasty industry and resolves all of the problems that had been raised by the industry.

The Government has run a genuine consultation and now an improved proposal as a result.

The Treasury should be given credit for the way they have approached the issue.

The Budget announced a consultation on a change to VAT on hot takeaway food, designed to remove inconsistency and ambiguity in the system and level the playing field across the takeaway food market.

After extensive engagement we have improved the policy, addressing practical concerns, ensuring that the new regime could be as simple as possible to apply.

We have addressed these in a way that allows us to remove the inconsistent VAT treatment, while not imposing any additional requirement on businesses to test the temperature of their products.