We’ll tell Brussels to axe the tampon tax, vows minister
Last-minute pledge averts Commons rebellion
MINISTERS last night avoided a defeat in the Commons by pledging to lobby the European Union to scrap the so- called tampon tax.
A dozen Tory backbenchers had threatened to support a Labour amendment to the Finance Bill calling for the VAT rate imposed on sanitary products to be lowered.
The 5 per cent rate is determined by the EU, and Treasury minister David Gauke had admitted that it would be difficult to persuade all the other member states to reduce the VAT on tampons to zero.
But yesterday he pledged to take the fight to scrap the tax to Brussels, and managed to avoid a humiliating Commons defeat for the Tories – after 287 backed the rebel clause while 305 supported the Government and opposed it.
Mr Gauke has insisted that the Government will discuss the issue with the European Commission and the 28 other EU countries, as part of David Cameron’s bid to claw back powers from Brussels.
Yesterday Steve Baker, one of the leading Tory MPs who had threatened to rebel over the issue, said he had decided to back the Government after the minister’s intervention.
He said the best way to resolve the issue – which has been described as an EU attack on women – is to ‘vote to leave the EU so our Parliament can decide’. ‘This is a step on the road to victory for women, and it’s also a victory for those of us who want to take back full control from the EU,’ he added.
Mr Baker, the MP for Wycombe, went on to say: ‘At last we have found an issue that is easy to understand, that matters to at least half the population, and shows what parliamentary sovereignty means. It’s obvious it is the right thing to do, but we can’t do it, because we are in the EU.’
There are widely varying rates of VAT imposed across the continent, with Hungary imposing a 27 per cent rate on tampons and sanitary pads. The average levy across the union is 17 per cent.
But countries are not allowed to cut the rate below 5 per cent, because the European Community has decreed that tampons are a ‘luxury item’.
Campaigners say that, on average, women spend £492 a year on sanitary products. Over the course of a lifetime, this equates to £18,450, of which £922 is tax.
Yesterday Tory Eurosceptic MP Bernard Jenkin said Britain ‘shouldn’t go and beg to 27 other member states to change a rate of tax on an issue which we think is socially important’. He added: ‘ This is an issue of national democracy and that’s why these treaties are not fit for purpose.’
Yesterday a Downing Street spokesman said: ‘The Government sympathises with the issue here. The Prime Minister talked about this earlier in the year.’ They added: ‘ The UK Government has set the rate at the lowest level it can, which is significantly less than the EU average, which is 17 per cent.’
However the spokesman went on to play down any suggestion that discussing the issue in Europe would necessarily lead to a drop in VAT on tampons.
They warned that getting any meaningful change from Europe would involve the agreement of every member state, and pointed out that it may not be ‘achievable’ to get Europe-wide agreement on the issue.
The spokesman explained: ‘This is a difficult issue to resolve because these measures are set at an EU level. What is being proposed is not something we think is achievable as it would require the unanimous approval of 28 member states to change.’
In a separate development, David Cameron was accused of dropping ‘any semblance of neutrality’ in the EU debate after it emerged that he will use a speech this week to claim Britain will not be able to access the single market if it votes to leave. Last night a spokesman for campaign group Vote Leave claimed the Government is now ‘explicitly fighting in the in-campaign’s corner’.