I fully accept what the hon. Lady says. This whole saga illustrates the frustration that many of us have felt in this House for a long time that the European Union works extremely slowly and very deviously. That was what the referendum was all about: it was about taking back control of these decisions to this House and being able to implement decisions quickly, effectively and in accordance with the wishes of the British people. Unfortunately, we have not got an instant departure from the European Union. We have to negotiate our departure and serve article 50 and so on, but in the meantime there is a lot of frustration, I accept. That has been exacerbated by the way the previous Government played down—let us be generous to them—the EU impact in this regard before the referendum. They did not want people to think that there was another reason to vote to leave, so that we could remove VAT from women’s sanitary products.
On Second Reading of the Finance (No. 2) Bill, my right hon. Friend the then Financial Secretary, who is now the Chief Secretary, said:
“The Government are committed to making that change…I am proud that in the Finance Bill we are legislating to enable zero VAT rates for women’s sanitary products.”
I then intervened and said:
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on the progress he has made. Why does clause 115 say that the measure will not come into effect when the Bill receives Royal Assent, but is subject to the Treasury introducing a provision at some later stage? Why can we not legislate on this in the Bill without any qualification?”
My right hon. Friend replied:
“It is customary, with changes in VAT rates, to give retailers notice. It is not usual for VAT changes to be put in place on the date of Royal Assent, as notice is usually provided. I reassure my hon. Friend that the intention is to provide a short period of time, following Royal Assent, in which retailers will have an opportunity to adjust prices. This is no desire by the Treasury to kick this into the long grass—we want to make progress on the matter.”—[Official Report, 11 April 2016; Vol. 608, c. 102.]
I think that that was a very disingenuous remark, because there was no reference to any EU constraint. The impression given was that it was all being sorted out with the European Union and that it would be delivered through clause 115, as it then was, very quickly. Somebody in the Treasury must have known or suspected that it would not be delivered in the time envisaged or, perhaps, at all, but nobody wanted to disclose that to the British people in the run-up to the referendum.
I have heard that an agreement was made between remainers in the then Government and in the Opposition to try to prevent the issue from being raised on the Floor of the House, in the Finance Bill, close to the time of the vote.
Is it not fantastic that we now have the freedom to do these things ourselves, in our own sovereign Parliament, in accordance with the wishes of the people? I hope that the new Treasury team will be much more open and transparent in the way they deal with such issues. If there is an EU constraint, let us say so.
I welcome Government amendment 161, because it says that the measure will take effect after the later of 1 April 2017 or
“the earliest date that may be appointed consistently with the United Kingdom’s EU obligations”,
whatever that might mean. Why, however, was that not included in the Bill to start with? It was never going to be possible for the measure to be implemented at an earlier date than was consistent with our EU obligations. People were led up the garden path: they were led to believe that there was going to be an instant delivery, but we now know that that is not going to happen. I hope that when we come to look at the wider issues of VAT, we will get on with, for example, removing the 5% VAT on domestic fuel, which we in the leave campaign made an issue during the referendum.
It was a long time ago, but it was on 1 April 1973 that VAT was introduced in our country as a requirement of our decision to join the European Union. At that time, the rate was 10% and the yield was £1.5 billion a year. The standard rate was increased in January 2011 and it has been 20% since then, and that raises £100 billion a year. After leaving the European Union, we will be free to set our rates of VAT at whatever level we wish.