Jim Allister

Thank you for your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) for raising this important issue. Saving lives should be in the interests of us all, and I am sure that is what brings us here today, but we have some hard questions to ask of Government. When the availability of defibrillators can definitively save lives and the absence of them can cost lives, we have to address the question of whether the Government are doing enough to fill the gap. One particular issue of concern relates to VAT, which I will return to. We know from the statistics that the chances of surviving a heart attack that takes place outside a hospital setting are low—maybe as low as 8%—but that if a defibrillator is available, the chance of survival can increase by 70%. The key factor is the proximity of the defibrillator: the three to five minutes—the vital lifesaving window. Therefore, many of us who represent rural constituencies are concerned at the dearth of supply in some of our areas. In my North Antrim constituency, 63% of postcodes do not have a defibrillator within the three-to-five-minute lifesaving range. That is quite disturbing. I pay tribute to the many community organisations that provide this lifesaving equipment. Very often, it is not the Government, education authorities or health trusts that put a defibrillator in the local village, but a local community organisation. The Government demand 20% in VAT from that community organisation, which is not VAT-registered and has no possibility of reclaiming it. It really is quite disturbing that the Government think they need that pound of flesh in taxation on defibrillators. If the Minister takes away nothing else from this debate, I ask her to take away this fundamental humane appeal: instead of making it harder by putting a tax on lifesaving equipment, the Government should make defibrillators VAT-exempt supplies. If they made them VAT-exempt, there would be a huge opportunity to bring an uplift in life and survival to our communities.