L

Lord Swire (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 14 January 2025

Debate

Listed Historic Buildings

Contribution

My Lords, much of our built heritage up and down the country is literally crumbling, and the backlog of repairs is getting longer and longer. That is in no small part due to the different rates of VAT. When we were part of the EU, we were always told that we could not vary the rate of VAT on restoration, as opposed to new build—but we are not in the EU anymore, and we can set VAT at whatever level we like. Will the Government look, as a matter of urgency, at having parity between restoration and new build, or at least look again at trying to reduce the costs of restoration for our built heritage, which is among our greatest national assets?

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