Streeting rules out Government imposing VAT on private healthcare

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has ruled out the Government imposing VAT on private healthcare in the autumn Budget.

Asked on Times Radio on Tuesday whether it was a “good idea”, he said: “No, and the Government won’t be doing it.”

Mr Streeting was asked about newspaper reports that the Government was examining options for adding VAT to services that were currently exempt, including private healthcare.

He said this was “not something the Government is looking to do” and later told the BBC: “It’s not happening.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has faced repeated questions about whether she will raise taxes, including VAT, when she delivers her budget in November.

In her Labour conference speech on Monday, she said she would keep control of the public finances and would “not take risks with the trust placed in us by the British people”.

But she acknowledged that her choices had been made “harder” by international events and the “long-term damage” done to the economy.

Ahead of her keynote speech in Liverpool, Ms Reeves had warned that “the world has changed” since she promised business chiefs she would not repeat the tax raid of her first budget.

“I think everyone can see in the last year that the world has changed, and we’re not immune to that change,” the Chancellor told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“Whether it is wars in Europe and the Middle East, whether it is increased barriers to trade because of tariffs coming from the United States, whether it is the global cost of borrowing, we’re not immune to any of those things.

“It’s very important that we maintain those commitments to economic stability because we rely on people to buy Government debt to be able to finance the things that we’re doing as a country.

“I wish it wasn’t so, but I am Chancellor in the world as it is, not the world that I might wish it to be.”

Experts have said Ms Reeves will have to increase taxes or cut spending to fill a black hole in her budget, which the National Institute of Economic and Social Research has estimated could be as much as £50 billion.

Ms Reeves said she would “not take risks with Britain’s economic stability”, adding: “I will make my choices at that budget.

“They will be choices to take our country forward.

“And whatever tests come our way, whatever tests come my way, I make this commitment to you: I will take no risks with the trust placed in us by the British people.”