Oral Answers to Questions

John Pugh Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

I am afraid that my answer is the same: we cannot keep doing things if we cannot fund them. We will have the Budget in two weeks’ time, but once again we hear proposals for tax cuts or spending increases but nothing to show how the books would be balanced.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

T7. What success are we having in stamping out VAT fraud, specifically missing trader fraud, which affects us more than it does other EU countries and costs us almost £10 billion?

[Mr Gauke]

This has been a major problem over a number of years. Progress has been made since the mid-2000s, when the problem was at its greatest, but we must of course remain vigilant and I know that HMRC continues to monitor the matter closely.