HC Deb 12 June 2000 vol 351 cc634-5
29. Mr. Gordon Marsden (Blackpool, South)

What assessment the commissioners have made of the contribution to the rural economy in England of repairs and renovations to churches. [123699]

Mr. Stuart Bell (Second Church Estates Commissioner, representing the Church Commissioners)

The repair, renovation and development by parishes of rural churches make a significant financial contribution to the rural economy, to supporting and encouraging local skilled craftsman and businesses, and to maintaining rural community life.

Mr. Marsden

I thank my hon. Friend for that reply, which confirms the Historic Houses Association's view that that activity maintains about 7,000 jobs in the sector. Does he agree that the traditional labour-intensive skills to which he referred would be further enhanced and encouraged if £18 million of the £123 million that the Church spends yearly on repairs and renovations did not go straight into paying VAT? Will he also use that information to press home those points on colleagues and Ministers in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions in time for the forthcoming rural White Paper?

Mr. Bell

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing attention to the issue of VAT on church repairs, on which discussions are continuing with the Treasury and the DETR. We are also seeking to persuade the Government not only to review operation of the directive within the European Union, so that it will cover church repairs, but to reduce VAT to 5 per cent.

Mr. Tim Boswell (Daventry)

In support of the point made by the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden), and in view of the encouragement that can be taken from the remarks just made by the hon. Gentleman, does the hon. Gentleman accept that, even when the Treasury has—as it often has—quite good arguments in principle for a general approach, there is a quite special problem in relation to churches, particularly small churches and large churches in small communities, for which the cost of repair and renovation is entirely disproportionate to anything that they can realistically raise?

Mr. Bell

Those points were made to the Minister for the Arts when we saw him. It is not generally known that we have 16,000 parish churches in rural areas, and that they are among the best maintained in Europe. However, the additional burden of VAT on maintenance of those buildings is a serious burden on local, Church-worshipping communities.