Burglar Alarms: VAT (Hansard, 28 February 1984)

§ Lord Boyd-Carpenter
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

§ The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Cockfield)
My Lords, value added tax was designed as a broad-based tax. As such it inevitably falls on necessities as well as luxuries. Reliefs from the tax have to be limited to those that can be justified on stringent social and economic grounds. Her Majesty's Government recognise the importance of crime prevention measures, but VAT is not a suitable instrument to assist every aspect of public policy.

§ Lord Boyd-Carpenter
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that his Answer will seem very agreeable to every burglar and housebreaker in the country? Is he also aware of the fact that in these days people have to install this equipment solely because of the failure of society to provide adequate protection for persons and for property? Surely this is a sufficiently stringent test, to use my noble friend's words, to justify an exemption.

§ Lord Cockfield
My Lords, I doubt whether the average burglar inquires whether a burglar alarm is liable to VAT before he decides to burgle premises. The position is that there is a great deal of expenditure which people regard as a necessity but which, nevertheless, is chargeable to VAT.

§ Lord Boyd-Carpenter
My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the fact that burglars do make inquiries about whether burglar alarms have been fitted? Is he also aware that the decision whether or not to fit depends on the means of the person concerned? Therefore, burglars have a considerable interest in my noble friend's consistency of purpose in maintaining the rigidity of the tax system.

§ Lord Cockfield
My Lords, my noble friend is obviously well acquainted with the ways of burglars. His knowledge in this field certainly exceeds my own. I remind him that the original installation of a burglar alarm in a new building and the first installation in an existing building are both zero-rated. To that extent, therefore, he and I are on the same side.

§ Lord Barnett
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that his Answer to his noble friend will be generally recognised as the standard formula of Treasury 1152 Ministers under successive Governments, and that the anomalies that have grown up since VAT was first introduced in 1972 will surely make it an even greater nonsense than when that reply was first made? Will he therefore not recognise that there really is a serious need for a proper independent study of the various anomalies within VAT?

§ Lord Cockfield
My Lords, the noble Lord is a great expert on the fiscal aspects of these matters, if not on the burglarious ones. Concerning the latter part of his question, a good reply remains a good one even if it is an old one.

§ Lord Elwyn-Jones
My Lords, have burglars been asked to make a modest contribution to the Treasury for making their task easier when they go a-burglaring?

§ Lord Cockfield
My Lords, there is considerable dispute about whether a burglar is assessable under Cases I and II of Schedule D as carrying on a trade or profession, but as far as I know burglars are not registered for VAT purposes.

Lord Inglewood
My Lords, will the noble Lord not agree with me that a large amount of police time is wasted by ill-maintained burglar alarms which go off by chance and through their faulty state of repair, causing the police to be drawn from a considerable distance to answer false alarms?

§ Lord Cockfield
My Lords, it is perfectly true, as my noble friend says, that both inconvenience and a waste of police time are caused by faulty burglar alarms, but I doubt whether this is really related to the question of the charging of VAT on maintenance.

Lady Saltoun
My Lords, does the noble Lord not agree that burglar alarms are God's gift to burglars because when a burglar sees a burglar alarm on the outside of a house he knows that there is something worth burgling inside it?

§ Lord Cockfield
My Lords, I am not an expert on the habits or philosophy of burglars, and I hesitate to be drawn further into this field.

§ Lord Taylor of Gryfe
My Lords, will the noble Lord use his powers of persuasion with the insurance industry to ensure that premiums are reduced when burglar alarms are installed, and thereby achieve the results that the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, has in mind?

§ Lord Cockfield
My Lords, that strays rather outside the ambit of the Question on the Order Paper.