§ Miss McIntoshTo ask the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, representing the Church Commissioners pursuant to his oral statement of 3 February, Official Report, column 20, on church repairs and VAT, when he expects the review of the sixth VAT Directive to be completed. [104248]
§ Mr. BellI refer the hon. Member to my written answer of 12 March 2003.
Work is ongoing between Commission officials and Member States to finalise the details of the revision to the Sixth Directive. The aim is to get sufficient agreement in the Council for the 'Recast' Directive to be formally adopted before the next enlargement of the EU, scheduled for May/June 2004.
The recasting of the Sixth Directive is a separate exercise to other elements of the Sixth Directive being revised, such as the reduced rates review, scheduled to take place later this year, or the Labour Intensive Services Experiment.