§ Mr. HardyTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the change in revenue which will result from the changes in duty free allowances from 1 January 1993.
§ Sir John Cope[holding answer 19 November 1992]: The completion of the single market on 1 January 1993 will not result in any change in duty free allowances for excise goods. The main change for travellers will be the abolition of duty paid allowances for intra-EC travellers. As shown on page 56 of the Financial Statement and Budget Report 1992–93 published in March 1992, we expect the increase in personal importation of drink and tobacco products will result in a revenue loss to the United Kingdom Exchequer of around £250 million.
As an unrelated issue, negotiations have been taking place for some time with our EC partners over an increase 692W in the "other goods" allowance for non-excisable projects, currently set at 45 ECU (£32). An objective of our presidency has been to make progress in this area. A provisional agreement has now been reached increasing the allowance to 175 ECU (£139) for third country travellers and to 90 ECU (£71) for intra-EC travellers, subject to reserves by Germany and Denmark. These increases would cost the United Kingdom exchequer around £35 million in a full year.