VAT on Stamps

North West Conservative MEP David Sumberg is demanding the Chancellor Gordon Brown and his fellow European Finance ministers veto EU plans to add VAT to the price of stamps.

Mr Sumberg was speaking after British Conservative MEPs cast the key votes to ensure the proposals to add VAT to postal services were narrowly rejected in the European Parliament. It is now up to the EU’s finance ministers and European Commission to decide whether to proceed with the plans or scrap them altogether.

But Mr Sumberg said any increase in the price of stamps would hit business and those who could least afford it.

"Many older people on tight budgets do not have access to email and therefore often have few alternatives but to use the postal service,' he said." Stamps are expensive enough and Gordon Brown must do all he can to prevent yet another tax being imposed on hard working families and businesses – especially in light of his recent increases on council tax, national insurance and petrol."

North West Conservative MEP candidate Eveleigh Moore-Dutton was equally scathing of the proposals warning they would put greater pressure on post offices already facing the axe under the reoganisation of the Royal Mail.

"The future of rural and suburban post offices is a cause for great anxiety and the imposition of VAT on stamps would inevitably sound the death knell for many small post offices as people are deterred from using the Royal Mail,' she said. "Post offices are at the heart of our communities. We must fight to keep them."

SUMBERG & MOORE-DUTTON: BROWN MUST VETO EU PLANS FOR VAT ON STAMPS