EURO-MP URGES TAX CUTS ON HEARING AIDS

1.25.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 8th Apr 2008

Local Euro-MP Liz Lynne has written to Disabilities Minister Anne McGuire, urging her to look into a cut in VAT on devices which help with medical conditions and disabilities. The move was prompted by recent confirmation from the EU Commission that Member States could reduce VAT on vital aids for disabled people to just 5%.

Liz Lynne MEP is the Vice President of the European Parliament's All-Party Disability Intergroup and Co-chair of the Intergroup on Ageing and feels the level of tax on devices which help people overcome their disabilities should be as low as possible.

Speaking today she said:

"To tax essential items such as hearing aids at the same rate as a computer game or gossip magazine is to financially penalise people with disabilities.

"People with disabilities suffer greater unemployment levels and often have a comparatively low income when in employment, so I have written to the minister to ask what can be done. Now that the European Commission has confirmed that the government can bring down VAT on medical and disability aids, it must be looked into.

"Many disabled people will have been hit hard in the pocket by Labour's recent abolition of the lowest rate of income tax, which came into force this weekend. They have a responsibility to make vitally important products cheaper for people with disabilities and the way has been cleared for them to do so."

ENDS

Notes:

Some 9 million people in the UK are deaf or hard of hearing.

Over 2/3 of over the 70s have some hearing loss.

20,000 children aged 0-15 are moderately to profoundly deaf (figures from RNID.org.uk)