National Churches Trust: End ‘unfair’ VAT on historic church repairs

The National Churches Trust (NCT) has urged the federal government to reconsider its decision to finish an exemption from VAT for historic churches paying for repair work.

The Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme (LPWGS) was first instituted by Gordon Brown during his time as chancellor and exempted historic churches from having to pay VAT on repair work.

The Starmer government first announced it will be nearly halving the scheme’s budget before replacing it entirely with a latest Places of Worship Renewal Fund, which opened for submissions this week.

In a “fact check” of the federal government’s latest scheme, the NCT said it was pleased that government support for historic churches had not ended entirely, but added that the choice to remove the VAT exemption needed rethinking.

“It is unfair that museums and galleries with free admission pay no VAT on their buildings, but churches must now pay the complete 20%, though they supply essential services to their local communities and collectively house collections far larger than any museum,” it said. 

“It just isn’t right that it costs 0% to demolish a listed church, but to charge local communities 20% to take care of and take care of their constructing.”

As well as concerns about VAT, the NCT also raised a variety of other questions on the brand new scheme, notably the incontrovertible fact that the old LPWGS applied to the entire country, while the brand new fund is barely accessible to churches in England as heritage is a “devolved issue”.

There are also fears that churches with larger congregations asking for funds for quick fixes may receive priority over smaller, more distant churches or people who have to undergo longer team repairs.

Labour’s decision to not exempt historic churches from VAT echoes an identical decision on private school fees. Some estimates suggest as many as 100 independent schools have been forced to shut as parents are unable to afford a 20 per cent increase on school fees.

Put forward for equality reasons, the policy has in truth meant that non-public education stays the preserve of the wealthy and privileged, while those in the center and dealing classes are priced out.