Brown waives Live 8 VAT charges
Chancellor Gordon Brown today said the Government would waive the VAT charges for Sir Bob Geldof’s Live 8 concert.
His comments came ahead of a speech in Edinburgh where he detailed his plans to wipe the debts of developing countries.
Mr Brown told GMTV: “We are going to waive the bill for the cost of the concert and waive the bill for the cleaning up.
“That is in lieu of any payment of VAT.”
Speaking later on in Edinburgh, Mr Brown gave his tacit approval to a protest planned for next month’s G8 summit in Gleneagles.
He said that attempts to wipe the debts of developing countries in the 1990s had undoubtedly been influenced by rallies held in Birmingham and Cologne and pressure exerted by churches and NGOs.
Protest organisers had already shown that the march would be peaceful as well as effective, he added.
Mr Brown also insisted that he would get international agreement on his plans for wiping the debts of developing countries and increasing aid – despite signs the United States will oppose them.
He was challenged over reports that US president George Bush has said the proposal “doesn’t fit into our budgetary process”.
Although America supports the idea of wiping developing world debts, it is thought to want to deduct the sums that are wiped, from future aid donations. In contrast, Mr Brown wants to follow up the debt cancellation with a doubling in aid.
The Chancellor insisted that the US was prepared to support 100 per cent debt relief for the poorest developing countries.
“It is going to be possible to reach an agreement on debt relief,” he said.
Mr Brown said it was intolerable that African countries were being “weighed down” by debts accumulated as a result of decisions made as long as 30 years ago, and in many cases had to spend more on debt repayment than they did on health and education.
“You can see by the scale of our ambitions that we’re determined that the empowerment of the people of Africa and the communities of Africa can be made possible at Gleneagles,” he added.
