News that Jeremy Hunt has asked the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to run the rule over the abolition of VAT-free shopping for foreign tourists should not come as a great surprise.
It did not get much attention at the time, but in the Commons debate that followed the Autumn Statement in November the Chancellor promised Tory MP Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, leader of the Scrap the Tourism Tax campaign, that “we are looking again at the numbers”.
