Golf club owner and tax campaigner Vivien Saunders has announced that she is standing for parliament at the forthcoming election – against prime minister David Cameron in his Oxfordshire seat of Witney.
Running for the Reduce VAT in Sport party, Vivien Saunders, the chair of the Association of the Golf Course Owners (AGCO) and winner of the 1977 Women’s British Open, has released a video explaining her decision.
“It’s not because I want to stand against David Cameron,” she said, “it’s because I want to give him and other politicians the message that they need to do much more about British sport.
“There are two sorts of sports facilities in this country – one are considered to be non-profit making such as schools, local authorities and private members’ clubs, and the other are commercial. Those that are non-profit making don’t have to charge VAT and those that are commercial do. This isn’t fair on the sports player or the facility.”
Saunders’ main argument is that commercial operators have to charge more to sports players due to this ‘distortion’, which puts off the players from playing at commercial venues, which, she states, is why participation in sport is now lower than what it was before the 2012 Olympics.
“This also means that people who are building the sports facilities of the future in this country are being clobbered to death by the distorted nature of VAT,” she added.
“The chancellor treats sport with disdain. We’ve been campaigning for VAT to be reduced on sport to five percent, but last year the chancellor reduced VAT instead on bingo.”
Saunders accepted that David Cameron is likely to win the seat but stated that if he does people should lobby him to change the legislation on VAT in sport.
Leave a Reply