To ask the Minister for the Economy, pursuant to AQW 44201/22-27, whether she has met with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, regarding a reduced VAT pilot scheme for local hospitality businesses.

Our hospitality businesses are vital not only to our wider economy but also to our communities. I am committed to the development of a thriving hospitality sector and I continue to engage with its representatives. Along with the Finance Minister, I met with representatives from Hospitality Ulster and the Food to Go Association earlier this year, to discuss their proposals for a reduced VAT pilot scheme in the North.

Following that meeting, we wrote jointly to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on 17 February, to seek a meeting with him, alongside local hospitality sector bodies, to discuss the potential for a VAT reduction pilot scheme. It is disappointing that to date, no response has been received from Treasury to that letter.