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You and Yours - Transcript 大象传媒 Radio 4 |
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TX: 02.07.09 - Mobility Scooters PRESENTER: WINIFRED ROBINSON |
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Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 大象传媒 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. ROBINSON The cost of mobility scooters is forecast to rise and several companies supplying them claim that they may go out of business as a result. The European Commission has confirmed that a 10% tax imposed on all mobility scooters imported into the European Union is going to be strictly enforced. European ministers met yesterday to discuss changing the import category for mobility bikes - at the moment they're taxed in a group alongside quad bikes, go-karts and racing cars. But they decided against a proposal to re-categorise them as carriages for the disabled. The change would have meant that the mobility scooters were tax exempt. Jim Dooley represents the Mobility Scooter Bureau and Antonia Mochan speak for the European Commission. Antonia Mochan, why then did they decide not to reclassify these mobility scooters? MOCHAN I think the issue is that we have - and we in the Commission completely support the fact that there should be no duty on carriages for disabled people - that is a technical customs issue, this nomenclature that is set at international level. The issue then becomes making sure that the right vehicles are in the right category and that there is also of course a difference across the EU of what is characterised as a disabled person and therefore a carriage for a disabled person and that's something where the European Commission can't get involved. But certainly our view is that where there's a necessity for a person who is disabled to use a carriage to get around then that should be a duty free. ROBINSON Sorry I don't understand then - if you think it should be duty free why isn't it duty free? You're saying that you can't change the categorisation - is that what you're saying - that that's down to customs internationally? MOCHAN Yeah the World Customs Organisation sets the - what's called the nomenclature - so the categories. As responsibility as the European Union and it's the European Commission but it's the members states of the European Union who are voting on these and bringing these issues up is to make sure that the categories are clear and that there's no sort of internal incoherence in those categories. ROBINSON Forgive me, it sounds like a bit of buck passing because if you met yesterday to discuss it what was the point in discussing something that you couldn't change? MOCHAN Well as I say it's to make sure that the rules that are set internationally are applied uniformly within the EU and therefore that we're not allowing people who are using - sort of trying to reclassify carriages that are not used for helping mobility into the category that is duty free. So it's to kind of make sure that we're coherent and that we're ensuring that the duties are not avoided by people who shouldn't be using them. It's certainly not a case of trying to bring people into the duty who really shouldn't be - it shouldn't be levied on. ROBINSON Jim Dooley it sounds then as though there are countries in the union who do, European Union, who do tax these scooters, we hadn't been and now we're going to. DOOLEY Well the whole situation, I'm afraid, is appalling. On behalf of disabled people and disabled groups mobility scooters were successfully imported into this country for some 30 years under the classification 8713 Carriages for Disabled Persons, whether or not motorised or otherwise mechanically propelled. The classification that the World Customs Organisation recommended that they be moved to is 8703 Motorcars and Other Motor Vehicles, principally designed for the transport of persons including station wagons and racing cars. ROBINSON We just heard Antonia Mochan say that the Commission couldn't do anything about that, you don't accept that? DOOLEY I don't accept that because the same opinion was put to the Americans who rejected it out of hand, that this would harm disabled people. I think the reality of what's happening here is that disabled people in this country, in Denmark and Holland are being discriminated against and if this proposal goes through and becomes a Directive from the EU then we will - various disabled groups and charities - will take proceedings against the EU because this is disability discrimination. It's imposing a liability on the solution that an individual selects to address his mobility problems. ROBINSON This tax will only apply to imported scooters, do we make them anywhere in Europe? DOOLEY We used to - we used to make them in the UK but unfortunately the Far Eastern countries manufactured them cheaper. And that's one of the reasons why disabled people use mobility scooters because they are a cheaper form of wheelchair and this duty will mean that an extra £300 will be put on the price of a mobility scooter affecting thousands of disabled people in this country. ROBINSON Antonia Mochan, quickly if you would before we leave it, is this the last of it or is there anything more the Commission can do? MOCHAN Well I mean when I spoke to the people in Brussels the point hadn't come up, so I'm not entirely sure where we are on the discussion about it but if this is going through as a proposal then of course there is a process to be gone through of discussion with member states, with members of parliament, so the Commission never has the last word on such proposals. ROBINSON So if you're not happy lobby your MEP? MOCHAN That's what the - that's what the process is there for - for people to put their views in at all the various stages. ROBINSON Antonia Mochan and Jim Dooley, thank you both. 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