evidence: From July 2020, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, Boris Johnson’s Conservative government temporarily reduced VAT for certain goods and services associated with the tourism and hospitality sectors, reinstating the main rate from April 2022. Therefore, bar some reclassifications to rating bands—such as charging women’s sanitary products at the zero rate and removing VAT-free shopping for international visitors—the VAT regime has remained broadly the same as that instituted in 2011.