BUTCHERS and bakers across the region have criticised Government proposals to add VAT to freshly-baked pies and pasties amid fears it will hit sales.

Public opinion about the proposed changes, which would result in 30p added to the price of a £1.50 pastie if it were sold hot, appears to be firmly against the plan, with one Darlington butcher collecting hundreds of signatures in two days for a petition.

Chancellor George Osborne’s move to add 20 per cent to the price of hot takeaway foods from supermarkets and bakeries in last week’s Budget has already been dubbed the Pastie Tax and caused outrage among suppliers.

The chief executive of Newcastle- based baker Greggs, Ken McMeikan, said the proposal “raised the scenario where someone at the front of the queue is subject to VAT and the person at the back [buying a product that has cooled down] would not be”.

High Street butchers and bakers across the North who have diversified into selling hot pies to the lunchtime trade fear they will be hit hardest.

A petition started by Taylor’s Butchers, in Darlington, has attracted hundreds of signatures from customers.

Jane Taylor-Garthwaite, of Taylor’s, said: “We have had a brilliant response.

“Everybody is saying how ridiculous the idea is.

“We get a lot of pensioners in here and they will be really affected by any change to the price.

It is the customer being hit again and again by price increases.”

Dave Baker, one of the owners of The Moody Baker, in Barnard Castle, said: “The law is that there is already VAT on hot pies and pasties, but there is a loophole for when they have just come out of the oven. I think they have gone about it the wrong way.

“It would not affect us as much as it would Greggs, but it would affect our early-morning trade because we get customers who come in to buy goods still warm from the oven.”

Mr Osborne, who yesterday said he could not remember the last time he visited a Greggs shop, said the tax was “perfectly sensible”.

He said: “We do not check on every single product sold. We come to an arrangement with a company; a sensible arrangement about the proportion of the products they sell hot.”