THE Chancellor, George Osborne, has been forced to eat humble pie and ditch his plans for a ‘pasty tax’.

He has caved in on his plans to charge the 20 per cent rate of VAT on hot baked snacks such as pasties and pies.

The climbdown comes after a campaign to scrap the tax by the baking industry.

They said the idea of increasing the price of a pie or pasty just because it has been in the oven was half-baked.

Here in East Lancashire, the campaign won lots of support as we are all partial to a bit of pie.

It has been a lunchtime staple for generations of students and workers who fancy a quick, cheap snack.

We can also boast some of the best pie-makers in the country, with Holland’s Pies based in Baxenden, and the Oddies chain of shops which is thriving with 16 outlets.

A tax hike would have hit those poorest people in our society and plunged our businesses into crisis as sales would plummet.

The government U-turn was the right decision and politicians must now listen to consumers and bakers before coming up with confusing rules.