Clause 3 - Rates of duty on wine and made-wine
Finance Bill
10:00 am
Mr Stephen O'Brien (Eddisbury, Conservative)
In relation to clause 3 and the increase in the excise duty charges on still wine and still made-wine, much the same arguments apply as were made on the previous clause. Recognising the precious time of the Committee, I wish to pick up on only a few of the Economic Secretary's remarks on the previous clause that apply equally to this one, rather than going through the same arguments.
The Economic Secretary helpfully said that the Treasury is compiling studies and analysis and completing a model on elasticity. He noted that it would take account of factors such as industry, market and revenues. I hope that it will also consider consumption, given the effects on elasticity of smuggling and cross-border shopping. From an industrial point of view, there are the questions of capacity and growth of the market, and of the effect
on consumption overall, but for certain products important health issues cannot be overlooked. All those factors go hand in hand, and our objective as policy makers or scrutineers must be to do our best to represent all our constituents and their interests. We sometimes have to consider competing factors to ensure that the best possible framework for a proper balance can be struck through the laws and secondary legislation that we consider and pass or do not pass.
I am glad that the hon. Member for Yeovil supports the call for publication of the model—that is right. I noted the Economic Secretary's response that the intention is to publish it, and we look forward to that. He used the expression ''shortly''. We would like the same sort of guidance that we were able to obtain some time back on whether the Chancellor's pronouncements on his five economic tests for the euro would be in the first half of this Parliament. We are now almost at that point.