Clause 2 - Rate of duty on beer
Finance Bill
10:15 am
Mr Mark Prisk (Hertford and Stortford, Conservative)
We have had an excellent and surprisingly thorough debate on the issue of tobacco. We now turn to the question of beer. The comments that I shall make about beer are equally applicable to clause 3 on wine, and I do not intend to deter the Committee further. Deter? I mean ''detain''. It is obviously still early in the morning, and talking about beer at 10.15 am—or 10.16 am according to the House of Lords Annunciator—is questionable.
We note the rises that the Government propose in the clause; I have received no significant representations against those decisions. However, I have three brief questions. First, will the Minister confirm that following the freeze on beer duty in 2001–02, revenue received by the Government rose and the industry benefited from a rise in sales? Secondly, what estimates has the Treasury made of the total impact on Government revenue? As with cigarettes, there has been a change in consumer behaviour: there has been a switch from licensed trade sales to off-licences as the total tax burden has risen. The figure for the latter rose from roughly 23 per cent. of sales to 39 per cent. between 1993 and 2003—that is a big shift in the way that people buy beer. Given that off-licence VAT revenues are
approximately half those of pubs, what studies, if any, has the Minister commissioned on the total impact on revenues of a further rise in the duty charge? Finally, will he tell us how the approach fits into the Government's overall strategy on alcohol?