Clause 16 - Rates of gaming duty
Finance Bill
3:50 pm
Mr John Healey (Economic Secretary, HM Treasury; Wentworth, Labour)
If the hon. Gentleman will be a little patient, I shall answer his question. I had not even finished summarising the proposition that he put to me.
The 1997 Act was the first point at which the bands were set out in their present form. There was an increase in duties in 1998, but there is no change in the rates this year; instead there is a revalorisation of the bands to which those rates relate. I hope that that answers whatever question the hon. Gentleman thought he had asked.
I turn to the question asked by the right hon. Member for Fylde. The measure of inflation was the retail prices index. The figure for inflation was 2.8 per cent. That was the rate in December 2003, a figure taken by convention under an agreement with the industry that has been in place for five or six years.