Clause 5
Finance (No. 2) Bill
5:30 pm
Philip Dunne (Ludlow, Conservative)
I rise to ask the Financial Secretary for clarification on subsection 1(o), which removes section 82—which is on the power to make regulations with respect to stills—from the 1979 Act. I ask him to clarify precisely what powers are being removed, and shall explain why I have an interest in the subject. Naturally, I welcome deregulatory moves of any kind, and particularly those that scrap unnecessary regulations. I would particularly welcome the measure if it encouraged further agricultural diversification, which is how I read it.
I represent a rural constituency where agriculture remains an important economic driver. Many farmers are looking to establish local products with higher value added, through which they can diversify, and many smaller farmers in my constituency still have orchards—they have not been grubbed up, as in many other parts of the country—supplying apples, pears, damsons and even cherries and soft fruits to local processors of cider, fruit wines and spirits. The largest cider processor in the country is located in neighbouring Herefordshire, and a lot of my farmers provide it with fruit.
I hope that the Financial Secretary can confirm my reading of the clause, which is that in future it will be possible for such growers to establish their own mini-stills and to distil their product into spirits, which they can sell through local markets or whatever outlets they can find. That would be a welcome development. It might also help to ensure that any such activity that is going on at the moment in an unregulated and illegal fashion is brought into the realm of the above board, which would be welcome. I have some limited experience of that practice in other counties, because my father-in-law—he is no longer with us, unfortunately—lived in Somerset, which is another area of substantial apple production. He took me to a number of his neighbouring farms where some activity of that kind had been under way for decades. I am sure that that is not widespread, but there are pockets in the country where some distillation is taking place behind barn doors.