Clause 5
Finance (No. 2) Bill
5:30 pm
John Healey (Financial Secretary, HM Treasury; Wentworth, Labour)
In response to the hon. Member for Ludlow, in many ways section 82 of the 1979 Act is a throwback to a regime that was largely dispensed with in the 1980s. It required, in former days, people other than distillers, rectifiers or vinegar makers who kept stills to take out an excise licence and this regulatory power is no longer required. Anyone who uses a still to distil spirits—this is the point the hon. Gentleman made—must nevertheless have a distiller’s licence and they are committing an offence if no licence is held.
There are other provisions in the clause dealing with the simplification relating to stills and distillers, and to give the Committee an example of the degree of obsolescence in some of the provisions we are proposing to repeal, we shall repeal section 15(4), which requires distillers to provide accommodation for HMRC officials in the distillery. That is clearly no longer required because the pattern of monitoring and assuring the operation of distillers has changed these days. That is an exemplar of what we want to achieve through the clause and I hope that the Committee will support it.