Clause 9
Finance Bill
5:00 pm
Jeremy Browne (Shadow Chief Secretary To the Treasury, Treasury; Taunton, Liberal Democrat)
Perhaps the Exchequer Secretary will clear this matter up at the end. If she is arguing that the tax changes are not designed to have an impact on binge drinking at all, the Government ought to make that message clearer to a wider audience, because some of the signals that are being sent out are confusing. When the hon. Member for Bedford intervened, he appeared to make the case that the benefits of those tax increases would be used to tackle child poverty and for other desirable features of public policy that have nothing to do with alcohol consumption. Some Ministers appear to be saying that they believe that the measure will have a beneficial impact, but that that will be directly linked to the issue of alcohol consumption, and some might just regard it as a general revenue-raising measure.