Clause 9
Finance Bill
5:00 pm
Jeremy Browne (Shadow Chief Secretary To the Treasury, Treasury; Taunton, Liberal Democrat)
I am grateful for that intervention, and I shall come to the issue of sales. I hope that I did not say that price has no effect. I am just sceptical about how profound that effect is, and I believe that for some categories of consumer it has close to no effect. The point that was I trying to make is that the consumer who is most prone to binge drink is probably also the consumer who is least affected by price. The consumer who drinks in moderation—I cited the example of an older drinker in a village pub—may be more susceptible to price as a factor in their consumption.