Orders of the Day — Finance Bill.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 14 July 1922.

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Major BARNES:

My hon. friend the Member for Wallsend (Mr. Simm) raised the very fascinating subject of beer, and I would like to pursue it. A great deal of disappointment has been felt from the fact that no remission of the Beer Duty has been made. The desire expressed was for a penny off the pint, which would have meant a very considerable sum indeed, running past £20,000,000. Nobody who asked for that amount ever really hoped to get it, but I think there was a real expectation that something might have been done in the way of an arrangement between the Government and the brewers by which the Government would have taken off ½d. a pint and the brewers would have done the rest, so that a penny a pint would have been achieved. That point was dealt with by the Chancellor in a very astonishing way. He said, in effect, "I understand this desire, I know what has been suggested, I have been to the brewers, and we have discussed this question. but nothing can he done along the lines suggested. It is not possibile for any arrangement by which we may make a remission of tax and by which they may make a remission of price and so secure the desirable end of getting beer a penny a pint cheaper." What was remarkable was that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in describing his position and his qualification for dealing with the experts whom he had to meet, represented himself as being really unequally matched. There were the brewers on one side, who had all the knowledge which pertains to the active pursuit of their business, and there was he on the other side without any such knowledge. I do not remember his exact words, but they were certainly to the effect that he did not know anything about the costs and was not therefore in a position to meet them on equal grounds.

I want to comment on that, because I think it is a very surprising admission from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It seems to show—what, of course, we have all known all along—that there is a very great lack of co-ordination between the various Departments of the Govern- ment, because I believe that almost at the time when he was making this statement there was seated beside him a Minister who a year ago was promoted to the position of being chief brewer to the Government. It was nearly a year ago, I think, that we passed the Licensing Act, under which we put an end to the Central Control Board, and put the whole of the operations of the State-managed scheme in the Carlisle district under the Home Secretary, and we charged him, as part of his duty, to keep accounts under the direction of the Treasury—that is to say, under the direction of the Chancellor himself. It is an amazing thing that, a year after that, the Chancellor should come forward and tell the House that he was not equipped with the necessary information that would have put him really upon an equal footing with the brewers. If there be anybody who ought to know what the costs of brewing are, it is the right hon. Gentleman opposite, because the Home Secretary, under his direction, is engaged in that industry to a very largo extent, and if there were anybody who at such a conference ought to have been able really to test the value of the assertions of the brewers, it should have been the Chancellor. I think the attitude of the Government in regard to the Beer Duty is one of great mystery.

A number of Members of this House have been endeavouring from time to time to find out from the Home Secretary what really were the costs of the manufacture of beer, and have been pressing the Government to disclose their information in regard to the profits on beer, but every attempt of that kind has been met almost with a blank refusal. Inquiries have been refused, and even when inquiries have been made, the results of the reports have been refused, and we now find this extraordinary thing, that apparently the results of these inquiries have been denied, not only to Members of the House, but to the Chancellor himself, and while the House has been left in ignorance, and not able to judge as to the value of the assertion that it is impossible for the brewers to bring down their prices, the Chancellor himself has been in no better position. When he went to this conference on this very important question, on a matter which was concerning a very large part of the population of this country, he went unprovided with the material that should have been at his disposal in order to enable him to judge of the value of the statements put before him, and I think that is a very grave reflection on the Government and on the co-ordination between the various Departments of that august body.

Passing from that, and coming to a question more intimately connected with the Finance Bill on its Third Reading, I think we are here taking part in the third act of a play which is very largely devoid of the qualities of human sympathy and imagination. I do not mean to suggest that the author of the play is himself devoid of those qualities. Nobody could maintain that thesis in his presence, as I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer is an outstanding example of the fact that a man may have the most admirable private qualities and the most detestable public qualities. The curtain rang up on his Budget statement, but, as is customary with most plays, before the curtain rang up there was some evidence of confusion on the stage behind the curtain. We heard some scuffling going on, and, if common report be true, there was a struggle taking place between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Postmaster-General.