Orders of the Day — Budget Proposals and Economic Survey

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 8 April 1948.

Alert me about debates like this

Mr. Parģiter:

If I may comment on the speech of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Holderness (Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite), first on the question of whisky, I rather imagine the Chancellor of the Exchequer would treat fur coats and other things in the same way as whisky, but I am doubtful whether the Purchase Tax on these articles would have the great advantage of that on whisky, which can be taxed at the source and consequently cannot find its way into the black market until the Chancellor of the Exchequer has collected from it the amount he wants. The difficulty about the other things is to establish control, because they are already in the market in the ordinary way.

Turning to the question of the rather harrowing story mentioned by the hon. and gallant Gentleman of one of his friends, and the contribution he will pay in the levy on investment income, I should think from what he said that the capital value of that estate would be somewhere between £60,000 and £80,000, at any rate, and the man would be unlikely to pay a great proportion of that total amount.