Clause 1. — (Increase of Duties on Spirits, Beer, Wine, British Wine, and Tobacco.)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 17 May 1965.

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Photo of Dr Reginald Bennett Dr Reginald Bennett , Gosport and Fareham 12:00, 17 May 1965

I will confine myself to the fact that the Assistant Postmaster-General will not have so much of a thirst from licking stamps in the near future.

I was about to say, when I was so graciously interrupted, that we were bound to be faced with retaliation from the continental wine-growing countries. They have been growling—annoyed and furious—at the surcharge which was so unfairly levied on their produce, in a way which is still incomprehensible because the basis of price on which the surcharge was made was never clearly stated.

They are being subjected, quite obviously, to a further callous impost on their goods and they will, I am quite convinced, have no option but to discriminate against British exports in the same fields. This is the only thing they can do. I shall deplore this, but so shall we all, because the Chancellor of the Exchequer will lose more by the restriction in trade than he will gain from these extra imposts on beverages.

I cannot think why he has done this. I can only believe that he finds this tax the easiest way of "raising the wind" when a floundering Administration are in difficulties for money. This seems to be the obvious thing, because this is a finite product—one which can be caught and taxed—and it is the easiest victim which has thus been selected for victimisation.

My hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet thought that there were two reasons why the Government were inflicting this further tax, but I believe that there is another. I hope that this will interest the hon. Member for Cardiff, West and that he will stay to hear it. I suspect that hon. Members who represent those large cities in South Wales have been got at by the teetotal wing of their party, and that this imposition is another gesture of appeasement to yet another rebellious wing of the Labour Party. I believe that, in the name of the hon. Member for Cardiff, West and his hon. friends, we are being subjected to what I can only describe as "creeping prohibition", or teetotalism by the backdoor.

I think that that is the only possible reason, apart from the Government's general difficulty of raising money, for this absurd tax-upon-tax being clamped on perfectly innocent and valuable beverages within a few months. I therefore add my voice to the protests which have come from all over the country against this grossly unjust and improper imposition.