High Streets

Debate between Brandon Lewis and Andrew Griffiths

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. He will appreciate that, at the moment, the Government are not looking to create more regulation on the high street.

[Andrew Griffiths]

The Minister has mentioned the hospitality and leisure sectors on a number of occasions. He will know, through his magnificent work as the pubs Minister, the importance of the community pub. Does he agree that the night-time economy and the leisure sector play a massive role in revitalising our high streets and in providing jobs and opportunities for young people?

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is important that we look at what a community needs and wants. Our high streets are changing into places where people go for a day out or a night out. While they are there, they might do some shopping, have something to eat, or go to a bar, a club or the local community pub. It is important to embrace that and not to try to have what can be inferred from earlier: some sort of socialist or Marxist control from the centre of what the high street can or cannot have, or of what we should facilitate in our high streets. The consumer and the customer will drive what the businesses want to provide. That is how to get a high street that serves its customers.

Illegal Alcohol and Tobacco Sales

Debate between Brandon Lewis and Andrew Griffiths

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Griffiths]

I would like to put it on the record that, as well as being a great supporter of the British brewing industry, my hon. Friend is a magnificent spokesman for the cider industry. We regularly do battle over whether beer or cider is best.

Let us consider the Government’s alcohol fraud strategy. In 2010, we introduced a new strategy, which has been successful. We have seen the number of illegal goods being impounded and seized increase dramatically: a 71% increase in beer, a 50% increase in wine and a 67% increase in cider. Those figures clearly demonstrate that the smuggling problem is just as prevalent with wine and cider, yet the Government do not propose to put a duty stamp on them. I struggle to understand why beer is being singled out in such a way.

Let us consider the estimated amount of illegal beer that the Government believe is coming into this country. They estimate that 28,000 articulated lorry loads of beer come into this country every year. That is the equivalent of 538 articulated lorry loads of beer every week, with an estimated profit to the smugglers of £18,000 per lorry. That is the equivalent of £9.6 million of profit to the smugglers per week. Of course, we want to stop that profit and that illegal trade. However, are we honestly suggesting that if our border controls have 28,000 articulated lorries going through them every year, the answer is to bring in duty stamps, rather than to tighten up our border controls?

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend and I have discussed this issue on a number of occasions. Is it not true that the industry feels that a lot of the trade that is, in theory, coming in on those trucks is not physically coming in, but is merely a paper movement? The product never actually leaves the UK in the first place. We need to overcome that problem as well.

[Andrew Griffiths]

I agree that that has been suggested. If we are saying that there is a problem with smuggling—importing bottles and cans of beer into the country—let us deal with that. If we are saying that there is a fraud going on in relation to some grand paper chase of virtual bottles of beer leaving the country and coming back in, let us tackle that. We need the industry and the wholesalers to work with us on that. The answer is not to implement a duty stamping of 5.5 billion bottles of beer at a massive cost to the brewing industry, because that may not solve the problem to which my hon. Friend refers. There is the phrase, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they haven’t got it in for you”. From the brewers’ perspective, it seems as if the Government have a desire to ruin the British beer industry, and I ask the Government why.

The all-party parliamentary beer group—I urge those in the Chamber who are not members to join as a matter of urgency—held a hearing recently, in which, I think, Andy Leggett gave evidence to us. He said, at that stage, that duty stamps were not the number one option for the Treasury and Customs in relation to smuggling and fraud. We are therefore concerned to see that proposal in the Budget.

Does the Minister have any idea what cost this will add to the beleaguered British beer industry? Why single out beer? Why not cider? Why not wine? Does she have any estimate of the cumulative effect of the extra burden and red tape on the brewing industry, when adding in the beer duty escalator and this unnecessary extra cost? I ask the Minister to think about British beer. Some 80% of all beer drunk in this country is brewed in this country. The beer industry employs tens of thousands of people in all our constituencies. It is a great British product of which we should be proud. Let us not ruin it with an over-bureaucratic system that is costly and damages the future of British beer.