Beer Duty Rates

Debate between Giles Watling and Jesse Norman

Tuesday 25th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered differential rates of beer duty.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to raise, again, the importance of beer duty, and pleased to represent all the constituents who have contacted me to ask that we cut beer duty. It is a campaign I am delighted to support. Although I am certainly a keen supporter, I do not believe that an across-the-board cut in beer duty is the best option, as I shall argue in this speech. That is where a differential rate of beer duty is to be much desired. Simply put, it would differentiate between the duty rates for on-trade sales of beer in pubs and the rates for off-trade sales. I am keen for that proposal to be implemented, so I have written to the Chancellor to seek his support—as the Minister will know, having responded to my letter of 23 April. That was my second letter to the Treasury on the intriguing proposal, in which I carefully responded to the points that the Minister had raised in his reply to my first letter in November 2018.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)]

I point out that my hon. Friend wrote to my predecessor, and it was my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), who responded to him, rather than the present incumbent of this illustrious slot.

[Giles Watling]

I thank the Minister for pointing that out. I am well aware that it was his predecessor; it was the Minister incumbent at the time.

I sent a long and detailed reply to the letter, but the response was almost word for word the same as the first. Four words at the start of one sentence had been removed, and one word and one number—the date—had been changed. I am sure that that was just an oversight in the machinery of the Government; I hope it is not an indication of how much the Treasury wants to debate the matter. We must do more to protect our pubs.

The Minister will tell me that the Government have supported pubs in many ways, notably through the beer duty freeze, which means that beer duty is 18% lower than it was in 2012—hurrah! No doubt that is an impressive achievement, but if we have done so much, why have 11,000 pubs closed in the last decade and why does one pub still close every 12 hours?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jesse Norman]

I am grateful to the previous speakers for giving me that opportunity. I intend to take full advantage of it. I stand corrected on the point about the Opposition, for which I am grateful.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Giles Watling) not merely for his ingenuity and brilliance in securing the debate and raising this topic, but for the vigour and energy that he has shown in pressing this issue over the several years he has been in the House. In doing so, although he may not realise it, he takes up a beacon that was held for many years in this House by my great friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths), who I am delighted had the chance to speak. I have no doubt that, in due course, the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) will himself carry that beacon, or if not, will play an important role in making this argument, because it is an important one to advance. I thank all Members who have spoken for their contributions.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton rightly said, and as colleagues from across the House know, beer and breweries are an important part of our national life, and the same is of course true for that essential accompaniment, the great British pub. As a Herefordshire man, I ought to point out that pubs do not merely serve beer. In my constituency we have Bulmers, while in Herefordshire we have Westons, Tom Oliver and Denis Gwatkin; we have a host of fantastic cider producers. Tragically, they are not the subject of this discussion; our attention must focus exclusively on beer and the beer duty. However, they contribute to the important presence of pubs in our national life.

[Giles Watling]

Might it not be worth consulting and finding out whether some sort of reduction in cider duty might also help to preserve the pub in the future?

[Jesse Norman]

That will certainly be of great interest to my constituents, both as consumers and producers. As my hon. Friend knows, there has been a tremendous reinvigoration of the brewing industry over the last nine years. The number of brewers has this year risen dramatically to more than 2,200. The rise of craft beer has seen breweries grow and flourish in every part of this country, including microbreweries, and exports have reached more than £500 million a year.

Again, it would be wrong of me not to mention a personal interest in this context. Certainly, my county of Herefordshire is as amply endowed with fabulous breweries and pubs as any part of the country. It would be wrong not to mention Wye Valley Brewery, Golden Valley Brewery and Hereford Brewery—I have pulled a pint of its Hereford Best in the Strangers Bar. Notable pubs in Hereford are the Barrels, where I held an informal surgery last Friday afternoon for a considerable period; the Volunteer Inn, known as the Volly; the Lichfield Vaults, known as the Lich; the Grapes; and the Britannia. However, I also pay attention to the specialists that have come into the market in my constituency over the last few years, which picks out this wider process of economic and social change, including Beer in Hand and the Hereford Beer House—part of a panoply of pubs across the entire county, including the King’s Head Hotel, the Man of Ross, the Mill Race in Ross and many other fine houses.

It would also be wrong of me not to touch on the excellent work in the community of the local Campaign for Real Ale team, with my support, in saving, for the second time, the Broadleys pub in south Hereford from being turned into a Co-op. It sheds a very bad light on the Co-op, which is in many ways a fine institution that I otherwise rather admire, even if I did have the crystal Methodist in front of me at one point when I was on the Treasury Committee, if hon. Members remember him. It should not sponsor the closure of pubs in order to open new Co-ops merely a few hundred yards away from ones that already exist. I single it out personally, not as a matter of Government policy, for its misbehaviour in that regard.