Beer Duty Escalator

Debate between John Leech and David Hamilton

Thursday 1st November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hamilton]

It is also the case that it is not just about pubs and the price of beer. Pubs, and especially clubs, have a far wider role. My local club, the Dalkeith miners club, has about 25 different organisations, including ones for kids, using its big halls during the day, and it is looking at other avenues. In many cases, clubs are community centres where no other community centre exists. They become the focal point for everyone.

I know that other hon. Members will raise a host of issues, but I have a specific point I wish to make. Surely it is not beyond the wit of the civil servants in the Department to come up with a mechanism that would tax a 50-pint cask of beer differently from anything else. That would allow draught beers to be taxed at a different rate—nobody is going to go to Tesco and buy a 50-pint cask and carry it home. Draught beers, ciders and lagers could be taxed differently.

[Mr Leech]

Is not the easy solution a differential on beer duty as between off-sales and on-sales? Minimum pricing for alcohol in supermarkets is still going to make supermarket alcohol much cheaper than in the pubs. If there is a massive differential in duty between supermarket alcohol and on-sales, it would make a massive difference in terms of encouraging people to drink in the pub instead of front-loading from the supermarket.

[Mr Hamilton]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s point, but without a cross-subsidy—the money raised from one being transferred to the other—I would be reluctant to go down the road of minimum pricing as proposed by the Scottish Government. Nobody has yet told me where that extra money will go, and that is a really big question that has to be answered. It has to be taken on board by the Department.

On the wider issue of alcohol taxation, it is a fact that the tax nowadays is so draconian compared with many years ago that it is a case of beer drinkers subsidising tax revenues. That has to stop, and the European Commission has to be drawn into line. I believe strongly that there is an alternative to the present proposal of cutting tax across the board. A selective cut could be effective. There have been many campaigns on beer, cider and lager, but there is an easier method if the tax is considered in terms of barrels of beer. It would have to be cleared through Europe, but the civil servants could do it.