Beer Duty Escalator

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Denham]

The hon. Gentleman again makes a fair point. I say to the Treasury Minister on the Front Bench, the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), that in addition to reviewing beer duty and changing the planning laws, the way in which these big companies operate needs to be looked at.

The hon. Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) talked about the big society. We cannot have a big society if two big companies shut the community out. Labour Members talk about responsible capitalism; it is not responsible capitalism if big companies collude to stop small entrepreneurs starting up businesses of the sort we want to see in our communities.

In every one of the cases I have raised where a Southampton pub has been turned into a convenience store, that pub offered a safe, social environment for the responsible consumption of alcohol, and it was replaced by an off-licence that trades on cheap booze. I am not saying nothing ever goes wrong in a pub, but there are social constraints on how much people drink and how they behave. If the outcome of public policy is that we lose the places where alcohol is consumed responsibly and replace them with outlets for cut-price booze that encourage people to drink too much at home, where those constraints might not exist, there is something wrong with public policy. The message from Members on both sides of the House is that the Government need to look at beer duty and the wider context.

The Minister on the Front Bench and other current Treasury Ministers, along with previous Treasury Ministers over many years, have all said—because this is in the word processor in the Treasury—that it is difficult to untangle the impact of beer duty from the other factors affecting pubs. Of course that is true, but that is no reason for not looking at beer duty and all the other factors affecting pubs.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman, my near neighbour, for giving way. To encourage him in his line of argument, may I say that when my party was in opposition we had a standard letter to send to people who inquired about beer duty, saying we were launching a campaign entitled “save the great British pub” and urging them to sign the online petition? I am sure, therefore, that the Minister will want to give a positive response to the right hon. Gentleman’s excellent speech.

[Mr Denham]

I am sure the last thing the Minister would want to do is embarrass his party colleague by causing him to tear up the letters he was honestly, and with integrity, sending out just a few months ago.