Beer Taxation and Pubs

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

I declare an interest, as president of the all-party parliamentary beer group. It is great to follow the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth). I do not think she heard, but when she told us that she was the MP for the Titanic brewery, I shouted, “I suspect she’s sunk a few of those.” I know I have.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

It was not a good joke the first time you said it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Evans]

As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, I live next door to a pub; there cannot be much more commitment than that. At times, I feel that I should pay my council tax for the pub rather than the house I live in. I celebrated my 50th birthday in that pub, and I welcomed you and your wife Catherine to the pub. Only a few weeks ago I was at the superb Caledonian brewery in Edinburgh and sunk a few of its pints while celebrating Wales on their march to the grand slam.

It is great to have a debate in this place where we are all coming together, rather than knocking six bells out of one another. The pub is such an important focal point for people. I live in a rural village, and it is great when people can get together. Pubs do so much to raise funds for numerous charities, and they are a place for sporting groups—whether it is darts teams or football teams—to come together.

[Mary Robinson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and to him and his colleagues for securing this debate about beer taxation and pubs. The wider aspect of this is pubs as a community hub. It is Mother’s Day on Sunday. Our pubs will be full of people celebrating, dining and drinking and having a great time. Does he agree that the loss of these pubs would be a real detriment to our society?

[Mr Evans]

Absolutely. I hope that many people will be taking their mums out to pubs in their communities to thank them for being their mums; we do not need any other excuse than that. We hardly pass a pub these days that does not have a board outside informing people that Mother’s Day is coming up and they should book early to avoid disappointment. There are so many occasions when one can go to a pub and celebrate. In fact, any day with a “y” in it will do, as far as I am concerned.

Pubs bring people together. The best way to see that is to go to a village where the only pub has closed. It tears the heart out of that village. I know the pressures that pubs are facing, whether due to business rates, which are crippling some small pubs, environmental standards—it is right that they have to meet those—or investment in new fridges.

Pubs generate a lot of economic activity, and not just through the sale of beer, which is a fantastic product. They provide jobs in rural areas where jobs can be scarce. In particular, they provide badly needed extra income for younger people who are perhaps at college and can be flexible with their time.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a wonderful speech, as I knew he would on this topic, which he knows only too well. Has he considered communities that have gone even further and bought their pub? The community-owned pub is now a really important part of some villages. I congratulate the Plunkett Foundation, which does an awful lot of work to tell communities how they can buy their own pub.

[Mr Evans]

Yes. At times, there must be immense pressure for pubs that have closed to be turned into a block of flats, because there is a lot of money in housing, but there is an opportunity for them to be turned into a community pub, if the community come together to raise money and keep it going. There are countless examples of those throughout the country, and it means that the community still have a focal point where they can come together. I hope that more publicity will be given to those opportunities.

I have three breweries of different sizes in my patch: InBev, which makes Stella Artois, Thwaites brewery, which was moved from Blackburn into the Ribble Valley, is much smaller but is the famous brewery with the shire horses—there is a lot of corporate responsibility within that company—and Holmes Mill, which brews the great Bowland beers in the heart of the Ribble Valley.

[Bob Stewart]

My hon. Friend speaks with forked tongue. I have been to the pub beside his house with him twice or three times, and it is a wonderful pub, but when we go next door he always leaves behind the lady who lives in his house. She is called Alexa. He has never taken her.

[Mr Evans]

All I can say in reply to that interesting intervention is that my hon. Friend has been to my pub three times and not once has he bought me a drink. That is the sort of friends I have.

[Bob Stewart]

What about Alexa?

[Mr Evans]

I am not mentioning Alexa.

It is a great pub—it was actually the CAMRA pub of the year in 2013—but I have other pubs such as the Freemasons at Wiswell and the Parkers Arms in Newton. A lot of pubs rely on offering food as well. The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) mentioned that she does not drink, but people do not have to drink alcohol to go to these places because there is so much more on offer.

Mention has been made of taxation on beer, which is huge. At £13 billion, it is massive. Almost 1 million jobs are provided by the industry. We need to look at ways of lowering that taxation. There is something wrong when taxation goes up, people drink less and less money actually goes to the Inland Revenue. There should be a common-sense approach to lower taxation, increase sales and ensure that HMRC gets more money out of that.

Taxation is high if the alcohol by volume rate is high; it drops only at below 2.8%. We need to look at ways of increasing the rate to 3.5%. It would encourage more people to drink lower strength alcohol and have a great time; it would incentivise them to do that. It is worrying when a lot people drink high ABVs—5%-plus. Drinking a pint of beer is good for one’s health, but drinking too much beer with a higher ABV is not.

Tomorrow night, I was due to be in a pub celebrating a big event, but that big event is not happening; it is being deferred. All I can say is that, on 22 May, I hope to be saying, “Cheers, Brexit!”