NEW CLAUSE.—(Payment of Licence Duty by Instalments.) (Hansard, 30 March 1911)

§ Mr. YOUNGER
I do not intend to occupy very much time, because I have little anticipation of any concession by the Government, and I do not want to waste the time of the House on this Clause when there are other more important Clauses to come. Under the new and very heavy scale of duties, the Government itself originally proposed that all licences above £60 should in future be payable in two instalments. Last year, in order probably to somewhat ease the situation for these licence-holders in a very harsh year, when they had three lots of duties to pay, the Government reduced the limit to £20 and allowed the duties to be paid in two instalments. I am proposing in this Clause merely to enact the Government's own Clause of last year with a slight difference. They propose that licences above £20 should be so treated. I propose that licences of £20 and upwards should be so treated. The Postmaster-General (Mr. Samuel), who, I am sorry to see has come in to take charge of this particular Clause, knows very well that the minimum duty of £20 affects a very large number of licence-holders, and it is for that reason I have included the £20 instead of making it only licences over £20. A very good case can be made out for this concession, and I do not think it means very much to the Customs and Excise authority. They have the machinery for collecting these taxes already in working order. They 1576 have found no difficulty in collecting the duties on licences above £60 in this way, and there is very little risk of bad debts. If you reduce the limit, it might be necessary to somewhat alter the date on which the second payment should be made. The date in the principal Act is 1st March. That might be a little too close the end of the financial year, and I should be willing to make it 10th February in order to give a further fortnight.
I should like to make a personal statement with regard to what happened last night, when I made a certain statement with regard to the valuation of premises. I said premises not within the curtilage of the licensed premises were included for the purposes of assessment, and I thought that was an exceedingly unfair thing to be done, and many hon. Gentlemen opposite agreed. At the end of the Debate the Financial Secretary to the Treasury made this statement:— I have had au opportunity of consulting the officials of the Customs and Excise Department, and they assure me they are much surprised at the statements made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Rutland (Mr. Gretton) and the hon. Member for Ayr Burghs (Mr. Younger). They conveyed to me their surprise that the cases of the assessment of separate curtilages, such as stables, existed."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th March, 1911, col. 1448.] I have no doubt whatever that statement was made by the officials to the right hon. Gentleman under a misapprehension. I was under no misapprehension, nor was the hon. Member for Rutland when we made our statement. It was absolutely correct. I have cases here which I could give to prove it. I am only concerned to make these few remarks, because I do not wish the House to think I ever make statements without having done my best to make certain they are correct. I have a very good case here, but I do not wish to read it, because I am aware it is only by indulgence I am allowed to make this explanation. We were both sure of our facts. I have already convinced the Excise officials that those facts were correct, and I desired to make this explanation in moving this Clause.

Mr. PEEL
I beg to second the Motion.

§ The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel)
The expectation of the hon. Member as to the fate of this Clause at the hands of the Government will, I am afraid, be fulfilled. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not see his way to make the concession in connection with the revenue which is asked for. When the Budget of 1909 was being passed in this House very large sums of money were asked from some licence-holders—sums amounting to £200 and £300—and it was at my suggestion, although the hon. Member accuses me of being particularly hard-hearted, that the Clauses were modified so that the licence-holders might, in view of the additional burdens cast upon them, be allowed to distribute them over two instalments. The sums for which this provision was made were above £60, but the Board of Excise went even further, and, as a special concession, allowed this system of payment to apply to sums of £20, because in October that year the publicans were being asked to pay the full Licence Duty for one year, although only three months before they had been asked to contribute the additional Licence Duty imposed by the Budget of 1908. These things came very close on the heels of one another, and there was a disorganisation in the collection of revenue caused by the long delay in passing the Finance Bill. But there are serious objections to continuing that special concession year by year. The sums suggested

§ Mr. SAMUEL ROBERTS
These duties fall very heavily indeed on small people in our large cities, and especially those who come under the minimum for beer houses. The former rate for a beerhouse was a uniform one of £3 10s., but it has now been raised in cities with a population of 100,000 to £23 10s. We have more important business to come, and therefore I will not detain the House by giving figures to show the need for some relief in the direction suggested. But I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that if these men are allowed to contribute this money in two amounts it will be a great relief to them, while the Exchequer would only lose a small amount of interest. I hope the Government will reconsider their decision, and, if they cannot now make the concession, will bear it in mind in connection with the Budget of next year.