§ The duties chargeable on the Following Excise liquor licences, that is to say, retailers' on-licences for spirits, beer, or wine, retailers' off-licences for spirits, beer, or wine, so far as regards licensed premises situate in a parish or district with less than two thousand inhabitants shall be reduced by fifty per cent.—[Colonel Sir Arthur Holbrook.]
§ Brought up, and read the First time.
§ Colonel Sir ARTHUR HOLBROOKI beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
I moved this Clause last year, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer promised that he would give the proposal favourable consideration. Small wayside inns, which depend almost entirely for their trade upon the passing Traffic, are now closed throughout the hours when that traffic is passing, so that they are 155 deprived of the main source of their income, which I submit is manifestly unfair. I would point out that most of these houses are occupied by ex-service men, who have invested their whole savings in the purchase of the business, and it is very hard upon many of these men. In my own division there are many instances of this hardship, and I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will redeem the promise he made to me last year, and give favourable consideration to the proposal.
§ Mr. McNEILLIt is quite true that, when my hon. and gallant Friend referred to this matter last year, the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave an undertaking that before this Budget he would look carefully into the case which my hon. Friend made. He has done so, but we have not been able to find any really valid reason for making the variation which my hon. and gallant Friend proposes. After all, no one is more anxious to do everything that is reasonably possible for ex-service men than I am, and I am sure every Member in this House is anxious to do so, but it does seem rather pushing to an extreme the advocacy of consideration for ex-service men when the House of Commons is asked, in special areas, to reduce the licence duty for public houses on the ground that an unspecified proportion of those licensed premises are occupied by ex-service men. I really do not think my hon. and gallant Friend can expect the Government to make an alteration in the licensing laws on grounds of that sort. He has not really given any reason for making the alteration that he proposes. I am not in a position to say quite what the cost would be to the Treasury, but I do not put it upon that ground. I think the Committee will agree that, in dealing with such a matter as the licensing laws and the cost of licences in the case of the public houses of the country, which is now placed on a regular and carefully thought out scale set out in the Schedule to one of the recent Acts, that scale should not be disturbed unless very much more cogent reasons have been given than my hon. and gallant Friend has been able to bring forward. In these circumstances, I hope he will not press his proposal.
§ Sir A. HOLBROOKI should like to point out that on the previous occasion I gave full reasons for my case. I did not repeat myself to-day. I do not base my claim entirely on the grounds that these houses are occupied largely by ex-service men. I take the case of a small village, with less than 2,(!00 inhabitants, where the proprietor had now come back to that village for his support, and I urge that the principle which was applied during the War, when the licence duty was reduced by a seventh because the public-houses were closed on Sunday, should be applied in such a case. These houses are now closed for a half of the time, and these men in little villages are getting none of the casual trade that was their main support in the past. I mentioned the question of ex-service men, but it was not the main argument on which I was basing my case. I know the Chancellor of the Exchequer told me two years ago that in large houses and in large towns the men were not suffering from running half-time because they got the full extent of their trade. That is not the case of the wayside inn. It is a great hardship to these men that they should have to pay the full amount of their licence when half their trade is taken from them.
§ Mr. R. RICHARDSONThe licence is not what is the matter with the village inn; it is the brewer. Everyone must know who has read the reports of these companies how well the brewers are doing. The reduction in the licence duty will not help these men. It is the brewer who can help them if he cares to do so and there is sufficient money in all the breweries in this country to help these people.
§ Question, "That the Clause be read a Second time," put, and negatived.