HC Deb 05 July 1927 vol 208 cc1189-91

If any person, having been the holder of a licence for a mechanically-propelled vehicle taken out in the year nineteen hundred and twenty-seven, and charged with duty under paragraph 5 of the Second Schedule to the Finance Act, 120, produces on or before the thirty-first day of January, nineteen hundred and twenty-eight, to the council of the county or county borough with which the vehicle was registered at the time (as the case may be) of the expiration of the licence, or of the surrender or transfer thereof by him, a statutory declaration to the effect—

  1. (a) that during a specified period, which must in the case of a licence taken mat before the passing of this Act be a period beginning on some date subsequent to the thirtieth day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty-seven, and ending on the date of the expiration, surrender, or transfer, as the case may be, of the licence, and in the case of a licence taken out after the passing of this Act be the period during which the licence was held by the person making the declaration, the vehicle was used solely by him for the purpose of the conveyance of the produce of, or of articles required for the purposes of, the agricultural land which he occupied and for no other purpose;
  2. (b) that he was during the specified period a person engaged in agriculture;
  3. (c) that the vehicle was during the specified period registered in his name; he shall be entitled to be repaid by the council by way of allowance in respect of the duty paid for the licence the following amount in respect of each complete month comprised in the specified period,—
    1. (i) in the case of a licence taken out for one quarter of the year only or for any less period, a sum equal to one-third of 1190 the difference between the duty payable under the said paragraph (5) on a quarterly licence for the vehicle and the duty which would have been payable on such a licence if the vehicle had been chargeable with duty under the scale contained in the paragraph (c) set out in the Fourth Schedule to this Act;
    2. (ii) in the case of any other licence a sum equal to one-twelfth of the difference between the full annual duty payable on the licence and the full annual duty which would have been payable on the licence if the vehicle had been chargeable with duty under the scale aforesaid.—[Colonel Ashley.]
    Brought up, and read the First time.

Colonel ASHLEY

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

The Committee will remember that, during the Debates on the Budget, a Resolution was passed which sought to make level, and, indeed, I hope, does make level, the position of the Scottish farmer as compared with the English farmer. When the Budget was passed last year, owing to conflicting decisions in Courts of law, the Scottish farmer this year was compelled to pay very considerably higher duties for his vans and lorries than the English farmer, and it was considered right and proper to put before the House a Resolution to bring down the Scottish farmer's duties to the level of those paid by the English farmer. That was passed without any discussion worth speaking of, and this apparently rather lengthy and complicated new Clause simply provides machinery whereby the Scottish farmer, who has already in this year paid an extra duty, should get a refund of that duty, so that he may pay the same amount as the English farmer.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.