HC Deb 17 April 1946 vol 421 cc2765-74

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

7.0 p.m

Mr. Eccles

Does this Resolution mean that while travelling by air one would be "out of bounds" and able to get cheap drink, as one does on a ship? I hope we will take every possible step to make our flying attractive, but I think it would be a rather poor idea if, at a certain moment after leaving the earth, we could have a whisky free of duty. I hope that is not the intention of the Government.

Mr. James Hudson (Ealing, West)

I fear the brevity of this Resolution may conceal from some hon. Members the fact that there are a number of very dangerous aspects in this matter, not only as regards the question of liquor being sold in aeroplanes, but from the point of view of the general attitude the Government will take upon licensing questions of all kinds. I agree that this provision, promised by the Chancellor in his Budget speech, does carry out a definite recommendation of the Royal Commission on Licensing of 1929-1931. I recall that that Royal Commission was set up by a Labour Government which definitely promised, in its General Election programme, that it would set up such a commission to examine the whole question of licensing. The report then given was a very full report and covered every aspect of the question. Since then successive Governments—and I shall be glad to be corrected on this if I am wrong—have taken this line: if we are to tackle the question of the extension of licences in certain places we ought not to proceed piecemeal, but deal with the problem as a whole. For that reason I am rather sorry that the Chancellor, in dealing with the matter—which I agree is not, intrinsically, very highly dangerous —has opened the door for a consideration of licensing in a good many other ways.

The general provision of transport in this country has become associated increasingly with licensing. For example, there is the case of shipping transport and also that of the restaurant trains. Nevertheless, when it came to a question of licensing transport vehicles on the road the Royal Commission drew the line and said, "No." There were too many dangers associated with it. I notice also, that when the Royal Commission, which agrees with the provisions the Chancellor puts forward, came to the question of licensing aeroplanes, it did point out the danger of insobriety that might be involved, and suggested that, although the experiment might be tried out, if things did not turn out quite as expected, the provision ought to be withdrawn.

The Royal Commission also made one or two other suggestions and I am not sure that the Chancellor has provided for them. For example, the suggestion was made that in aeroplanes the pilot officer, as is the case with most drivers of motor buses, should keep free of alcoholic beverages during the time of duty and for a period shortly before duty. It was pointed out when road transport was dealt with that the rule of abstinence was laid down by most of the transport companies for their drivers; and it was suggested by the Royal Commission that the driver of a plane on which a licence existed, might well be required by his employers to follow that rule. The provision, of course, is to be applied to the State-run aeroplane services, and the Chancellor referred with some pride in his Budget speech to the fact that this was the way a public service was able to deal with things. I want to know whether public services in this matter really will be as good as the private transport services on the roads, and will lay down as a rule that alcohol should not be touched by those engaged in running the planes.

I know it is possible for alcohol to be obtained by a pilot while on service in running one of the larger planes. I observed, for example, on one of the European transport planes, that during the flight of the plane the pilot left his locked-in compartment, and came through to the place where the passengers were. Of course on the plane in which I travelled there was, naturally, no drink to be obtained, and I am not able to say what would happen in one in which drink was supplied, but if it had been supplied in this aircraft it would have been possible for the pilot to indulge in alcoholic beverages which were provided for the use of the passengers. I hope that the Government will look again pretty carefully at these provisos which were suggested in the Royal Commission's Report, and will see to it that drink is kept carefully away from pilots on duty.

I observe that some hon. Members opposite are treating this matter flippantly, as though it did not matter. Its importance should be remembered, especially where the sight of the pilot is concerned, his power to concentrate his vision, especially at times of landing, and to observe the point which he is approaching at the time of landing. It was shown beyond all shadow of doubt, in the medical evidence given to the Royal Commission, that vision is much interfered with when alcohol has been taken. Beyond all shadow of doubt, in modern transport planes the pilot and the alcohol should be kept absolutely apart. I am speaking very seriously because I know that a great question of public safety is involved in this.

The Royal Commission's Report did suggest that the licence duty should have some relationship to the privilege that was being granted. I do not know whether the Chancellor considers that £1 licence duty per annum is adequate from an aeroplane running, say, 24 or 30 passengers, to whom intoxicating liquors are being supplied. I do not know whether £1 is in proportion to what the Royal Commission suggested. I hope he will look at that matter again. It is certain that I should not be in Order in moving any increase in that duty, but with this point in mind, I hope the Government will again very carefully reconsider this suggestion. They may be opening the door to a much wider question. If they are willing to open that door, I hope they will come to us with a properly considered licensing Bill to settle the problem.

Mr. I. J. Pitman (Bath)

I was a passenger in 1909 in my own father's aircraft. It was a perilous venture. He had no intention of taking his hand off the controls to effect the sale of alcohol at that time, but I should like to know if the intention of this provision is that the pilot shall do so, or whether there is some drafting mistake, and that it should be fare-paying passenger in both cases. It seems to me most improbable that anybody would be able to effect a sale up in the air in a passenger aircraft, unless it happened to be a farepaying passenger, and that seems to be a point worth clearing up.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter (Kingston upon Thames)

I can assure the hon. Member for West Ealing (Mr. J. Hudson) that no Member on this side of the House would regard the prospect of flying behind an intoxicated pilot as being a matter for flippancy. We should regard the prospect with the gloomiest of apprehensions. But in order to relieve his apprehensions I would suggest to the House that this Resolution has remarkably little to do with that remote and gloomy idea. As I understand it, this is a revenue raising proposal, but I do feel that it is one for which we should be given some explanation. In the course of his Budget speech the right hon. Gentleman referred in one sentence to this provision in these words: It will also provide, for the first time—and this will be good news for travellers—for the issue of Excise licences for the sale of liquor and tobacco in aircraft? That shows what a socialised service can do."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th April, 1946; Vol. 421, c. 1825.] I do not wholly understand why this should be a matter of congratulation to travellers, inasmuch as alcohol has been served in passenger aircraft for many years, and the only variation effected by this Resolution is the imposition of a small tax upon it. It argues a somewhat fresh and youthful optimism on the part of the right hon. Gentleman to feel that any section of the community will regard the levying of an additional tax as good news. I believe that that illusion accounts for a certain part of his Budget.

Be that as it may, I should like some explanation why it has been thought necessary at this stage to impose this small and irritating tax, calculated at the rate of £1 per annum per aircraft. Having regard to the measures the Government are taking in another Measure, to which I am not permitted to refer, there will undoubtedly be very few aircraft indeed in this country and, therefore, the yield will be extremely small. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman why it is thought worth while to impose a tax whose yield will be negligible, but which will involve some cost of collection and a certain amount of administrative difficulty and friction. These small taxes are very rarely worth the cost or trouble of collection. They are rarely worth even the paper used for printing them in a Budget Resolution. I do feel the House is entitled to know why this is being done.

There are possibilities of considerable complication. Is it intended to levy this duty only in respect of aircraft flying on internal routes? Or is it to be done on aircraft operating from this country abroad? Is it to affect foreign aircraft which call in this country? It is, indeed, a stimulating prospect to envisage an American aircraft, forced down by bad weather at, say, Prestwick, being met upon the airfield by a representative of the right hon. Gentleman with a demand for £1. Is it intended that this tax shall be levied on all aircraft of British registry, even those which may have no home base in this country? Will it be levied on aircraft on, say, the Indian and Australian run, or on all aircraft whether deliberately or fortuitously landing in this country? The complexities are quite considerable, and it is most unfortunate in these circumstances that the Law Officers of the Crown, after their period of Trappist silence last night, are not here to advise the House on these difficulties. I think we are entitled to an explanation why, with all the administrative difficulties, the Chancellor thought it really worth while to grub for the air passengers' farthings.

7.15 p.m.

Sir William Darling (Edinburgh, South)

It is with my customary reluctance that I enter into discussion. I followed, with the House and the country, the speech of the Chancellor. This was the first of his Excise proposals. I am quoting from HANSARD of that date. He said: First, as to Customs and Excise.… I remember that even on these dark back Benches, we hesitated, held our breath, to hear what the first of these proposals was to be, and what was the great mystery the veil of which he was about to rend in twain. The first was this good news for travellers that he is to provide for the first time—and this Government gets things done—the issue of Excise licences for the sale of liquor and tobacco in aircraft. Then, the right hon. Gentleman knowing the depression which had settled upon the back benches of the Tory Party, added encouragingly: That shows what a Socialised service can do.''—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th April, 1946; Vol. 421, c. 1825.] So we have this really preposterous proposal before us this evening. What is the proposal? The proposal is to charge £1 for the right to sell intoxicating liquor and tobacco in an aircraft for as often as an aircraft flies in the air, 365 days if it can, for 24 hours every one of those days. It would not be for me as a Scotsman to protest at any generosities of the Chancellor, but he must be hard up for revenue—he will be—if he is not only scraping in the bowels of the earth, and on the surface of this planet, but is also now up in the air after the elusive paper pound in order to supply the revenue with which he will stand in so sore need before his race is run.

The possibilities of the proposal must have been envisaged by you, Sir, as by all other hon. Members of the House. I am an enterprising private enterpriser. I come to the Chancellor and draw his attention, not too markedly, to the somewhat restrictive character of our liquor laws. If I am the proprietor of an hotel or the keeper of an inn or public house, there are severe restrictions on the times at which I may sell these potent fluids which give so much encouragement to the children of men. But no. Under the new proposal the Chancellor proposes to license the Empyrean—the whole air. At any time, day or night, for there may be aerial bottle parties to Hugh Dalton, here, there and everywhere—perhaps drinking Highland dew above the mountains themselves. This is not what Parliament envisaged. This proposal will affect tremendously the support which, under false pretences, the Labour Party has received from the temperance and teetotal parties, and will reveal to the world at large the extreme difficulties to which the Chancellor is pushed to secure revenue. These proposals are not measured by space; aerial bottle parties will now be permitted by the right hon. Gentleman's majestic global proposals. This is among the most romantic of suggestions in what the public have admitted to be a dull, pedestrian and commonplace Budget. The Chancellor, in the night watches, felt, when he was taking his glass of milk, that he must give the public something which would be full of guts. And now we have this preposterous proposal.

But there is another aspect to it. If my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) had not mentioned a certain word, I should not have interrupted, because it is one of those words which should not be mentioned in this House. My hon. Friend mentioned the word and place of Prestwick, and indicated that some returning Columbus might land there and be demanded the sum of £1 in dispensation of what had taken place while passing over the Scottish coast. It may be that the plane was really intended for Heathrow, but was unable to land because of fog. Possibly it had spent two and a half hours making its way to Prestwick. The necessities of the passengers would have to be met by the issue of sustaining liquor, and so Prestwick comes into this Debate. I want to point out that in Scotland we are not allowed to drink in licensed premises on Sunday, but by this technical arrangement, it will be possible for the bibulous, the intemperate, the Sabbath breakers and others to enter one of the Chancellor's aircraft, the proprietor having paid £1, and drink to their heart's content on Sunday, Monday or any other day in the week to the marvellous service which has been offered. I am glad that this proposal is being treated seriously. It challenges the whole canons of taxation, in that it taxes us in a new sphere. There is a large section of the population of this country who do not favour an undue and improper consumption of liquor, and it will be on record that it was the Labour Party in power which faced the future by enlarging the opportunities for consuming intoxicating liquor.

Mr. Walter Fletcher (Bury)

I think it is indeed fortunate that there is no intention of applying this tax to flights of fancy. I am not a member of that romantic unworldly race, the Scots, and I should like to come down to practical considerations. What is the use of transferring £1 from the airborne pocket of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—because it is going to belong to him—to the chair-borne divisions which look after customs and excise? This proposal has been introduced as a wonderful glittering gift by the Chancellor, but in fact it transfers something which will in any case belong to him to another pocket, and is a sheer waste of public time. I suggest that the hollow background to this gift is typical of many which we have received from him. He should drop it, and not take to transferring something which is of little value from one pocket to another.

Mr. Glenvil Hall

I think there has been a great deal of unnecessary discussion tonight, mostly, if I may say so, due to a misunderstanding on the purpose of this Resolution. It neither seeks to teach pilots to drink, nor does it provide for a pilot to pull the joy stick with one hand and open a bottle of beer for the passengers with the other. Nothing of that kind is envisaged or intended. Nor is it designed purely as a revenue raising project. The amount of revenue will be negligible, but the Resolution has been put before the House because the Minister of Civil Aviation feels that aircraft ought to be put on the same level as passenger trains and ships, and be allowed, when flying within the confines of Great Britain and three miles out to sea, to have licences issued enabling foreign or British aircraft to sell intoxicating liquor or tobacco. It is true that one finds occasionally that aircraft sell tobacco and intoxicating liquor before they are outside the three-mile limit, but that is illegal and should not take place. This proposal for the first time makes it legal for an aircraft, if it is so minded, to carry and sell intoxicating liquor and tobacco.

Mr. Stanley

Will the Financial Secretary say how he ascertains what is in the mind of an aircraft?

Mr. Glenvil Hall

I apologise. Immediately I said that I realised that an aircraft had no mind of its own.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

The Financial Secretary referred to the sale of tobacco. As I read it, the Resolution refers only to intoxicating liquor.

Mr. Glenvil Hall

It will be permissible to sell tobacco as well. It is not necessary to mention tobacco specifically in this Resolution. The proposals in this Resolution put aircraft on the same level as railway restaurant cars and ships. Railway restaurant cars are a more correct parallel, and that is why £1 is to be charged rather than £10 which is the present licence duty charged for passenger vessels. We consider that the time has arrived when aircraft should be given these facilities if owners wish to have them. In these days, air travel has become so normal a mode of travel that this morning, for example, I had breakfast in Geneva, where I was looking across the lakes and mountains, and lunch in London. That sort of thing is now being done day by day. Obviously, this provision is something which aircraft companies find of use, and that being so, the Minister of Civil Aviation feels that the time has come to introduce it, and that is why this Resolution is put before the House.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. J. Hudson

Was it not definitely recommended in the Royal Commission's Report that a rule should be made that the pilots of these planes should not be supplied with liquor, and that they should give an undertaking that they would not take liquor while on duty? Is it not desirable when a public corporation is concerned that there should be some such provision?

Mr. Glenvil Hall

This is not the place to make a provision of that kind. All companies and lines lay down regulations and they lay down fairly severe regulations concerning the conduct of their pilots. If my hon. Friend has any observations to make about that, obviously this is not the time or place to make them. We are dealing here with the issuing of licences and not with the conduct of pilots, and whether they should or should not be required by those who employ them never to touch intoxicating liquors, during certain times of the day.

Mr. Keeling (Twickenham)

There are two questions to which I should like to have answers. Why is it not necessary to have a Resolution about Excise Duty for tobacco? The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his Budget speech, talked about introducing Excise licences for the sale of liquor and tobacco. My second question is this: The Financial Secretary has said that there was no desire to raise revenue by this Excise duty. If that be so, why should even a charge of £1 be levied; why not issue licences without a charge?

Mr. Pitman

I think that the Financial Secretary misrepresented me and, therefore, failed to answer my question. The point I was making was not that the pilot had to take his hands off the controls in order to sell liquor, but that it was a passenger plane and not a fare paying paying passenger plane. My question was whether this Resolution will apply only to fare paying passenger planes or to all passenger planes, including private planes.

Mr. Glenvil Hall

The obvious test is whether the stuff is sold. If anyone owns a private plane and takes his friends in it he could, if he wished, put into the plane a case of beer. No one could prevent him from doing so or demand that he should take out a licence for it when he took the aircraft off the ground. In reply to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr Keeling), the answer is that already people may take out a licence to sell tobacco, and, therefore, all we are concerned with here is the licensing, for the first time—the legal licensing—of aircraft to carry intoxicants.

Mr. Stanley

rose

Mr. Speaker

If hon. Members wait until after the hon. Gentleman has made his statement and then get up to ask questions, they must not expect a reply.

Mr. Stanley

Surely, Mr. Speaker, it sometimes happens that we hope during the course of a speech to get answers to particular questions, and, when they are not forthcoming, we rise afterwards to put a specific question with the purpose of getting a reply. Surely that is not out of Order.

Mr. Speaker

It is quite in Order for the hon. Gentleman to reply, but the leave of the House has to be granted.