§ 7.25 p.m.
§ The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter)I beg to move,
That the Purchase Tax (No. 5) Order, 1951 (S. I., 1951, No. 1357), dated 27th July, 1951, a copy of which was laid before this House on 1st August, 1951, in the last Parliament, be approved.In asking the House to approve this Order, I hope I am carrying a stage further that co-operation on Measures of this kind which has received the endorsement 1246 of the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) and the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren). This Order, as hon. Members will be aware, was laid before the House on 27th July, when the hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) was Financial Secretary —in fact, it bears the signature of two hon. Members opposite, that of the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. R. J. Taylor) and that of the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Royle).I do not imagine that the House will desire any very lengthy explanation of this Order. Its general effect is to increase by a total of 16 substances the number of drugs which are exempt from Purchase Tax. Most of them have complicated technical designations which I hope I shall not be pressed to pronounce. Perhaps the only one of them known to the layman is a drug called terramycin, which is one of the new developments in the cure of pneumonia and other diseases of that kind.
I should explain why it is necessary to use the Affirmative Resolution procedure at all, for Purchase Tax Orders require the Affirmative Procedure only where there is an increase of tax or extention of liability. The main object of this Order is, in fact, to increase the number of exemptions; but we are advised that the redefinition of three particular substances, which has been effected in order to secure greater clarity, might technically be construed as imposing tax. Therefore, for the sake of safety it was considered that we ought to bring them in under an Affirmative Resolution. It is in those circumstances, and bearing in mind that the main purpose is to exempt 16 new drugs or combination of drugs from Purchase Tax, that I am moving this Motion.
§ 7.28 p.m.
§ Mr. Douglas Jay (Battersea, North)In thanking the Financial Secretary to the Treasury for the explanation of the Order for which I accept joint responsibility, I should like, as this is the first time I have encountered the hon. Member across the Table, to congratulate him on his appointment to his present arduous office. In the last Parliament we always respected his pertinacity as often as we disagreed with his arguments.
I am grateful for his explanation, which agrees with my understanding of this Order. The Explanatory Note is, I think, 1247 unusually intelligible in this case. As we do not intend to indulge in fractious opposition in this Parliament, I will not ask the Financial Secretary to explain the Schedule in words of one or two syllables. I do not think that even Sir Ernest Gowers could do that. When I looked at page 3 and noticed yellow bone marrow concentrate, I wondered if that was one of those skeletons which the Leader of the House found hanging in Whitehall the other night and scared the life out of him. If that is so, if he looks up the page he will see Russell's viper venom, which is prepared for use as a haemostatic, which he might consider as an antidote. I recommend that idea to him.
This Order was, of course, laid before the House just before the Summer Recess. I remember the present Financial Secretary to the Treasury rebuking me last April because we laid a Purchase Order before the House just in advance of the April Recess, thereby depriving Parliament for two weeks of the opportunity to criticise it. I do not imagine that he will repeat that rebuke tonight, because, of course, his party, in one of those sudden conversions for which it has become famous in the last fortnight, now are believers in the longest possible Parliamentary Recess and the least possible Parliamentary interference with the Government.
What this Order does, of course, is slightly to extend the list of Purchase Tax free medicine which get their exemption on the advice of qualified medical experts. That is done by arrangement reached in the Finance Act, 1948, and it was a bipartisan arrangement, as the Americans say, because it was reached in agreement with the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Linstead), who is a great expert on these matters. I think it has worked fairly well. I imagine it is extending the exemptions, and I hope that the "Daily Express" will not be claiming credit for this small measure of increased freedom from Purchase Tax. The dates would be rather against them, if they did. This Order was made on 27th July. I think it was not until 2nd October that the "Daily Express" discovered the Purchase Tax, and revealed all its inequalities to an astonished world. Nevertheless, we can welcome this small further exemption. I advise my hon. Friends to support it.
§ Question put, and agreed to.