HC Deb 05 June 1956 vol 553 cc1001-5

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Jay

I hope that we may have rather more information about this Clause than we had about the last one. I should like the Financial Secretary to explain what the Clause is really intended to do. Is it one of those which he calls "Chancellor's Clauses "? He used that phrase just now about another Clause, and it rather seemed to imply that certain Clauses were backed by the Chancellor while others were not. If that is so, we would like to know into which category the Clause falls.

We all know that Clause 9, which will cause us trouble later, was introduced into the Bill without the Chancellor really knowing what it meant and what it was intended to do. We should like to know whether that is also true of this Clause as it is of Clause 9, which we shall be discussing on Thursday or perhaps next week, or even, perhaps, next month.

I notice that the Chancellor said nothing about this Clause in his Budget speech, but the Financial Secretary was good enough to make an extremely brief mention of it in his not so brief speech on the Second Reading of this Bill. Then, the Financial Secretary said: Clause 4 removes anomalies in the Excise Duty chargeable on mobile concrete mixers and on tower wagons, which are the movable structures used in attending to street lights or lopping trees or repairing bridges, like the one in Parliament Square this afternoon."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th May, 1956; Vol. 522, c. 1240.] I take it that he meant that there was a tower wagon in Parliament Square and not an anomaly that afternoon.

Although many of us know what concrete mixers and tower wagons are, it is not at all clear to me what are these anomalies which the Financial Secretary is seeking to remove. Perhaps he would tell us what they are and what this Clause does about them. I should also like to ask him why we have such an extraordinarily long Clause, occupying about one and a third pages of this Bill, in order apparently to put right such a very small matter as the anomalous position of concrete mixers and tower wagons. It is one of the peculiarities of this Bill that although it does very little of substance in most of its Clauses, it takes an enormous amount of space in which to do it. Was it necessary to have over a page of the Bill and a vast amount of verbiage in order to put right this small matter? We should at least be told what the Financial Secretary is seeking to do.

Dr. King

I want to anticipate the Minister and thank him for subsection (3) of this Clause. I am always pleased when an anomaly or hardship is put right. It is about three years ago that I had the privilege of leading a deputation, with my hon. Friend the Member for Gates-head, East (Mr. Moody), to the Ministry of Transport. This deputation consisted of members of the trade of selling mixed concrete and manufacturers of concrete mixers in his constituency and mine.

The grievance which they put before the Ministry of Transport at that time is, I believe, to some extent put right by subsection (3) of this Clause. Quite simply it is this. We are living in a time when more and more ready-mixed concrete is being sold and delivered on the site, and the manufacturers of this concrete carry it on a lorry on which is a machine which mixes the ingredients. If it were practicable for the lorry to carry the machine, the cement, the sand, the aggregate and the water quite separately to the site, then I think that the duty that the tradesman would have to pay would be merely on the weight of his unloaded lorry. But because the materials are put inside a concrete mixer and mixed as the lorry makes its way to the place where it is to be delivered, duty is charged not only on the weight of the lorry but also on the weight of the concrete mixing machine.

So far as I understand the subsection, what it proposes to do is to charge duty on only one and a half tons of the weight of the machine. When I took the deputation to the Ministry, they wanted, I think, the whole of the machine exempted from duty. One would expect that. As I have heard no complaints from them over this subsection, I imagine that they think that they are receiving a fair compromise by this amendment of the law, and I am grateful to the Minister for having met at least half-way what I think was a real anomaly, and for having done something which will benefit a group of merchants in my constituency, a group of merchants in Gateshead and groups of merchants of a new method of supplying concrete which is widely expanding in the country.

9.45 p.m.

Mr. H. Brooke

I am greatly obliged to the hon. Member for Itchen (Dr. King) for what he said about subsection (3) and I will seek to respond to the invitation of the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) to expound the Clause as a whole.

The Clause seeks to make four separate changes in the Vehicles (Excise) Act, 1949. In subsection (2) to which I referred briefly in an earlier speech, we are removing what is surely an anomaly. There are certain preferential rates of duty for tower wagons, but these are confined under existing legislation to tower wagons used for the purposes of an electricity undertaking, a gas undertaking or an electric transport undertaking.

It emerged that other tower vehicles of a similar character, used, for instance, by local authorities, did not enjoy these rates. There seemed to be no reason that they should not, and subsection (2) simply brings all wagons of a similar character into line for duty purposes.

Mr. Jay

The right hon. Gentleman says that particular types of wagon enjoy a preferential rate. In comparison with what?

Mr. Brooke

If the right hon. Gentleman refers to the Fourth Schedule of the 1949 Act he will see the various rates of duty listed. The rates of duty are preferential in the sense that wagons of this special character, if caught for the normal provisions of the Act, would suffer tax at an unfair rate. This is precisely what happened with the concrete mixers.

The hon. Member for Itchen has largely explained subsection (3). He spoke of a deputation which he led to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation. Not long after I became Financial Secretary to the Treasury, I had the pleasure of receiving a deputation from the users of mobile concrete mixers. We came to the conclusion that an unfairness existed here and that these mobile concrete mixers were caught unfairly by the existing provisions of the law and suffered tax at an unjust rate. That happened for technical reasons; I do not think it was ever intended in the first instance.

As the hon. Member said, we are discounting the additional weight over 30 cwt. I am not suggesting that we have done everything which all those interested would have liked us to do, but I hope that we have found a fair solution to a problem which has caused a considerable feeling of injustice for some time.

Subsection (4) enables my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation to revise the Road Vehicles Part-Year Licensing Order, 1939. The usual provision to give powers of revision was for some reason omitted from Section 11 of the Vehicles (Excise) Act, 1949, with the result that it is impossible to revise that Order. It is desired to reexamine the part-year licensing arrangements with a view to simplifying their administration, and the purpose of subsection (4) is to pave the way for that to be done.

Subsection (5) deals with the fourth separate matter. It is to clarify the law relating to prosecutions for offences under the 1949 Act and under regulations made under that Act in view of certain doubts recently expressed as to the effect of the Customs and Excise Act, 1952, on the proceedings. It has been held by some courts that no proceedings under the 1949 Act or the regulations can be commenced unless authorised by the local authority and instituted in the name of an officer of that authority. There has also been some uncertainty as to how far the special time limit prescribed in the Customs and Excise Act for instituting the proceedings —that is a time limit of three years— applies. This is intended to clarify the position.

The effect of subsection (5), which relates to England and Wales only, is that only proceedings arising under Section I3 and Section 15 (1) of the 1949 Act need be authorised by the local authorities, and such proceedings can be instituted by the police with the consent of the local authority. The time limit for instituting those proceedings will be three years. All other offences under the Act or the regulations may be prosecuted by the police in future and the normal time limit of six months will apply. Subsection (6) makes, shall I say, appropriate arrangements of a similar character for Scotland.

I am not suggesting that there is any thread of continuity between these four separate purposes except that they are all Amendments, and I hope that I have convinced the Committee that they are wise Amendments, of the 1949 Act.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.