CARLISLE STATE MANAGEMENT DISTRICT (Hansard, 20 March 1962)

§ Mr. G. R. Mitchison (Kettering)
I am sorry that the time will be so limited. This was the fascinating case of virement, depending on the price of beer and the price of port in pubs in the Carlisle State Management District. What appears to have happened was that when more had to be paid to the Customs and Excise those operating the scheme showed it one way, and when they got it back from the customer they showed it another way, with the net result that there was produced what was rightly described by the Treasury witness as a "misleading" form of Estimates.
285 All I need say today, now that we are so near the close of these debates, is that there were distinct signs of repentance, because at the end of the day, on the issue of whether it is appropriate to have this kind of cash account in this form, where the expenditure is voted by subheads of a trading account with, on the other side, the revenue coming in as appropriations in aid or extra Exchequer receipts if they exceed it, my doubt is whether this is a sensible way of dealing with a trading concern.
Later, the Treasury witness agreed that this was a point made by the Plowden Committee which had been put to the Estimates Sub-Committee and to the Public Accounts Committee when they made recommendations for the change in Estimates. He added we would try to change those cases where they were misleading, and this is one which I hope in the process of time we will get round to changing. That was a little misplaced.
This is an urgent matter. Beer and port are being bought and sold in the Carlisle State Management District and, according to the Treasury witness, the facts of the matter—the resulting trade balance—are being concealed from the House by a misleading form of Estimate. I trust that the Treasury in this respect will get a move on and clarify the position about beer and port in the Carlisle State Management District as soon as may be, and not just when the Department gets round to it.
I sit down because I cannot help seeing the bon. Baronet the Member for Farnham (Sir G. Nicholson), who spoke so eloquently and with such experience on these matters in the Estimates Committee, about to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker.

§ Sir G. Nicholson
I am so deeply moved by the horn. and learned Member's eloquence that I am speechless.

§ Dr. Donald Johnson (Carlisle)
I am pleased to have the opportunity, even in the two minutes remaining at the end of this debate, to say something about the feelings expressed by the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison). Although we have had a good deal of discussion of the scheme from an ideological viewpoint, we never made very much of the accounts and we 286 rather shied at them during all our discussions.
One point about the accounts that mystifies me is the amounts in the Estimate as compared with the profit and loss account of the scheme. I have time to mention only one aspect, and that is the question of licences and duties. We have an additional Estimate of £25,000, but the whole licence duties on the profit and loss account come to only £1,650. No doubt, there is a reason for this, but I do not understand it.
In the half minute that remains, I should like to ask my hon. and learned Friend the Joint Under-Secretary whether any further plans have been made for the future of the scheme. This was left in the air after our recant discussions. We understood that a further committee was examining the scheme. Is that committee still sitting, and is it likely to come to any conclusions?

§ The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke)
To reply briefly, I take note of what the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) has said about the urgent matter of reorganising the accounts. It is clear from the trading accounts exactly how much money is made by this concern throughout the year. Whether it is right for a trading concern to have its moneys for its operations voted by Parliament as a Supply service is a technical matter on which there can be great dispute and on which, in half a minute, I cannot enter.
Nor can I give my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Dr. D. Johnson), who, not unnaturally, takes a close interest in the experiment, the answer to his question, because it is a little longer even than I can compress into a quarter of a minute. I must, therefore, sit down before I am out of order.