HC Deb 19 November 1962 vol 667 cc961-3

10.12 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. David Price)

I beg to move, That the Cinematograph Films (Collection of Levy) (Amendment No. 2) Regulations, 1962, a draft of which was laid before this House on 30th October, be approved. These Regulations are a further running adjustment to the arrangements which have existed since 1950 for a levy on cinema exhibitors for the benefit of producers of British films. The House may recall that these arrangements were originally voluntary ones within the industry but were made statutory with the coming into effect of the Cinematograph Films Act, 1957, and consequential Regulations made under that Act.

Despite a fall of about 10 per cent. in cinema admissions over the last year, payments into the levy fund in the 52 weeks ended on 13th October this year amounted to£3,850,000, a drop of only 3 per cent. on the previous year's record figure.

The main purpose of the new Regulations is to increase from£250 to£300 the amount which a small exhibitor may take in any one week before incurring levy liability. The change should restore the value of the exemption as a measure of relief to small exhibitors by allowing for the increases in cinema operating costs which have taken place since the existing£250 limit was fixed in July, 1960.

While the direct effect of the change will be to help the smaller exhibitors, it is in the interests of the industry as a whole that as many cinemas as possible should be kept open. While it has been estimated that an increase in the exemption limit to£300 would reduce the annual levy by about£130,000, it is expected that increased seat prices will, in fact, make good at least part of the loss.

The opportunity of this change in the regulations is being taken to remove an anomaly relating to educational entertainments. Two forms of exemption are at present overlapping so that a small exhibitor could lose some or all of the benefit of his£250 concession by reason of his takings on educational entertainments, even though those takings were in themselves exempt. The new Regulations will make the two exemptions fully com- plementary, as is already the case when there is a combination with any of the other exemptions such as, for instance, the one in respect of charitable entertainments. This amendment in respect of educational entertainments is unlikely to have any significant effect on levy collections.

Both amendments have been accepted by all the trade associations in the industry and the agreement of the Cinematograph Films Council has been obtained. I hope, therefore, that, after this brief explanation from me, the Order will also commend itself to the House.

10.15 p.m.

Mrs. Eirene White (Flint, East)

I do not think we need detain the House long over these Regulations. The matter has been fully discussed in the trade. It was referred to the Cinematograph Films Council and it has been generally agreed. We are all concerned to keep as many cinemas as possible in operation in this country, and although, as the Parliamentary Secretary rightly said, there will be some reduction in the levy payments by the cinemas due to this remission, in the long run it is worth the while of the producers, who are the beneficiaries of the fund, that the outlet for their products should be maintained even though they lose a little in levy meanwhile.

I do not know whether the Parliamentary Secretary has any idea of how many cinemas will be affected by this proposal. I know that the answer is to some extent hypothetical. We do not know what future takings might be. But I assume that, in reaching the figure£130,000, there must have been some calculation of the number of cinemas involved.

One thing which the Parliamentary Secretary did not mention was the request from the trade that this alteration in the levy exemption limit should be retrospective. The announcement was made by the President of the Board of Trade in reply to a Question from me last July, and it was hoped by many small cinemas, many of which are in difficulties, that the fact that it was clear that the President of the Board of Trade had made up his mind that this Change should be instituted would lead to some retrospective legislation, time obviously being too short when the announcement was made to give effect to it before the House rose for the Recess.

I have had some correspondence with the President of the Board of Trade about this matter and I was satisfied that it was not possible under the Act to make this retrospective even had we wished to do so. It would be useful for the record if the Parliamentary Secretary said a word or two on that, because there was a certain amount of feeling in the trade about it.

There is no need to quibble about the anomaly concerning takings from educational entertainment. I cannot think that the cinemas we are discussing have so many educational entertainments that it would make very much difference, but it is clearly an anomaly in logic if not in practice. Therefore, we pose no objection to that.

The effect of this rather minor change in the Regulations will be, I hope, to help the small cinemas which are still in considerable difficulties, and anything that we can do to help them, with the agreement of the other parties to the fund, is all to the good. We therefore support the change in the Regulations.

Question put and agreed to.