Excise Duties (Hansard, 11 June 1979)

§ Mr. Field

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to what level each of the Excise duties would need to be raised so as collectively to raise (a) £500 million, (b) £1,000 million, (c) £1,500 million and 139W (d) £2,000 million; and what would be the effect of each of these moves on the retail price index.

	(a)	(b)	(c)	(d)
	Rate to achieve a full year increase of 1500 million revenue	Rate to achieve a full year increase of £1,000 million revenue	Rate to achieve a full year increase of £1,500 million revenue	Rate to achieve a full year increase of £2,000 million revenue
	£	£	£	£
Hydrocarbon oil:
(a) Petrol (per litre)	…	0.072	0.077	0.083	0.089
(b) Heavy oil used as road fuel (derv) (per litre)	…	0.084	0.090	0.097	0.104
(c) Rebatable oil (per litre)^*	…	0.0060	0.0064	0.0069	0.0074
Tobacco:
(a) Cigarettes (per thousand plus percentage of retail selling price)	…	30 per cent.+10.02	30 per cent.+11.02	30 per cent.+12.08	30 per cent.+13.15
Additional rate for cigarettes with a tar yield of 20 mg or more (per thousand)	…	2.45	2.63	2.84	3.04
(b) Cigars (per lb)	…	10.33	11.12	11.97	12.82
(c) Hand-rolling tobacco (per lb)	…	10.00	10.76	11.59	12.42
(d) Other tobacco (per lb)	…	7.94	8.54	9.20	9.86
Alcoholic drink:
(a) Spirits (per proof gallon)†	…	29.45	31.70	34.13	36.57
(b) Beer (per bulk barrel at 1,037 degrees of gravity)	…	23.3592	25.1428	27.0769	29.0110
(c) Wine:‡
Lower (not exceeding 15 per cent.) (per gallon)	…	3.53	3.80	4.70	4.39
Middle (15 to 18 per cent.) (per gallon)	…	4.08	4.39	4.72	5.06
Higher (18 to 22 per cent.) (per gallon)	…	4.799	5.166	5.563	5.960
(d) Made-wine‡:
Lower (not exceeding 10 per cent.) (per gallon)	…	2.29	2.47	2.66	2.85
Middle (10 to 15 per cent.) (per gallon)	…	3.43	3.70	3.98	4.27
Higher (15 to 18 per cent.) (per gallon)	…	3.777	4.066	4.378	4.691
(c) Cider and Perry (per gallon)	…	0.263	0.283	0.305	0.327
Matches (per 7,200)	…	0.53	0.57	0.62	0.66
Mechanical lighters (per lighter)	…	0.22	0.23	0.25	0.27
Betting and gaming:
(a) Gaming machine licence duty (per machine per year)	…	8.1525–217.4	8.78–234	9.45–252	10.125–270
(b) Gaming licence duty (per table per half year)	…	543.5–12,228.75	585–13,162	630–14,175	675–15,188
Vehicle excise duty (per vehicle per year)	…	54.35	58.50	63.00	67.50
^* Kerosene would be charged at a lower rate on the basis of these calculations.
† The figures given apply to mature spirits.
‡ There is an additional flat-rate surcharge for sparkling wine and made-wine.
The effect of these moves would be to increase the retail price index (all items) by about (a) 0.6 per cent., (b) 1.3 per cent., (c) 2.0 per cent. and (a) 2.6 per cent.

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