§ Mr. Ashdownasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the cost of allowing farm house cider, produced only from apples without the addition of artificial sweetner, containing no artificial colouring and which is not artificially carbonated, in amounts of less than 100,000 gallons per annum, a tax option of a percentage based levy on sale price, worked out as the average tax paid by the industrial cider companies.
§ Mr. HayhoeFarm house cider is not specifically defined for revenue purposes and there is no official information on which to base a reliable cost estimate. The data available, mainly from trade sources, suggests that the loss of excise duty could be of the order of £300,000 per annum.
§ Mr. Ashdownasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will provide details of the number of registered and unregistered cider makers for (a) 1978 and (b) the last year for which figures are available, broken down to show the distribution in each year for each of the shire counties in England.
§ Mr. HayhoeCustoms records indicate that on 31 March 1978 there were 55 registered and an estimated 35 exempt* cider makers, but information about their distribution by county is not available.
On 19 November 1984 the number of registered and exempt* cider makers was as follows:
293W
County Registered * Exempt Avon 12 8 Bedfordshire 1 — Cheshire 1 — Cornwall 2 1 Devon 15 16 Dorset 3 5 Durham 1 — East Sussex 1 3 Essex 2 1 Gloucestershire 5 22 Hampshire 1 1 Hereford & Worcester 8 6 Hertfordshire 1 — Isle of Wight 1 3 Kent 4 6 Lancashire 1 — Norfolk 2 — Northamptonshire — 1 North Yorkshire 1 — Somerset 22 39 Suffolk 2 — West Midlands 1 — West Sussex — 3 West Yorkshire 1 1
County Registered * Exempt Wiltshire 1 — — — Totals 89 116 * Exempt by virtue of The Cider and Perry (Exemption from Registration) Order 1976 (SI 1976 No. 1206) as amended by The Cider and Perry (Exemption from Registration) Order 1976 (Amendment) Order 1979 (SI 1979 No. 1218).