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Finance Bill

An important message that the Government have to take on board when it comes to the competitiveness of the alcohol industry is that we should have regard to the export industry that we have built up, in particular on the back of the expertise in the whisky industry. My point relates not just to whisky, but all the spirits industries that have grown up in Scotland on the back of the whisky industry. The export industry depends on access to other markets, and if our own Government are penalising the product at home, it is much more difficult to argue about opening up markets abroad.