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Finance Bill

I am entirely sure that I accept the premise of the hon. Gentleman's intervention. Perhaps I did not explain clearly enough at the beginning. Beer sales dropped by 8.2 per cent. in the first quarter of 2009, and since the Budget last year 2,200 pubs have closed. The opportunities for people to buy beer are diminishing rapidly as pubs close, and the total beer sales in all outlets are falling, so the amount of revenue that the Government are collecting is off a diminishing base. I fear that any assumptions that the Government make about increasing revenue from above-inflation beer duty increases may not be borne out by their experience when they come to add up the money that they hope will come into their coffers. That is quite apart from the wider social benefits that I touched on earlier in my speech. They are difficult to quantify, but everyone would acknowledge that in both urban and rural areas, there are those wider benefits. I caution the hon. Gentleman about knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing, as people used to say. That would be an unfortunate position for the Labour party to adopt, and the costs in this case are unlikely to be a consideration that need unduly concern Ministers. On Friday 17 July I will be pulling a pint at the Maypole Inn in Thurloxton—