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Finance Bill

Let me start again. I question the so-called expert's statement that beer is not price-sensitive, or the Minister's acceptance of that statement, because if it were as self-evidently true as she claims, I would not hear Ministers and others express such concern about happy hours and other forms of alcohol promotion. I say to the Conservatives that the objective of the amendment is to cancel out and neutralise the escalator that the Government have introduced. I shall leave aside the strange assertion by the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands) that if one takes 2 per cent. off a figure every year, it gets down to zero. I cannot see how it would ever get to zero, but we will leave that bit of innumeracy to one side. I regret that although the Conservatives talk a good game on this matter, I have to ask where their amendment is. Why is it always left to the Liberal Democrats to defend pubs and breweries? Why are the so-called official Opposition so negligent in that regard? Both because it is the responsibility of my party, and sadly often that of my party alone, to champion this important community interest, and because the arguments made by the Conservative spokesman and the Exchequer Secretary fell short of what I had hoped for, I should like to press the amendment to a Division. Question put, That the amendment be made. The House divided: Ayes 62, Noes 311.