---

Scotland Bill

I certainly hope that my right hon. Friend will have the time to do so, and I hope to conclude my remarks fairly shortly, but I wish to move on to the amendments on excise duty. The issues relating to excise duty constitute a relatively new demand since the completion of proceedings in Committee. They were not part of the discussions of the first legislative consent memorandum Committee, but will doubtless be discussed in detail by the second LCM Committee. I would welcome further analysis of the proposal's methodology. The Finance Minister in the Scottish Government, John Swinney, was questioned about the proposals on the BBC ““Politics Show”” on 22 May. He was asked, again five times, how the proposal to devolve excise duty in Scotland would work in practice and what steps would be required to stop the inevitable cross-border traffic if alcohol were suddenly cheaper in Carlisle than in Gretna. It was also pointed out to him that tax is collected not at the point of sale but when it leaves the excise warehouse. Given not only that all Scotch whisky comes from Scotland, but that Scotland accounts for 75% of the UK's gin and vodka production—indeed, Diageo in Fife produces all the Gordon's gin and Smirnoff vodka that one may see in shops throughout the UK—there are serious questions about how the proposal would work, the cost of administration and how tax avoidance and evasion would be tackled.