Alcohol: Minimum Unit Price
Debate between Peter Bone and Jeremy Browne(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Browne
I fear the hon. Gentleman is confusing two separate issues—cost price and a minimum unit price. A minimum unit price of 45p, which is what the Government consulted on—in Scotland the proposed MUP is 50p, but we consulted on 45p—would price a typical 12.5% bottle of wine at about £4.20. Obviously, many bottles of wine currently retail at less than £4.20 but are not sold at a loss. That, I think, is the point of confusion for the hon. Gentleman. I have already said that selling alcohol below cost price is anti-competitive, but whether an artificial price floor should be put in by Government is precisely what we are considering in the consultation.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
May I thank the Minister for the way in which he has answered the urgent question? He has been exceptionally clear and he has been listening, like a great democrat. He is not in his Stalinist mode today. Does he agree that the last thing the people of Wellingborough want to see is alcohol prices artificially increased? Average families in my constituency are very concerned about a minimum price.
Mr Browne
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his characteristic warm reception for Liberal Democrat Ministers. There are two strands to the case being made against minimum unit pricing, both of which clearly have some force. One is about charging people who may have low disposable income more than they would otherwise pay for alcohol, even when there is no evidence to suggest that all those people are drinking irresponsibly. The second is a wider liberal or perhaps libertarian argument about the role of the state and the right of the individual to make choices that he or she wishes to make, free from a more prescriptive view by Government. Both cases were made to us during the consultation and are part of our considerations.
Crime and Courts Bill [Lords] (Programme No. 2)
Debate between Peter Bone and Jeremy Browne(11 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Home Department (Mr Jeremy Browne)
I beg to move,
That the Order of 14 January 2013 (Crime and Courts Bill [Lords] (Programme)) be varied as follows:
1. Paragraphs 4 and 5 of the order shall be omitted.
2. Proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading shall be concluded in two days.
3. Proceedings on Consideration shall be taken on each of those days as shown in the following Table and in the order so shown.
4. Each part of the proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the time specified in relation to it in the second column of the Table.
Proceedings | Time for conclusion of proceedings |
|---|---|
First Day | |
New Clauses and new Schedules relating to the National Crime Agency (except any relating also to extradition, including European arrest warrants); new Clauses and new Schedules relating to proceeds of crime, except any relating also to legal aid; amendments to Part 1, Schedule 22, Clauses33 and 34 and Schedules 17 and 18. | Three and a half hours after commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order. |
New Clauses and new Schedules relating to drugs and driving or to public order offences; amendments to Clauses 41 and 42, Schedule 21, Clauses 16 to 19 and Schedules 9 to 14; new Clauses and new Schedules relating to bailiffs; amendments to Clause 23, Clause 31 and Schedule 15. | 7 pm |
Second Day | |
Remaining new Clauses and new Schedules standing in the name of a Minister of the Crown; remaining new Clauses relating to extradition (including European arrest warrants); amendments to Clause 35, Schedule 19, Clauses 20 to 22, Clauses 24 to 30, Clause 32 and Schedule 16. | Three hours before the moment of interruption. |
Remaining new Clauses and new Schedules relating to protection of children or to vulnerable witnesses; remaining new Clauses and new Schedules relating to border control or deportation; amendments to Clauses 36 to 40 and Schedule 20; remaining new Clauses and new Schedules (including any new Clauses and new Schedules standing otherwise than in the name of a Minister of the Crown and relating to press conduct (regardless of anything else they relate to)); amendments to Clauses 43 to 46; remaining proceedings on Consideration. | One hour before the moment of interruption. |
5. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) b brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on the second day.
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to open today’s proceedings on the Bill. We start with the programme motion, which doubles the time available for the Report stage from one day to two. The House may recall that the earlier programme motion allowed for only one day of deliberations at this stage. That was agreed by this House unopposed, but today’s motion doubles the time available for Report and, as such, I hope it will be welcome to the whole House. Within the two days available we will need to ensure that the existing provisions in the Bill are properly scrutinised. The Government have also tabled a number of amendments seeking to introduce new provisions into the Bill, including in response to amendments tabled in the other place, so it is right that those, too, are properly considered by the House. To ensure that that happens, the motion includes a couple of knives on each of the two days for Report, which will ensure that there is a fair allocation of time between discussion of the various issues. It is evident from the volume of signatures attached to some amendments that there is significant interest in a number of the issues to be debated, so we should facilitate such debate as far as is practicable.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
My hon. Friend is trying get a balance on the scrutiny issue. Is the simple way of doing that not by trying to guess where the knives come but by simply not having a programme motion and letting this House debate things, as it should do, until it has scrutinised everything? That is what we used to say in opposition, so why are we not saying it in government?
Mr Browne
If we were to do that in this specific case, we would default to having the one day of debate that has been allowed for by this House; the Government are expanding the opportunities for the hon. Gentleman by introducing this programme motion to allow two days’ debate. On his more general point, I think it is fair to say that there is general agreement across the House that legislation that is not timetabled at all is not the collective will of the House, if I can put it that way.
Mr Browne
I will give way in a moment. I do not want to get too far off the beaten track, but I think that under the previous Government and under this one there has been a presumption that scheduling business—with a few provisions made for financial legislation, for example—is a sensible way to conduct our deliberations in this House. This is not a debate about whether the procedures of the House have changed; it is about the programme motion for this Bill.
Mr Bone
We are seeing new Government policy here. This was never in the coalition agreement and, until now, it has not been the view of the coalition. The coalition wants to have a business of the House Committee, so that the Government would be taken completely out of these programme motions. Is this another Liberal Democrat U-turn?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Peter Bone and Jeremy Browne(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
7. What recent guidance he has issued to overseas posts on implementing the new Government strategy on human trafficking.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Jeremy Browne)
My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary wrote to all overseas posts on 19 July welcoming the strategy and outlining its aims. We soon expect to finalise with the Home Office the strategy for priority countries. When that process is complete, the Foreign Secretary will write to ambassadors and high commissioners in those countries, instructing them to incorporate trafficking objectives into their work.
Mr Bone
I thank the excellent Minister for that response. Prevention is better than cure. If a young woman is trafficked into this country, she will be rescued, but it is better that she is not trafficked in the first place so that she does not have to suffer modern-day slavery and all that goes with it. It is our ambassadors and delegations abroad who are our first step in warning people of the dangers of trafficking. Does the Minister agree?
Mr Browne
I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. We are working with foreign Governments to build their capacity to disrupt human trafficking—for example, we are working with judges and prosecutors in priority countries to increase prosecutions; we are working with the Serious Organised Crime Agency to prevent trafficking by building capacity; and we are addressing the root causes by alleviating poverty through our work with the Department for International Development.