Andrew Jones – 2022 Speech on Independent Brewers: Small Brewers Relief

The speech made by Andrew Jones, the Conservative MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, in the House of Commons on 6 September 2022.

I thank the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) for securing the debate and allowing other Members to participate, now that we have a little longer for this Adjournment debate.

I will not detain the House long because I have spoken on this issue many times before. I initiated the small brewers relief review as a Treasury Minister, quite some time ago. I did so because during preparation for the 2017 Budget, I spoke with brewers large and small. There is clear affection for the industry across this House; every constituency has examples of businesses that reflect the ingenuity, creativity, enterprise and character of the area. These businesses are deep in the DNA of our country, so a taxation regime that disincentivises the sector needs to be corrected. One of the most depressing conversations I had in the run-up to the 2017 Budget was with a small brewer who said they had stopped their export operation simply because they had reached the top of the threshold for relief. We have a taxation structure that disincentivises activity when we want and need growth, particularly in exports. That is where this proposal came from.

I tried to ensure that we had an industry-wide solution, with the industry coming together, because frankly this has been the source of some dispute. That was not to be—the industry could not come together—but significant work has been done by successive Exchequer Secretaries, resulting in proposals that have brought the industry together and are broadly supported. That is a good thing. This has been a good piece of work, done as part of a broader alcohol review, and I have a couple of points to make to my hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary.

We need to get on and implement the findings of the review, simply to end the uncertainty that has dogged the sector. The hon. Member for Midlothian and my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) are right to have articulated the challenges and broader business pressures facing the sector, so let us act in the one area we can control and implement the review right away. As I said, this is part of a broader alcohol review, other parts of which have not landed quite as well as the beer category. I urge the Minister not to delay implementing the beer review while work on other parts of the sector is refined. Get on with implementing these findings, because I think it would be a popular move and end uncertainty. I am thinking in particular of activity that will incentivise growth. People are stopping product and market development when they hit a top threshold. The proposals will go a long way to make that problem disappear.

We also have proposals in mergers and acquisition for production to absorbed over three years rather than one, so that businesses can make accommodation for that. That is a good thing. We have seen depressed M&A activity in this sector, because of the historic rules, but the proposals will correct the problem.

I have spoken with local brewers in Harrogate and Knaresborough and beyond in the past few weeks, and the message from them is, “Please get on with it.” We need to create a regulatory taxation platform that encourages growth and corrects the problems that the existing SBR had created, while recognising that, as the hon. Member for Midlothian articulated, it has driven new entrants into the market. We are good on start-ups, but bad on scale-ups—we can correct that by implementing the review.