He told the Commons: “The pint is part of our nation, we do not need a new law to protect the pint any more than we need a new law to say the sun must rise in the morning.
Conservative former minister Esther McVey said some firms founded in the 19th century in her Tatton constituency survived two world wars, the Spanish flu, the “high tax and economic lunacy” of the 1970s and the Covid pandemic, but the first budget of Chancellor Rachel Reeves will “be the death of them”.
Tory former minister Lord Sharpe of Epsom has previously claimed the “careless drafting” of the Bill, currently being debated in the House of Lords, would open the door for the British pint to be replaced as a standard measure for beer should a “metric maniac” hold the relevant Cabinet role.
“I could instead accuse them of scraping the barrel but let us just say that the Conservatives’ claim that the pint will be abolished is as fanciful as Labour’s claim that punters will see a penny taken off the price of their pint.
“But how many of those companies are going to have that cash or availability to that money to settle those particular liabilities, and the value, of course, within many businesses lies in their assets, and liquidating those assets to pay those kind of liabilities, given that those assets are often instrumental to the effective working of that firm, is an absurdity.
