Darling hammers the pub
Chancellor Alistair Darling has dropped a budget bombshell by unveiling a swingeing 4p rise in duty on a pint of beer and pledged to raise duty on alcohol by 2% above inflation for the next four years.
This year, Darling has increased alcohol duty by 6% above the rate of Inflation.
The move will add up 12p to 15p to a pint of beer and ensure beer prices rise by well above inflation for the foreseeable future.
Recent wholesale beer price increases from brewers mean the average print will have jumped in price by 25p since the start of the year. Cider is also up by 3p a litre. Duty on a bottle of wine will increase by 14p and 55p will be added to bottle of spirits. Darling said that the average price of a bottle of wine in the supermarket had dropped since 1997 from £4.45 to £4.
Rob Hayward, British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) chief executive, said: "Government is punishing all beer drinkers rather than tackling the minority of drunken hooligans. But Government tax policy is fuelling Britain¹s binge drink problem by driving people away from beer, out of the pub into the arms of the deep discounting supermarkets."
"They don't pay beer duty and don't allow brewers to pass it on, so their rock bottom prices will remain unaffected by this tax hike." He added: "The millions of people who enjoy beer have just been hit by a £50.5 million a month tax raid on their family budgets."
By aiming a tax hike at beer, the Chancellor is shooting himself in the foot. Treasury revenues will continue to fall, pubs will continue to close and beer sales sink further.
Every single day, the Treasury is losing over £1 million in beer taxes and four pubs are closing.
People are now drinking 1 million fewer pints a day compared with last year. That trend will continue.
"It¹s a decision doomed to failure bad for taxpayers, beer, pubs and bad for the Treasury as well." Opposition leader David Cameron said his party would have targeted duty increases to decrease binge-drinking.
John Ellis of the Crown Inn, a freehold wet-only pub in Oakengates, Shropshire, said: "It's a binge drinkers budget, he rattled through it very fast and all he could talk about was the price of wine in supermarkets - they're going to punish responsible drinkers. Supermarkets will continue to sell at below cost price despite this measure - it's the on-trade, which provides a safe and responsible drinking atmosphere, that's going to be hit. The government is promoting unsupervised drinking, it¹s as simple as that. Every facet of the trade needs to come together and fight or this is the beginning of the end for the British pub."
