Campaign to save our pubs

The trade needs a helping hand from Government as it contends with the recent VAT increase, says Roger Protz.

The airwaves are packed with disgruntled motorists and road haulage managers, complaining about the new year increases in excise duty and VAT: they are, they complain, being driven off the road and out of business.

But what hope is there for the battered and beleaguered pub? There were signs last year that the rate of pub closures was starting to slow. But now, as a result of the VAT increase, a pint of beer in many parts of the country will set drinkers back £3. There'll be a further "above inflation" increase in the March budget, which will add several more pennies to the price of a pint.

I scarcely need to spell out the result: drinkers will rush in increasing numbers to supermarkets for their beer and more pubs will pull down the shutters for good.

Supermarkets will continue to

off-load cheap beer. As the Bargain Booze chain bluntly told its suppliers following a rise in duty: "Absorb the increase or don't bother to call."

You can bet your bottom dollar that the giant national brewers that have increased beer prices this month won't upset the supermarket bosses by passing on the increase to the off-trade. The big brewers accept marginal profits from supermarket sales because the volumes are so enormous. It's the poor old pub-goer who boosts the brewers' profits by paying an exorbitant price for a pint.

There are signs of politicians panicking as a result of the clamour of complaints about the fuel increases that ushered in the new year. Prime Minister David Cameron is considering introducing a "fuel price stabiliser" that would cut excise duty on petrol when pump prices rise.

I haven't heard a similar call for a "beer price stabiliser". Politicians used to be keen to be photographed clutching a pint to prove they had the common touch. Now they avoid pubs like the plague — unless they see some international advantage from waving the beer flag. David Cameron gave President Obama a case of Hobgoblin last year from Wychwood Brewery in the PM's Witney constituency. Several crates of the same beer were sent to the Chilean miners after their ordeal: a nice thought, though I'm not certain a dark beer would be my first choice after being stuck underground for several weeks.

But those gestures were for overseas consumption. At home, politicians shrink from any contact with pubs. They have swallowed the Daily Mail and Panorama line that only social misfits go to the pub to drink themselves stupid.

Social institution​

This hands-off attitude allows a great social institution to face oblivion. Closed pubs rip the heart out of communities. Pub closures do nothing to tackle alcohol misuse, a problem fuelled largely by "pre-loading" with cheap off-trade booze. When one supermarket chain offers £10 off the price of a bottle of single malt Scotch whisky at Christmas, is it any wonder the country is going to hell in a handcart?

Visitors from abroad know the importance of the pub. An American woman stuck at Heathrow in the Christmas snow was asked by a reporter what she liked about Britain. Her list included "your pub culture". Thank you ma'am: it's good to hear that some people value the pub.

We need to build on that appreciation. We should urge politicians to campaign to save the pub. We need to prepare young people approaching drinking age by discussing both the pleasures as well as the pitfalls of drinking alcohol. Above all, we need to stress that pubs offer a controlled environment where moderate drinking is encouraged and drunks are thrown out.

And there has to be a serious rather than a frivolous attempt by the Government to curtail the grotesque behaviour of supermarkets. Recent investigations have all concluded that a "free market" exists in the sale of alcohol in the off-trade.

No matter that such alcohol is often sold at cost price or lower and that the big supermarket chains manage, without collusion of course, to sell the same beers and spirits for the same eye-popping discounts. If that's the free market at work, then I'm a chocolate soufflé.

I don't have a simple solution to the imbalance between off and on-trade prices. Minimum pricing, looked at by the Scottish government, has few supporters. Greg Mulholland MP, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Save the Pub Group, argues for more research into minimum pricing and alternative schemes. Let it be quick: action of some kind is needed to stop alcohol being sold at giveaway prices in stores while pub licensees watch their trade dribbling away.

But — be of good cheer — the Government is acting. It wants to introduce a new measure for pubs. It's a schooner — two-thirds of a pint. A schooner holds 425ml of beer while a traditional pint glass contains 568ml.

The Government considers the introduction of the schooner will encourage more moderate drinking. But there are a couple of problems connected to this new measure. It comes from Australia and the Aussies can drink us under the table with ease.

And, as David Cameron has praised the England cricket team for its magnificent victory Down Under, does he really want us to raise a schooner of Foster's to toast the Ashes triumph?

Back to the drawing board, mate.