Budget 2012: Transparent? It’s as clear as mud…

'No transparency from Government when it comes to pubs', says Mark Daniels

Twice during his Budget speech, George Osborne stated that he wanted a transparent tax system. He also said that it should be fair. But the swift dismissal of the pub industry in his budget was anything but transparent, or fair.

Transparent? Not really. By stating there were to be “no further changes to make to the duty rates set out by my predecessor,” Mr Osborne was being anything but transparent.

Fair? Not at all. Not only did the eighteen word sentence dismiss the pub trade in five seconds flat, but it also left us – the people who run pubs – with the job of having to explain to the general public that alcohol duty will, in fact, rise.

Indeed, one of the first messages I read on Twitter as the announcement was made came from somebody rejoicing in the fact that their alcohol purchases wouldn’t be going up and it seemed to take the general media a long time to pick up on the fact that alcohol duty does, indeed, go up.

The simple fact of the matter is that the public will only have heard the words “no change to alcohol” and at that point stopped listening to him until he mentioned cigarettes.

There were many things that Mr Osborne could have done to help our industry. A lower level of tax on keg/cask products dispensed at the pump, for example, against pre-packaged products would help provide a differentiator between the on- and off-trade.

He could have heeded calls from the industry to look at VAT rates for the hospitality trade.

But what most of us simply wanted him to do was call an end to the Alcohol Duty Escalator. This cunning piece of legislation is destined to run until 2015, when Labour – who introduced it in the first place – will undoubtedly announce they will abolish it in their next election manifesto in an effort to garner support from our industry.

The Chancellor could simply have announced that, as part of his plan to help British industries, he was halting the automatic rise and freezing duty. Our industry is every bit as important to the British economy as the next one but it’s an easy touch for the Government, especially when they don’t have to actually declare any increases.

Mr Osborne also fired a warning shot across our bows by stating that the Government will shortly be publishing its Alcohol Strategy, which will detail the many billions alcohol apparently costs the NHS and our criminal justice system.

It would be foolish to deny that alcohol plays its part, but it is equally foolish of the Government to ignore the part this great industry plays not just in the economy but in the everyday life of its voters, and it would also be foolish to ignore the part the supermarkets, with their über-cheap booze, play in the problems he referred to.

I would have had more respect for the Chancellor if he had at least had the fairness to tell the public that alcohol duty would be increasing. That would mean he was standing his own ground and not hiding behind legislation put in place by the previous government.

That, at least, would have been transparent.