Wednesday 20 March 2013

A very pleasant surprise for beer drinkers and pub goers

I am gobsmacked!

The lobbying to scrap the beer duty escalator has worked even better than most of us could only dare to dream.

Not only has the hated inflation busting duty increase been scrapped but Georgeous George had cut a penny off beer tax for the coming year.

The last beer duty cut was in 1959 when Chancellor David Heathcote Amory cut beer tax in an effort to boost sales.

Whilst Anthony Barber did cut beer duty in 1973, this was only because he was also introducing VAT (at 10%, later reduced to 8.0%)   as  a measure when the UK joined the Common Market.

So 54 years since the last proper cut in beer tax.

In 1959 the cut in beer duty saw the average price of a pint fall from the equivalent 6.8p to 6.0p.

We have already seen that Enterprise and Timothy Taylor intend to cut beer prices in their pubs. let us hope others follow.  But more importantly hopefully more people will now use their local pub rather than stocking up with slabs of cans from the supermarket and drinking at home.

So I'm off down the pub this evening for a pint or three of real ale and toast George Osborne and more importantly the British pub , British brewers and all the people who worked so hard to persuade the Government to get off the beer duty escalator.






Tuesday 19 March 2013

Chancellor penalises the pub goer to placate health lobby

So the Government has decided to back away from introducing minimum alcohol unit pricing and thrown away the chance to stop below cost selling of alcohol by supermarkets.

The Government claim that they are already committed, whatever that means, to stop such predatory marketing practices by the large supermarkets who use cheap booze sales to increase footfall. Below- cost selling of alcohol is having disasterous effects on local community pubs who cannot afford to indulge in selling their beer at below cost prices.

The introduction of a minimum alcohol price, based on the true production and tax costs of alcohol, would at a stroke stop below cost selling of alcohol and level the playing field between the off and on trade.

What minimum pricing would not do is penalise the sensible pub goer; the price of a pint of beer in their local pub would not change.

But the PM has backed away from minimum pricing following pressure from his Cabinet colleagues, few of whom ever darken the doors of their local pub unless it is election time and they have to smooze their consituents to get re-elected.

So no minimum pricing. So what is the coalition Government doing instead?  Hitting the sensible drinker, and the regular pub goer in their pocket, by continuing with the excise duty escallator originally introduced by Labour. And what is worse, tomorrow if we are to believe the leaks from the Treasury, the Chancellor will slap even more duty on booze to appease the health lobby. Not only will this not stop the cheap booze sales from supermarkets but will increase still further the pressure on community pubs.
 
 The abandonment of minimum alcohol unit pricing,  the continuation of the duty escallator and a further increase in excise duty is a triple nail in the coffin of the community pub. And this from a Government which claims the be "pub friendly."

Dozens of back bench MPs supported the motion to scrap the duty escallator . One can only hope that tomorrow, if Chancellor Osbourne does increase alcohol duty on top of the duty escallator, they will make their feeling known to him.

The Government has seen fit to abandon the fuel duty escallator because of its effect on the sensible car driver. So why can't the sensible pub goer be given the same consideration with the ending of the beer duty escallator which not only threatens so many community pubs and jobs, but actually fails to deliver the expected extra tax revenues? I await tomorrow's Budget with trepidation.  High Noon indeed!