Chancellor George Osborne has told his Labour predecessor Alistair Darling that he’ll take both sides of the arguments about alcohol taxation into account for this year’s Budget on 20 March.
In a letter to Darling seen by M&C Report, Osborne said the Treasury “reviews all taxes, including alcohol duty, in advance of Budget - and will be doing so again this year”.
“As part of the Coalition Agreement, the Government committed to reviewing alcohol taxation to tackle problem drinking without unfairly penalising responsible drinkers, pubs and important local industries.
“The Treasury published the Review of Alcohol Taxation in November 2010, and this set out the Government’s thinking on absolute and relative levels of alcohol duty, and the taxation of different product categories.
“The Review highlighted the balance that sometimes needs to be struck. For example health groups argue that there should be substantial increases in duty rates to combat problem drinking, while industry and consumer groups argue that levels of taxation should be frozen or even reduced to support businesses and employment.
“Of course I will be taking all these issues into account in preparing for this year’s Budget.”
Meanwhile, SIBA chairman Keith Bott said this year feels “more hopeful” than previous ones when it comes to prospect of ending the beer duty escalator.
Speaking at SIBA’s BeerX event in Sheffield, Bott said the campaign to end the beer duty escalator was the “best in all my time in this industry”. “The campaign, in which SIBA has been a partner along with the BBPA and CAMRA, has been incredibly effective in winning support from the public and from a growing number of MPs.
“All the stages in the campaign, from gathering 100,000 signatures to the petition, to getting the debate that we wanted in the House of Commons, have been the result of hard work by everyone involved, including SIBA brewers, whose relationships with their local MPs has been a huge benefit.
“The number of MPs who are now voicing support for the escalator to stop is impressive and we can only hope that their views are being heard by the Treasury.
“After many years of meeting Treasury officials and preparing Budget submissions, and lobbying for some movement on beer duty, this year feels more hopeful than any previous ones.
“The point about escalators is that at some point you have to get off them, and if we don’t get off now, we’ll have lost our industry. We hope the Treasury has realised this as well and that next Wednesday we’ll have some good news that we can all raise a glass to.”
