This article was first posted on Drinkuary.
Rejoice be glad the beer duty escalator has stopped and beer duty has been dropped by a penny!! Big whoop and it’s not even true despite the headlines. I hate to be the one to rain on the parade but the Daily Mash has it right the Chancellor has bought you for a penny.
Let’s have a quick look at the parade before the rain clouds open:
“Success for the TaxPayers’ Alliance MashBeerTax campaign with the scrapping of the beer duty escalator and a 1p cut in beer duty” – Tax Payers Alliance
“The campaign is won! The escalator is scrapped and duty cut by 1p! Well done to everyone involved a triumph for CAMRA members!” – CAMRA
“”absolutely brilliant news. By cutting the tax on beer, he has moved to boost jobs in Britain’s pubs at a time when it is most needed.” – Brigid Simmonds, chief executive of the British Beer & Pub Association
I’ve seen quite a few other comments and tweets along the same lines, but now let us look towards those clouds on the horizons.
Real Ale Up north celebrates but at least notes:
“A whopping 42% increase in beer duty since 2008, resulting in a one pound coin of the realm now being trousered in tax, for every £3 pint you sup!”
But still that’s all past and we must be heading towards the sun surely? Well from the Pub Curmudgeon it’s good news bad news I’m afraid:
“Osborne’s changes have also ended the strict proportionality of the different rates of beer duty that existed before, as the escalator has continued to be applied to the 25% addition for High Strength Beer Duty, and the duty on beers of 2.8% or under has been cut by 6%, not just 2%, so it is now less than half the standard duty. I can’t see that doing much to increase their appeal, as we’ve seen already that a tax break alone cannot create a demand for something for which there wasn’t one before.”
So what we actually have here is yet another Government “nudge”, weaker beer has been made cheaper, normal strength beer they’ve stopped the escalator and taken a whole penny off the price, but strong beer over 7.5% is still on that escalator, as is cider, wine and spirits. So Cider drinkers CAMRA and the TPA don’t give a stuff about you, strong beer Drinkers as far as CAMRA and the TPA are concerned you don’t matter either their battle has been won! Oh and that value for “High Strength Beer” that’s set by statutory instrument and there were over 3,000 of those passed last year, so that bar can be quietly lowered with no fanfare whenever they like as they may not even be voted on.
It does though I’m afraid get worse. Once we’ve all finished rejoicing, taken down our campaign websites, packed up the banners and gone home the EU may come along and gently remind our Government that they can’t treat beer and wine differently, so they may have to re-instate that escalator again much more quietly. I suppose they good defy the EU or take wine off the escalator or some such, but do you really thing that terribly likely?
Whilst I’m raining on everyone’s parade let me also ruin the rejoicign that minimum pricing may be scrapped. First off lets just remember that may there, would it be beyond our Government to leak that it may be scrapped, that Cameron is isolated and that it’s all going to go away, let us all stop paying attention then introduce it anyway? Even if they don’t do that, lets say they drop minimum pricing “hoorah” we all say? Well not so fast I’m afraid says I, the drinks industry, TPA and CAMRA may all have based their campaigns on minimum pricing but not here. Here we want the puritans to leave us alone so we’ve not forgotten the other proposals in that draft “consultation” they still want:
- To ban multibuy offers
- Make notional harm from drinking part of the consideration for licensing
- Reduce measures and limit promotions in pubs and clubs
Beyond that the usual suspects are suggesting plain packaging, larger health warnings and everything we’ve already seen happen to tobacco – so let’s not get too excited and complacent just because they may drop minimum pricing and have said they’ll take some beer off the escalator. If following all these excellent headlines the big campaign groups all pack up shop as they’ve “won” their campaigns I shall still be here doing what little I can about the rest of it, and if the rest of it comes to pass (possibly with tax rises to replace minimum pricing) well I told you so..
Just for the record, I’m not saying that CAMRA, TPA and Big Drinka and all the other blogegrs are going to pack up and go home, just well headlines like “we’ve won!” make me worry and campaigns focused at countering just a single line of attack would seem to leave the way open for the puritans to get everything else they want.
