Call to freeze tax on beer

Mark Summers takes an up-to-date look at what is happening to our ‘quintessentially English’ pubs.

IT is a fair bet that by teatime today there won’t be many drinkers raising a glass to toast Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling after he delivers his second Budget in the House of Commons.

In what is likely to be a painful budget, as the country starts paying the cost of bailing out the bankers for the spree that has wrecked the economy, drink will be in Mr Darling’s sights.

A year ago he put four pence on a pint of beer, 14p on a bottle of wine and 55p on a bottle of a whisky amid calls for action to tackle the country’s binge drinking crisis.

But he is being urged to give a boost to the country’s pub industry by abandoning the beer tax escalator, a calculation for levying increases, that would see the price of a pint rise by inflation plus two per cent for the next four years.

The pub, as quintessentially English as London buses and red telephone boxes, seems to be going through something of a crisis.

The British Beer and Pub Association, which represents the big brewers and pub companies, says that since March last year 2,200 pubs across the country have called time for good, at a cost of 20,000 jobs and £242m in lost revenue to the Government.

The rate of closures has increased rapidly, from 105 in 2005, 216 in 2006 and 1,409 in 2007, the year the ban on smoking in public buildings came into force. Beer sales are said to have fallen to their lowest level since the great depression of the Thirties.

There are various factors for the demise of so many pubs. The rise in the availability of cheap alcohol from supermarkets – many retail companies use drink as a loss leader – is one of the most often cited reasons and the increase in taxes on drinking over the years.

But in addition, the smoking ban has hit pubs that have no space to make an attractive area where smokers can light up.

Changing lifestyles and health awareness also play a part and the growth of more women-friendly venues in town and city centres that provide food during the day have hit the more local back street-type pubs.

The association and the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) are urging Mr Darling not to increase the taxes on beer, a campaign they say which has 70,000 supporters throughout the country and the backing of MPs of all parties.

Association chief executive David Long said: “Hitting pubs with a further tax rise at this difficult time can only undermine our towns and villages even more. If the Chancellor is trying to maximise tax revenues he will shoot himself in the foot by putting up beer taxes.

“Freezing beer duty will give pubs some of the breathing space they need to fight their way through this recession. If the Chancellor increases beer taxes as he said he planned to do last March, then he will condemn more pubs to close.”

Mike Benner, chief executive of Camra, said: “In addition to the 18 per cent increase in beer tax last year, the Government appears committed to punishing responsible pub-goers with a two per cent above inflation rise in beer tax in today’s Budget.

“A decision to abandon this insane, inflationbusting tax escalator and freeze beer tax are key remedies for preventing what has previously been described as a ‘bloodbath’ of pub closures across the land.”

Colin Shevills, director of Balance, the recently- established North-East Alcohol Office, based in Darlington, believes whatever increases the Chancellor levies will have little impact on binge drinking. The region’s heavy industry may be a thing of the past, but the boozy culture that went with it survives.

“Binge drinking remains a problem in the North-East as a whole,’’ says Mr Shevills. “If you look at the figures the 12 primary care trust areas are among the worst 20 in the country for binge drinking.

What is worth bearing in mind is that alcohol remains 50 per cent cheaper in real terms than it was 25 years ago. It is also much more available than it used to be and is much more ‘in our faces’.

“But there is a price to pay for all of us in terms of cheapness. You can see it in the binge drinking figures and the figures for people who end up in hospital, either through drink-related violence or individual health problems caused by their drinking.”

Mr Shevills said he believed rises in taxation would not have a great impact on the problem in the short term, but introducing a minimum price per unit of alcohol could help curb it.

The Scottish Parliament has produced plans for such a scheme, which has the support of the Government’s top medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, and could see the price of the favourite tipples of problem drinkers shoot up.

Mr Shevills said: “It would target those very strong bottles of white cider that are sold in off-licences for cheap prices and it would stop the loss leaders in supermarkets where cans of lager are about 22p a can.

“It would target the very cheap, very strong drinks that the people with problems tend to drink. It would also help our community pubs to compete on a fairer footing.”

Landlord John Taylor ran the Beamish Mary Inn pub at No Place, County Durham, for several years, winning a national award from Camra in the Nineties.

He now owns The Clarendon, in High Street East, Sunderland, next to the city’s docks, which he leases to Andy Stephenson.

The hostelry, reputed to be the city’s oldest, is also home to Mr Taylor’s Bull Lane brewery, which also supplies some other pubs. He is hoping that Mr Darling does not pile on the agony to a trade already suffering at the hands of supermarkets able to sell drink so cheaply.

Mr Taylor described the Clarendon as a traditional establishment that serves good beer at a low price and offers “good craic” and occasional live music. It does not have a pool table or a juke box.

But he recognises that lifestyles have changed and where once pubs were the hub of the community, particularly in urban working class areas, it is no longer necessarily the case.

Mr Taylor believes that in bygone years under-age drinkers encountered a restraining influence when they started drinking in pubs that is missing in the peer group of today’s bus shelter and street corner.