Petition to government re: Small Brewers Relief

The Treasury has announced changes to Small Brewers Relief (SBR) – the progressive tax system that has revolutionised UK brewing. These changes will reduce the 50% duty threshold from 5,000hl to 2,100hl: small breweries will have to pay more duty, whilst larger breweries could pay the same or less.

The amount of extra revenue this may raise will be a pittance initially and is likely to dwindle to nothing as currently successful businesses close down. So much for joined-up thinking in government. 

► Please sign here.

Real ale 'isn't dear enough' and it's all our fault!

The root of all evil? The Sir Henry
Segrave, a Wetherspoons in Southport

A couple of months ago I picked up the summer issue of Ale Cry, the magazine of the CAMRA Central Lancs Branch. It's an interesting mag, and its layout and presentation are much better than a few years ago when, although the articles were okay, it looked like a badly-produced college rag mag. One article grabbed my attention, 'The Price Of Your Pint Revisited', written by the editor Adrian Smith - you can read the article concerned here (on page 22).

The general thrust of the article is that we drinkers are reluctant to pay what he considers a fair price for real ale with the consequence that real ale may be "dumbed down" to save costs, or discontinued altogether. He makes some international comparisons, but comparing our beer prices with those in other countries is of little value unless you also compare average incomes, taxation levels, duty, and indeed all the many other factors that affect what we British drinkers pay.

He also has some scathing words for Wetherspoons and the vouchers that they give to CAMRA members, describing this membership benefit as CAMRA encouraging members to visit JDW pubs at the expense of traditional pubs, even though it is actually funded by Wetherspoons, not CAMRA. The value of the vouchers, £20 per year, equates to 39p per CAMRA member per week, not an amount, I would suggest, that would drive traditional pubs to close, especially as 99.7% of the UK population are not CAMRA members.

Many organisations have benefits for members provided by outside businesses; indeed, some of the membership benefits I am entitled to claim, in addition to those via CAMRA, come through my trade union, the National Trust, my railcard, my car breakdown service and even my folk club. Furthermore, there are 17 other companies that offer perks to CAMRA members, some of them in the beer and hospitality industries - but there's not a word in Ale Cry bemoaning any of those. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to stop any other pubco making similar offers.

At this point I wondered whether I was beginning to detect the anti-Wetherspoons snobbery that, regrettably, some CAMRA members are prone to, a perception reinforced by a statement in the Ale Cry article that, "Real ale on sale at £2.09 a pint is frankly ridiculous". Why? Wetherspoons are making a profit, so if they can afford to sell beer at such a price, why shouldn't they? Perhaps it's the perception of the clientele that Wetherspoons' prices are said to attract: people on benefits, parents with screaming brats running wild and pensioners drooling into their cheap meals, all of which shameful slanders - and more - I have read too many times (although not in the Ale Cry article). I consider such generalisations about Wetherspoons clientele both inaccurate and disrespectful.

CAMRA says that avoiding isolation by going to the pub is a good thing, but without Wetherspoons, many people on low incomes could rarely, if ever, afford to go out for a pint; they would certainly have no chance of paying the price for real ale that Adrian Smith thinks they should.

I've written before about the price of beer, most recently in June 2018 here. One point I have made several times is that in 1972, a pint of bitter here in the north west was around 13p or 14p. Using the Bank of England inflation calculator, I learned that 14p back then is equivalent to £1.82 in 2018. In recent years, and especially since 2010, ordinary people's incomes have definitely not increased correspondingly. In real terms, beer is nowadays markedly dearer while many people's incomes are lower. It's logical to assume this is a significant reason why drinkers are reluctant to pay more for real ale, but the Ale Cry article makes no mention if it.

A list of factors affecting pub usage, the level of beer prices in pubs and what people can afford would include (in no particular order):

• Beer taxes that over the years have risen by more than the rate of inflation, and which are among the highest in Europe.
• Excessive business rates (which, incidentally, are set by Whitehall, not councils).
• Pub companies overcharging their tenants for rent, supplies (including all drinks) and building maintenance.
• Rising costs for brewers (e.g. raw materials) and pubs (e.g. utility bills).
• Falling beer sales overall.
• Changes in drinking habits, with many young people preferring go to bars and clubs rather than traditional pubs.
• More choices of places to drink, such as bars, restaurants, hotels and clubs.
• Cheap drink in supermarkets.
• Sophisticated home entertainment systems.
• Austerity, leaving people with less cash and either unemployed or worried they might be.
• The increase in insecure employment, zero hours contracts, and minimum wage jobs.
• The smoking ban.

In the face of all this, it seems perverse and facile to criticise the drinker, and I am surprised that the editor of a drinkers' campaigning magazine does so. I did e-mail him a couple of months ago making some of these points but received no reply.

► For information, the Wetherspoons voucher scheme is currently being replaced.

Killing the goose that lays the golden eggs

The Office of National Statistics states that the average price of a pint of draught bitter in 1988 was 91p and that 30 years later in 2018 it was £3.06. We all expect prices to rise, but according to the Bank of England inflation calculator, 91p in 1988 is equivalent to £2.39 in 2018. If inflation had been the only pressure on beer prices, that's what we'd be paying nowadays.

A year ago, YouGov conducted a survey with more than 40,000 respondents and found that beer was on average around 60p dearer than what drinkers considered reasonable. This means that, not just that beer is dearer in real terms, but drinkers feel they are being overcharged for it. How did this come about?

When the big brewers sold off their huge pub estates, most were bought by pub companies, who financed their purchases by mortgaging their newly-acquired properties. The 2007 financial crash then put most pubcos into massive debt; they are however too big to fail or they'd take the lenders down with them. To service these debts, pubcos charge very high rents for pub tenancies and insist the tenants buy their supplies through them, adding mark-ups that can be as much as 100% - just for passing on the order.

Then it was the government's turn. Beer duty has during this period been pushed up by much more than inflation, notwithstanding the odd duty freeze now and then. In addition, business rates, also set by central government, are disproportionately high when compared to other businesses with comparable turnovers. Talk about killing the goose that laid the golden eggs: if pubs are driven to close, they pay no duty or rates at all.

If you ever feel your pint is dearer nowadays in real terms, you're quite correct!

This is from an article I wrote for the CAMRA column in our local papers, the Southport Visiter and Ormskirk Advertiser. Some previous write-ups are here.

Debating the future of pubs

An important debate is taking place in Parliament this Thursday, 7 February, in which MPs will be discussing the issues affecting beer and pubs and their valuable contribution to our society, economy and culture. MPs must stand up for the diminishing number of places in their constituencies where ordinary people can enter free of charge, meet their friends or make new ones, celebrate special events, watch sport, play darts, listen to music, have a meal prepared on the premises, or even just enjoy their own company – not forgetting, of course, savouring a pint of British real ale.

Following on from CAMRA's well-supported lobby of Parliament last October, members all over the country have recently been e-mailing their MPs about today's debate with the following demands:

• A preferential rate of duty on beer sold in pubs.
• Full reform of business rates to fix the unfair amount that pubs pay.
• Reforming the Pubs Code so that tenants get a fair deal. 

Let's hope enough MPs have got the message!

••••••••••••••••••••••••

Tax freezes on alcohol that CAMRA has been vigorously calling for came into effect last week on 1 February. Duty on beer, cider and spirits was frozen in the 2018 Autumn Budget. Duty on wine was left to rise with inflation and a higher rate was imposed upon 'white ciders'. The Treasury claims that a standard pint of beer is now 14p cheaper than if taxes had risen in line with inflation.

It's a welcome measure, not only because it helps protect the great British pub and pint, but also because it has saved at least 3,000 jobs that would have been lost if duty had gone up, according to an estimate by the British Beer and Pub Association.

CAMRA's manifesto

The governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has stated that, as a consequence of leaving the EU, it's probable that people's spending power will decline in real terms as inflation rises and real wages fall. Logically, people will have less spare cash to spend in the pub.

CAMRA is asking candidates to pledge that the pub and beer industry be protected and promoted throughout the Leave negotiations, and suggests extending duty cuts on lower strength beers, and reducing duty charged on beer sold in pubs and clubs. CAMRA is also urging our negotiators to ensure that any potential adverse effects on pubs and breweries are avoided during EU exit negotiations.

Personally I think they are whistling in the wind, and if Mark Carney is correct, you don't have to be Mystic Meg to predict that pubs are going to have a difficult time in the near future.

Colin Valentine, CAMRA's National Chair has suggested that the General Election and upcoming negotiations to leave the EU will give us a unique chance to change some of the tax rules that have significantly increased the price of a pint in the pub, but I see no political will to introduce the measures that would be required. Furthermore, the negotiations will cover a multitude of issues, and pubs and beer will be nowhere near the top of the list, assuming they feature on it at all.

Still you can't blame a campaign for trying, and CAMRA has prepared an on-line tool where any member of the public, not just members, can lobby their local candidates to pledge support for pubs, and also where all candidates can commit themselves to the pledge. The link for both voters and candidates is here. CAMRA's General Election manifesto can be seen and downloaded here.

P.S. 16.5.17: I've just heard on BBC Radio news that prices are now rising faster than wages. It looks as though Mr Carney got it right.

A penny for the pub, mister?

With the Chancellor's Budget less than a month away, CAMRA is campaigning to keep the price of the British pint down by calling on the Treasury to reduce beer duty by 1p ahead of the Budget on the 8 March. With higher inflation expected in the next year (it rose to 1.8% last month), the cut will help to cap the price of beer and benefit the pubs and brewing sector.

Although in recent years there have been three 1p cuts and one freeze in beer duty, British drinkers still pay among the highest rate in Europe at 52.2p per pint, compared to other big brewing nations such as Germany and Spain, where duty is less than 5p a pint.

The three cuts have been good news for drinkers, pubs and the Treasury, helping to limit price rises and protect the beer, brewing and pubs sector which supports nearly 900,000 jobs and contributes £23.6bn to the economy every year.

As Southport MP John Pugh has pointed out, pubs are economically important locally. He cites statistics published by Oxford Economics last year demonstrating that Southport’s 54 pubs directly or indirectly support 1,184 jobs across the pub and brewing industry, and contribute £25 million to the local economy.

In a further effort to help pubs, CAMRA is calling for a reduction of up to £5000 in business rates for pubs in England which would allow pub owners to reinvest the additional funds back into the business.

Colin Valentine, CAMRA's National Chair says: "Previous cuts to beer duty have benefited beer drinkers and supported significant growth in the brewing industry. However, we as a nation are still paying a notable amount - especially in comparison to our European neighbours. At the same time, pubs are confronted with higher taxation and cost … We are simply calling for fairer measures for beer drinkers and publicans." 

This is an article I recently wrote for the CAMRA column in our local paper, the Southport Visiter.

EU-nough to make you weep into your beer

The Guardian reports that "Heineken and Carlsberg follow makers of Carling and Budweiser in hiking cost of their beers in face of weak pound". Apparently our tumbling pound is putting pressure on prices on items as disparate as food, toys, and beer.

The British Beer and Pubs Association (BBPA) has said that the depreciation of sterling will lead to inflation, pointing out that "higher inflation will also lead to higher levels of indexation for taxes like beer duty, creating a vicious circle when it comes to cost pressures, which is why we are urging the chancellor to cut beer duty on a pint by one penny in the budget." Well, no harm in asking.

As drivers will already know to their cost, the price of fuel has noticeably increased recently. This is mainly because it is priced in dollars, against which the pound has fallen 18% since the EU vote. Smaller brewers tend to move beer in much smaller quantities than the mass brewers, so rising fuel prices will have a disproportionate effect upon their transport costs. Either the prices of their products will have to increase, or they'll go under. In reality, I think we can expect more small brewery closures.

Oh well: at least it's a relief to have taken back control, isn't it?

Every pint has its price

I was interested to read that the difference in the average price of beer between the cheapest part of the country (Herefordshire) and the dearest (London) is now 87p, according to this year's Good Pub Guide. I appreciate that these are averages, but my own experience of price differences this year is £2.30; one pub was in Southport, one in London, and neither was a Wetherspoons.

Periodically I have seen some people writing that beer is still too cheap. I've commented before that it's all very well for certain beer bloggers who want beer drinking to be more exclusive, but why should those of us who aren't wealthy be priced out of beer drinking just to stroke their egos? In their dream beer world, so few could afford a pint that most of the brewery industry would be obliterated. In reality, prices over the last few decades have gone up at approximately double the rate of inflation, and have also significantly outstripped the increase in disposable incomes, so it's hardly too cheap.

Paul Wigham of pub group All Our Bars and Tim Bird of the Cheshire Cat Pub Company have both criticised routine price rises by big brewers, arguing that duty has been cut, grain and barley prices have halved in the last four years, fuel is cheaper than it has been for years, thus bringing down delivery costs, and there's very little inflation. These are valid criticisms, but even so Diageo and Molson Coors have announced they're putting their prices up, although Greene King have said they're not. Price doesn't always equate to value, and in the beer world I can't think of many companies where the gap between the two is greater than in the international brewing conglomerates.

I suspect these increases are not due to costs, but because they are pushing to the limits of what they think the market can bear. With overall sales of alcohol, beer included, in decline and pubs closing every week, such an approach seems distinctly short-sighted in UK terms. But what do they care when the merged AB InBev and Molson Coors will soon have one third of the world's beer production stitched up?

51% of beer now sold in shops

For the first time ever, more beer (51%) is sold in shops than in pubs. The British Beer and Pub Association puts most of the blame on the beer duty escalator, pointing out that, despite recent cuts, duty is 54% higher than it was in 2000, and is 14 times the German rate. In 1980, 87.7% of UK beer sales were in pubs, a figure that has declined ever since.

While I don't disagree with this point, there is another reason that I haven't seen mentioned: in 1980, supermarkets didn't sell alcohol alongside the baked beans. I well recall the massive fuss when a supermarket in Southport applied for an off-sales licence; I cannot remember the year, but it was well after 1980. The licence was granted but with restrictions that seem odd today, including that it had to be in an entirely separate room with its own till, and that alcohol could not be paid for at any other till in the shop. I'm not quite sure, but I think that there might even have been a stipulation that any alcohol bought in the off licence section could not be carried unwrapped in the rest of the supermarket. As we all know, drink is now stocked in the normal aisles and paid for like everything else.

The difference between having a separate shop within a shop and the current situation is that it allows for impulse purchases; it also removes the implication that alcohol sales are something slightly shameful to be hidden away. Buying alcohol with your everyday groceries has now become completely normal. In recent years the number of convenience stores with an off-sales licence, many run by the big supermarket chains, has multiplied, resulting in a further increase in the number shops that sell alcohol. Ironically, quite a few of these are in former pubs.

All of this has encouraged a huge expansion in off-sales, a tendency that the duty escalator added to, but did not create. Cutting duty would certainly help pubs, but it couldn't significantly reverse the tendency to drink at home: the decline in pub use is due to many factors, of which duty is one, that have been covered extensively elsewhere*.

It's also worth noting that making alcohol so much easier to buy has one entirely foreseeable consequence which - oddly enough - no one seemed to foresee: that it would also make under-age purchases easier. In this way do we unwittingly create new causes for moral panic.

* My own list of suggestions for the decline is here.

Smallest decline in beer sales for years

According to the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA), beer sales in the first quarter of 2016 showed the smallest decline (1%) since 2008, compared with the same quarter last year. Off-sales dropped more at 1.8%, than on-sales at 0.2%. For pubs, this is the smallest drop in the first quarter since 2002. The BBPA credit the three duty cuts followed by a duty freeze since 2013. In comparison, the notorious duty escalator increased tax on beer by 42% between 2008 and 2013, and the UK remains one of the most highly taxed beer markets in the EU.

As I see it, the danger is that if beer sales do stabilise, the government will begin to consider the industry can bear new tax increases, and there can be little doubt that fake charity, Alcohol Concern, will be pressing for this. I'm sceptical enough to think that the probable reason for the three cuts and the freeze in beer duty was because the government realised it was killing the cash cow. I hope I'm wrong in thinking that beer tax might be increased if our rulers decide pubs and beer sales can take it. We'll see, but in the meantime, this is better news than pubgoers have had for some time.

Liars, damned liars, and health campaigners

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain, who attributed it to Benjamin Disraeli. The point has never been that statistics are inherently bad: it's that their value depends how you compile them, what you include, what you leave out, and whether you have cited them in an appropriate context.

So it is with the cost of alcohol use to the government in England, including the NHS, the police, the criminal justice system and the welfare system. The Institute of Economic Affairs is a think tank that promotes free market economics; it has recently issued a discussion paper called Alcohol and the Public Purse. The IEA is not a source I'd normally quote, but it is undeniably influential and, as far as I know, not known for any bias concerning alcohol per se either way. Its author is Christopher Snowdon, a libertarian opponent of state intervention in matters such as alcohol, smoking and obesity.

The report runs to more than 40 pages, but some of its conclusions include:

• The £20 billion cost of alcohol use to the UK quoted by public health campaigners is "extremely misleading, conflating social and economic costs (most of which are paid by individuals and businesses) with the costs to government departments (the cost to the taxpayer)".
• "The best estimate of the gross annual cost of alcohol consumption to state-run services, including the Department of Health, the Department of Work and Pensions, and the Home Office, is £3.9 billion in 2015 prices. This consists £1,954 million to treat alcohol-related injuries and ill health, £1,626 million to tackle alcohol-related crime, and £289 million paid in benefits to those who are unable to work as a result of alcohol-related mental or physical health problems."
• The IEA has previously said UK alcohol duties should be halved to make them less regressive and bring them closer to duties elsewhere in Europe. This would raise a total of £5,206 million, more if sales went up as a result. Even if they didn't, government income would comfortably exceed government expenditure on alcohol-related problems. 

Cutting duties isn't so unrealistic as it sounds, seeing that UK drinkers still pay 40% of the EU's entire alcohol tax bill, but we'd have to accept that it is politically improbable at present. 

You can find the full report here.

Marcus Jones - new pubs minister

I don't put much faith in government pubs ministers. I'm sure I'm not the only person who is sick of politicians declaring their undying love of what they usually describe as that great British institution, the British pub - particularly galling from governments that operated the beer duty escalator.

Marcus Jones was appointed to the role of pubs minister a couple of weeks ago. He was also given the high street brief, and I suppose I can see some logic there. The best town centre streets are those with a varied selection of shops interspersed with cafés, restaurants and pubs, making them lively and safer places from early morning until late at night, unlike some shop-only streets that are sad, deserted places after 6.00 pm, such as Chapel Street here in Southport.

He recently said in a speech: “I want to be a proactive minister who really supports pubs. I want to get around the country, I want to talk to people and listen to their views on what’s needed to save the great British pub. I’m always very keen to get involved in the industry and support events.”

Fine words, but will he be any different?

He worked part-time in a pub for 10 years, so he'll understand that most pub-goers are a cross section of society who generally behave in a perfectly civilised manner. He helped secure a debate on the beer duty escalator in 2013, and said in the Commons: "From my postbag, I know that popping down the local for a pint is becoming more and more expensive and out of reach for many of my constituents. Incomes have been squeezed over the past five years or so, and the cost of a pint has become more and more unaffordable. Beer is fast heading towards being a luxury item."

Titanic Brewery have welcomed his appointment, saying that if they were to ask for one thing, it would be stability because of the number of changes imposed upon the industry - it now just needs the chance to get on with the business of brewing and selling beer.

So it's not sounding too bad, although it is extremely early days. He is of course a Tory, but that shouldn't really make a difference. Traditionally, the big old brewers were staunch supporters of the Conservative Party; more recently it's not political ideology but surrender to the propaganda of the anti-alcohol brigade that has led to governmental attacks upon the pub and brewing industry. The nanny statists of "New" Labour who introduced the escalator were little better, and their ludicrous music licensing laws, scrapped by the Coalition, were a serious impediment to local live music of all kinds.

Breweries and pubs are capitalist companies that provide a lot of employment and it should be natural for a Tory government to support them or, at the very least, not attack them. I'm not holding my breath on that one, not least because of the completely disproportionate hysteria that greeted the three cuts of a penny in beer duty during the last government: those people are not going away. In the real world - as opposed to the microcosm of political dogma - pubs and brewing are not, and should not be, subject to partisan politics.

Politically, Marcus Jones and I are miles apart: for example, his record includes voting against gay equality rights four times and for the repeal of the Human Rights Act. Despite all that, if he does this job well, I'll happily give him the credit that is due.

Ten facts about Marcus Jones.

A crumb of comfort

CAMRA's pop-up bar at the
Labour Party conference in Manchester

Ed Miliband made his keynote speech to the Labour Party conference yesterday and received the mandatory standing ovation. Talking about proposals for funding the NHS, he specifically referred to increases in taxes for tobacco companies, and the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) has taken some comfort in the fact that he didn't mention any increases in alcohol duty or other taxes on the beer industry. The chief executive of the BBPA, Brigid Simmonds, welcomed this omission from the speech, even though the failure to announce a policy cannot really be construed as some kind of manifesto commitment.

Personally, I think it is far too early to draw any conclusions about what Labour will do about beer duty if elected next year. It was, after all, the Labour government that introduced the extremely damaging beer duty escalator in 2008. Considering that dismal record, I can't help concluding that the BBPA is clutching at straws.

Having said that, I do know that CAMRA has a stall at the conference, as you can see in the photograph. Let's hope it's having a positive effect.

Picture pinched from Graham Donning's Facebook page - thanks, Graham.

Have we won the real ale war?

"The battle for real ale has been won. We must now turn our attentions to saving our pubs!" says CAMRA's Greater London regional director, reported by Geraldine Rolfe in What's Brewing, the campaign's newspaper. It's an interesting thought, but is it true?

It is true that we have a highest percentage of pubs selling real ale in decades, and that the range of real ales available in most localities is greater than at any time since the rise of the big brewing companies. I know individual pubs that have a greater range of real ales than some towns did in the 1970s. Despite all that, I am not convinced by the Greater London regional director's assertion.

Firstly, real ale and pubs are inextricably entwined. You can't have the first without the second. I know there are bottled real ales, but they constitute a very small percentage of total real ale sales. It's obvious, therefore, that a threat to pubs is a threat to real ale.

Secondly, there are communities where the only significant real ale provision is in Wetherspoons. Such communities are not enjoying the benefits of winning the battle for real ale.

Thirdly, it is a naïve campaigner who assumes that a victory, once achieved, can be treated as being in the bag and therefore no longer in need of attention.

Pinning our hopes of saving pubs by getting planning regulations tightened up is to miss several points. While there are a few exceptions, most pubs that are converted to other uses were not previously thriving. Why not? I wrote three years ago:

In no particular order, the causes of problems for pubs include:

• Beer taxes rising by more than the rate of inflation. 
• Pub companies overcharging their tenants for rent and supplies (including drinks).
• Falling beer sales overall (except for real ale ~ just).
• Cut-price drink in supermarkets.
• Sophisticated home entertainment systems.
• Changes in drinking habits, with young people increasingly going to their preferred bars and clubs, and less to what they call “old men’s” pubs.
• More choices of places to drink, such as bars, restaurants, hotels and clubs.
• The recession, leaving people with less cash and either unemployed or worried they might be.
• Rising costs for brewers (e.g. raw materials) and pubs (e.g. utility bills).
• The smoking ban.
• Tougher drink-drive enforcement.* 

* By this, I really meant the increasing pressure against driving within the legal limit.

To these I'd now add: 

• Pub companies deliberately running pubs down to the point when they become unviable. Most people don't want to sit in a dingy pub that hasn't seen a lick of paint this millennium.
• Draconian under-age drinking laws, resulting in the next generation of drinkers developing drinking habits unlinked to pubs.

Even if CAMRA achieved exactly what it wanted with planning regulations, none of these factors would be addressed. Changing the planning regulations is not the cure, in the same way that the 2p cut in beer duty has not, as far as I can see, saved a single pub. If pubs aren't safe, neither is real ale.

No gains can be taken for granted. Most people have a lot less disposable income than they did four years ago and alcohol consumption is in decline. If the government decided to introduce an adverse change to beer taxation, perhaps even a reduction or abolition of Progressive Beer Duty, many micro-brewers would close. It's not impossible that anti-alcohol campaigners could gain even more influence on government policy. The corrosive effects of all the factors I've listed above may become more pronounced. 

My aim with this post has been to explain why I believe real ale's apparently healthy situation is more precarious than it looks and that it wouldn't take much to send it into decline. It's certainly true that the current proliferation of micro-breweries cannot be maintained if the outlets for their products continue to close. At some point, the latter will impact upon the former. Overall, I do not share the complacency of CAMRA's Greater London regional director. CAMRA should stop finding a "Reason of the Month" for pub decline and take a more holistic view if it doesn't wish to look like it is clutching at straws when determining campaigning priorities.

MPs take the soft option

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Alcohol Misuse has come out with a document calling on all political parties to commit themselves to 10 measures to minimise alcohol-related harm in the UK. Such documents have no formal standing and merely represent the views of the members of the group, which itself has no formal status, but is simply a collection of politicians who have an interest in the topic. Alcohol Concern, the fake, publicly-funded charity, also has its name prominently displayed on the cover. This publication is intended to influence the content of party manifestos for next year's general election.

I've reproduced the exact wording of the recommendations below but there is nothing new here, particularly the calls for minimum pricing, strengthening regulation of alcohol marketing, health warnings on labels, and lowering the drink-driving limit (the links are to older posts on the subject concerned).

As I've previously written on some of the individual recommendations, I won't cover old ground again, but it is worth noting that it has just been announced that drink-drive deaths are at their lowest since records began, under-age drinking is also at its lowest since records began and alcohol consumption in general is at its lowest level for decades. So how do those facts, based on government statements, sit with the report's assertion that "alcohol abuse has become a national pandemic and needs to be treated as such"? It's sounding more like a bunch of busybodies with an agenda rather than a sober assessment of the situation. Further evidence of this is in the introduction which cheerily says: "We want to be clear that this manifesto is not designed to end or curtail people’s enjoyment of alcohol". When they have to make that point clear, I tend to assume that that is precisely what they have in mind.

With MPs paid £66,000 per year, and ministers more than £100,000, I do wonder why our legislators are wasting time doing no more than rehashing familiar recommendations that have previously been published many times over the years. Although, to be fair, it often seems that repeating themselves is the stock-in-trade of our MPs.

In contrast, just 11 MPs (1.7% of the total) bothered to turn up on 17 July for a debate about the provision of education for children with autism. Such a debate would require concentration, knowledge and thought, whereas cobbling together a report consisting of ideas that have frequently been regurgitated in the past is probably a fairly effortless way of passing time while apparently doing something worthy. I wonder whether the legislative busybodies adjourned to one of the many subsidised Palace of Westminster bars when their onerous task was complete?

The recommendations are:

1. Make reducing alcohol harms the responsibility of a single government minister with clear accountability. 
2. Introduce a minimum unit price for alcoholic drinks. 
3. Introduce public health as a fifth licensing objective, enabling local authorities to make licensing decisions based on local population health need and the density of existing outlets. 
4. Strengthen regulation of alcohol marketing to protect children and young people. 
5. Increase funding for treatment and raise access levels from 6% to 15% of problem drinkers. 
6. Commissioners should prioritise the delivery of identification and brief advice identification and brief advice should be delivered in a wide range of different settings including health care, involving GPs routinely asking questions, and in-workplace programmes. 
7. Include a health warning on all alcohol labels and deliver a government-funded national public awareness campaign on alcohol-related health issues. 
8. For all social workers, midwives and healthcare professionals, introduce mandatory training on parental substance misuse, foetal alcohol syndrome disorder and alcohol-related domestic violence. 
9. Reduce the blood alcohol limit for driving in England and Wales to 50mg/100ml, starting with drivers under the age of 21. 
10. Introduce the widespread use of sobriety orders to break the cycle of alcohol and crime, antisocial behaviour and domestic violence.

Statutory code - a massive diversion?

I made clear on 5 June my reservations about Government plans for a Pubs Adjudicator and Statutory Code. I wasn't coming over all Private Frazer - "We're all doomed!" - but was expressing caution in contrast to CAMRA's unalloyed, and in my view uncritical, joy concerning the proposals. As I said previously, I hope CAMRA's optimism is right, but I remain doubtful.

"He would, wouldn't he?"

Peter Furness-Smith, the managing director of McMullens brewery, has also expressed serious doubts about the proposals, which he suggests would make the pub owners responsible for business risks that are normally the responsibility of the tenant. If the government decides to increase, for example, business rates, VAT, duty, employment or regulatory costs, they would become the responsibility of the pub owner as they are "outside the tenants' control" . He further states that this could apply even to an increase in, say, fuel costs; the tenant could negotiate his rent downwards, thus passing the cost the owner. I'm fully aware that what he says could be interpreted as a predictable Mandy Rice-Davies response, but that doesn't mean we can glibly dismiss his opinions.

His further points include:

• Government costs for pubs, including tax, amount to more than 40% of sales.
• Even after recent duty reductions, a small community pub contributes to government coffers five times its profits.
• For pubs to thrive, the high levels of taxation and bureaucracy need to be reduced.

The more I think about, the more I'm concluding that the adjudicator and statutory code represent the government putting the blame for all the woes of the pub industry onto the pub owners. McMullens is a brewery with a tied estate and so doesn't really come into the same rapacious category as pub companies (pubcos) such as Punch and Enterprise. As I've written before, the government and the big pubcos share the bulk of the responsibility for the problems pubs are facing.

So, some final questions:

• Why a statutory code when in all other areas of industry, business and finance the government prefers voluntary codes to statutory "burdens on business"? In other words, why is this particular sector singled out for special treatment?
• By getting CAMRA all delirious about an attack on the pubcos, have the government created a massive diversion away from their own responsibility for pub decline? 
• And is CAMRA therefore inadvertently letting the government off the hook?

Beer, debt and morality

It's funny how some things unaccountably stick in your head. I can remember some of the prices in our student bar when I arrived at Padgate College near Warrington in 1972:

• Mild 11p a pint.
• Bitter 13p a pint. 

Lager and Guinness were 15p and 18p, but I don't remember which was which. The fact that I recall them may reflect my priorities at the time (and ever since, some might say, citing this blog in evidence). Our college bar was cheap, but only at the level of the cheaper public bars* in the area - not cheaper. Using the Bank of England Inflation Calculator, these are the adjusted prices today if beer had increased only at the rate of inflation.

• Mild £1.27 a pint.
• Bitter £1.50 a pint.

As these are what you'd pay for a half in most pubs here in the North West, it's obvious that the price of beer has increased at roughly double the rate of inflation since the early 1970s. I don't blame the brewers for this and we know from the rate of pub closures that it's not the licensees raking it in, so perhaps we need to look to the government and the pubcos for an explanation. Some evidence in support of this is the fact that brewery-owned pub chains, where they still exist, can be significantly cheaper than pubcos.

My objection to the pubco industry is that it is a business that rewards failure, something that should stick in the throat of everyone who believes in a free market economy. Rack up the charges to the tenants, who have to pass much of that on to the customer, and if the pub survives, you have a nice little earner to help pay off the ridiculous crippling debts with which pubcos are burdened (no tears here - they brought it on themselves), and if it fails, you can cash in by selling the property for redevelopment. Tenants theoretically own their own business, but they are tied to the pubco for supplies. Such a monopolistic situation inevitably leads to profiteering, rather like the company stores of old where employees of a company were paid partly in vouchers that could only be used at the company's own shop.

Notwithstanding the 2p reduction in beer duty in the last two budgets, our beer is still one of the most highly taxed in the EU. Politicians justify higher duty on both health and law and order grounds, although I don't recall any more mayhem and disorder on the streets in the 1970s than I see nowadays. My view is that taxation is a mechanism to pay for the costs of running the government: it should not be used as a form of social control, as it is with alcohol and cigarettes, because morality is a variable thing. What next? Heavy taxation on getting divorced to encourage families to stay together? Not as silly as it sounds: after all we have the married couple's tax allowance, an irrational bribe to stay together based on morality, not fiscal prudence. We all know that public schools get a tax break in the form of charity status, a situation based on ideology that defies any rational explanation. Unfortunately our society seems to heading in the direction of more and more of our life being dictated by politicians and lobbyists with a moral agenda. The concept of letting people do their own thing as long as you don't hurt others is being eroded by a subtle new puritanism that uses tax and bans rather than burning at the stake to impose its will.

There may be further beer tax cuts as Osborne tries to curry favour, but he is hitting stiff opposition from the anti-alcohol lobby with their predictable nonsense of "sending all the wrong messages". The only message I get when buy a pint is that it's expensive.

* Public bars - vanished along with 1970s prices.

Doing your duty

Seeing this breakdown of the cost of a £4.99 bottle of wine got me thinking about alcohol duty again. As you can see, it's not just us beer drinkers that are being ripped off by the government for tax and duty, and it's worth remembering that the notorious duty escalator still exists for all drinks other than beer.

When I've previously written about alcohol taxation, occasionally someone has commented that they'd prefer money to go to schools and hospitals (have you noticed it's always 'schools and hospitals'?) rather than towards cuts in alcohol duty. It seems a fair point, until you analyse it. Government expenditure is not a simple choice between alcohol duty and schools and hospitals: if the economy were as simple as that, we wouldn't be in our current mess. Despite the current high levels of alcohol duty, funding to schools and hospitals is declining anyway because of inflation, which calls into doubt any genuine link between the two. I'd also point out that there never seems any shortage of money to go to war, or to maintain and replace our weapons of mass destruction. I could go on, but I won't, as it's not really what ReARM is about.

Such simplistic arguments are the emotive stock in trade of any politicians who want to divert attention away from areas of government expenditure that they don't want us to scrutinise, so it's disappointing when ordinary voters show they've fallen for them by recycling the same nonsense. Despite the beer escalator victory, the UK still has one of highest levels of beer taxation in Europe. I get the impression the some people think we've achieved some kind of total victory, but we've merely won one battle. The chancellor giveth - the chancellor may take away again. I am certain that the issue can and will arise again.

When the levy breaks

Cartoon by Matt

There was a discussion today on Radio 4's You and Yours about the late night levy that councils are now permitted to impose upon pubs and clubs that stay open after midnight to help meet the costs of policing and clearing up after the night time economy, as they coyly called it. The charge cannot be selective: it has to be levied on all pubs and clubs in the area of the council concerned. Newcastle intends to introduce the levy in November, Islington next year and around 30 other councils are considering it. The money would be split, with the police getting 70% with no obligation to spend any of that money on policing the night time economy, and the council getting 30%.

The spokesperson from Islington was quite clear that it was the intention to encourage licensees to close at midnight, and he thought it fair that those who wished to stay open later should contribute a small amount towards the clearing up and policing costs. I decided to check how small the amount is: the amount payable is based on rateable value and ranges from £299 to £4440. A Home Office briefing paper about the levy, including the full range of amounts to be charged, is here.

I see several problems with this measure:

1. Much of the behavioural disorder that happens late at night is caused by pre-loading: drinkers who have bought their alcohol from off licences and supermarkets to drink at home, and who then finish off their drinking in licensed premises. The outlets where they bought their booze are not covered by the levy.
2. Following on from that, as licensed premises are not the exclusive cause of the problem, this measure cannot constitute a complete solution, which suggests that the aim is to make money from a problem rather than solve it. The fact that most pubs do not cause any mess or disorder at all but are still subject to the levy is evidence that this is a money-raising rather than an enforcement measure.
3. The levy will apply to all pubs that have a licence after midnight, even if they have never used it - quite a lot of pubs did apply for later licences that they didn't intend to use regularly so that, if they wanted an occasional extension, they didn't have the hassle of having to apply for one. Rather than give up a licence that they had to fight for in the past, they may instead decide to pay the levy and stay open later instead. Law of Unintended Consequences?
4. Increased costs will inevitably be passed on to the customer.
5. It is yet another tax on drinking in a country that, despite the ending of the duty escalator, still has one of the highest rates of beer tax in Europe.

Most pubs will not be affected by this measure - I think the only one in Southport would be Lloyds No. 1 - so real ale drinkers probably don't need to be too worried just yet, but I'm worried about the "foot in the door" effect: if taken up widely by cash-strapped councils, the policy will be declared a success. Who can be certain that the time limit might not then be moved from midnight to - say - 11.00pm? It would require no more than a simple adjustment to the Act - fine-tuning they'd call it - to bring most pubs within its scope.

Snouts in the beer trough

In March 2009, I wrote: "While ordinary pub-goers have to pay excessive amounts of tax in pubs - for our own good of course - it’s always our round when our politicians hit the ale", referring to the subsidy of £5.5 million of taxpayers’ money received by the House of Commons Refreshment Department in the 2007/8 financial year.

Well, four years and various expenses scandals later, I regret to report they're still at it. The subsidy for the House of Commons bars and restaurants was £4.9 million in the 2012/23 year; the equivalent figure for the Lords was £2.3 million, making a total of £7.2 million.

These are the same people who brought you the alcohol tax escalator and wanted to bring in minimum pricing because alcohol available to the plebs is too cheap and they can't be trusted to behave themselves or look after their health unless the nanny state directs their actions. And yet the arrest of Eric Joyce, MP for Falkirk, earlier this year after he headbutted a Tory MP in a parliamentary bar - his second such arrest and merely the latest in a series of incidents involving politicians - shows that the honourable members are not themselves capable of responsible drinking. After this incident, I tried to set up an e-petition to the government stating that, as they had removed bars from all public sector workplaces over the last few decades, the Palace of Westminster, as a public sector workplace, should be alcohol-free too. It was rejected.

Their utter hypocrisy is really quite staggering.