Cheap beer in British Pubs: “Is there a General Election election looming?” asks Gary Cartwright

That great institution, the British pub, receives a further boost from today as a six-month alcohol duty freeze to 1st August 2024 takes effect, a UK government release tells us today.

Drinkers, whether they buy in pubs or supermarkets, will indeed be saving money insofar as alcohol duty is not being increased – at least not until August – so they are only saving on what they would be paying had taxes been increased. Which they haven’t. Not yet.

It’s what is known as “government by headline”.

The all important bottom line is that drinkers will save 3p to the duty on a typical pint of beer, 2p on a pint of cider, 4p on a glass of whisky, or 18p on a bottle of wine, compared to what they would have paid had the price been increased by those amounts.

Purely by coincidence, I am sure, the time-span of this duty freeze appears to roughly coincide with the run-up the next General Election.

“Give them bread and circus,” – Josef Stalin.

In Stalin’s time such acts of generosity generally came in the run-up to the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Prior to the 47th anniversary, so lavish were the gifts bestowed on the proletariat that wheat was made available to them for the first time in a year (although this was not so great for the Kazakhs – it was their wheat that the Russians were buying.)

There were even rumours circulating in Moscow at the time that the price of vodka would be slashed by 30%, something probably about as likely to occur as cheap beer in British pubs!

The future of the British pub: “Last orders at the bar!”

The number of pubs closing in England and Wales rose sharply in the first half of 2023, prompting warnings that looming tax rises could force more venues to shut for good.

A total of 383 pubs closed during the first six months of the year.

An average of 51 pubs a month were lost during the first quarter of the year, rising to around 77 a month between April and June.

In total 509 pubs across the UK called “last orders” and closed their doors for good, according to the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA).

Any short term benefit to the hospitality sector from out-going Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s short-term delay in an inevitable duty increase will likely be wiped out by a forthcoming significant rise in business rates this year.

“With energy costs up 80% year-on-year in a low-growth, high-inflation and high-interest-rate environment, the last thing pubs need is an average business rates hike of £12,385 next year,” warned Alex Probyn, president of property tax at Altus Group.

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Image: By Matt Pearson – Flickr: The Queen Vic, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19190761

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