Budget 2009: MPs say 'no' to beer tax hike
Chancellor Alistair Darling will be acting against the majority of MPs if he increases the tax on beer in next week's budget, according to a poll published today.
Fifty-nine per cent of MPs want the Treasury to axe its plans to raise beer tax, a survey by Axe the Beer Tax - Save the Pub campaign, spearheaded by the British Beer and Pub Association and the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), found.
Mike Benner, chief executive of CAMRA, said: "It is clear that the majority of MPs are in the same place as the majority of consumers - they don't want further damage done to pubs by further tax increases.
"We are not asking for special favours, only for a reprieve from an unnecessary and unjustifiable tax rise."
The last rise of 17.8 per cent came in November 2008 and the tax on beer is currently at 33 per cent.
The organisation hopes to give a boost to the faltering pub industry by preventing the tax hike.
Britain's pubs and brewers directly employ 600,000 people and support a further 550,000 jobs. The sector generates £28 billion in economic activity.
According to Oxford Economics, 59,000 jobs are projected to be lost across the sector in the next five years in addition to the 20,000 jobs that were cut in last year.
Jonathan Neame, chief executive of brewer Shepherd Neame, said: "The case for beer tax increases - which we always contested - has been swept away by the recession. The beer and pubs trade has suffered one of its worst years ever."
Total beer sales in pubs are now at their lowest level since the Great Depression of the 1930s - despite a 36 per cent increase in the UK population.
In addition, an unprecedented 2,000 pubs have in the last 12 months - and average of six each day.
Mr Benner said: "The chancellor needs to recognise the scale of the threat to the traditional pub as more and more close with every month of recession."
The poll also revealed 61 per cent of MPs want government action to support the pub as part of local communities.
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