Brewer Brad calls for beer duty freeze

The owner of Lymestone Brewery has urged people in Stone to back calls for Chancellor George Osborne to freeze beer duty.

Ian ‘Brad’ Bradford has backed calls for the Chancellor to ditch the controversial beer duty escalator. A rise in duty in the Budget on March 21st would mean duty on beer will have risen by 42 per cent in just four years.

Brad said: “The escalator is scandalous. Before the 2010 election, David Cameron said he was going to save the British pub and so far he’s done nothing. It’s disgraceful that beer is portrayed as the problem. Beer’s not the evil one here. The Government needs to introduce minimum pricing to address the huge discrepancy between prices in pubs and supermarkets.

“Forty years ago my dad didn’t know anyone wealthy enough to drink spirits. You only saw people drinking spirits on the TV. Nowadays, you can buy lethal amounts of whisky and other spirits at supermarkets at cost price. If beer duty goes up again next week, wine and spirit duty will be comparatively cheaper. That can’t be right.”

Earlier this month, Keith Bott, the managing director of Titanic Brewery – which runs the Royal Exchange in Stone as one of its fleet of Staffordshire pubs, said: “With 300,000 young people employed in the industry it is clear that with the right policies in place, pubs could be an engine for growth and create new jobs for young people. The Government must now call time on this unfair policy which is destroying jobs in a traditional British industry.”

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Keith, who is also chairman of the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA), added: “We need the Chancellor to stop the beer tax escalator to ensure a strong brewing industry which provides local beer and local jobs for local people. The current Government policy is counterproductive, as it is shutting down pubs, and costing jobs. Instead, we could be creating jobs, and helping to lead the country out of recession. as well as ensuring that much loved local pubs can prosper.”

The Parliamentary petition can be signed here: https://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/23882