Up to 60,000 jobs — a tenth of the workforce — will be lost across the pub and beer industry over the next five years if the Government continues with plans to increase duty.
Chancellor Alistair Darling increased duty by a whopping 18% last year with the promise of a 2% above inflation duty escalator for the next four years.
In a report, People, pubs and Parliament: A new deal for Britain's beer and pub sector, the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) says the trade is experiencing "the toughest trading conditions in living memory".
The report outlines the "severe and sustained" pressures facing an industry that employs 600,000 people and supports a further 550,000 jobs in the UK, generating an estimated £28bn in economic activity.
The report stresses:
• 59,000 jobs are projected to be lost over the next five years.
• Total beer sales are down 9m pints a day since 1979. Beer sales in pubs are now at their lowest level since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
• The rate of pub closures is accelerating — and now stands at six a day or 39 a week
• Beer duty was increased twice during 2008 by a total of 18% — and, even before the planned increases this year, a third of the price of a pint now gets swallowed up in tax.
"This report sets out clearly the exceptional pressures the beer and pub industry is facing at this time," said BBPA chief executive David Long.
"This dire situation is driven by many factors, but the Government is adding to the misery through punitive increases in tax and regulation.
"Last year, the Chancellor increased beer tax by 18% and also set out plans to impose a duty escalator of above-inflation taxes in each of the next four years.
"His justification was that duty should rise in line with rising incomes. Twelve months on from the last Budget the economic situation has changed radically. While average earnings were rising by almost five per cent in March last year, today they are actually falling. The Chancellor must now think again.
"Pubs play a vital economic and social role in all parts of the UK, and yet the industry was excluded from the VAT cut in November, is being burdened by more and more regulation, and now faces further tax increases in the Budget.
"The result will be to write off thousands more pubs and tens of thousands more jobs."
Mr Pinty — a new 6ft cartoon character campaigning to save the British pub — led a protest march against beer duty hikes at Parliament today.
The Chancellor is set to unveil his Budget on 22 April.