The price of low-strength booze could be slashed to encourage people to switch to weaker drinks, the Treasury has revealed. Taxes on low or medium strength beers and lagers could be cut by up to 50 per cent in laws similar to those introduced in Ireland last October. Chancellor Alistair Darling and Treasury officials are monitoring the Irish model which saw duty fall on drinks below 2.8 per cent in volume to cut alcohol consumption and reduce drink driving. The Irish drinks industry responded by introducing a range of lower-alcohol beers and stouts such as Guinness mid-strength - Daily Mirror
David Cameron has vowed to stop MPs enjoying subsidised food and drink at Westminster in a drive to cut the cost of politics by as much as £120m a year. "Walk into a bar in parliament and you buy a pint of Foster's for £2.10," said Cameron. "That's a little over half as much as in a normal London pub." - The Guardian
Consolidation talk in the consumer sector was still in vogue as the broker that first raised the prospect of a Kraft bid for Cadbury talked up the possibility of SAB Miller buying Latin-American brewer Femsa or even the Turkish beer company Anadolu Efes. Nomura, the Japanese broker, said in a note to clients that many of the Cadbury deal "rationales" cited by Kraft have relevance for some beer operators. "We would expect beer consolidation to continue as medium-size groups around the world look to widen their footprint (eg, Kirin, Asahi) and as some of the larger operators seek to improve their country weightings (such as Heineken and SABMiller)," said Nomura analyst Ian Shackleton. - Daily Telegraph