James Wilmore: The duty wars are still raging!

Intriguing to see the gloves are off again in the war over alcohol duty.

Judging by the British Beer & Pub Association's (BBPA) full Budget submission, chief exec Brigid Simmonds has listened to her increasingly disgruntled brewing members.

One choice line from the exec summary is: "Beer drinkers have effectively subsidised distillers' profits by over £1bn since 1997".

Ouch. I can't see how that would have got the sign-off from (still) BBPA members Diageo (which produces the world's biggest selling vodka, Smirnoff). Or perhaps they weren't allowed to see the submission? Who knows?

The submission adds that adding an extra tax to beers above 7.5 per cent ABV is "not consistent with the fact that the drink of choice of young people on 'big nights out' is spirits".

"While higher-strength beers account for 0.4 per cent of the alcohol market, spirits account for over 20 per cent, with vodka enjoying almost one-third of this," it says.

And it calls for beer duty to be half the rate of spirits duty, the same as Ireland, "based on the relative costs of delivering alcohol to consumer".

Meanwhile, spirits producers have gone public on their desire to see "equivalence" on duty - which would effectively mean a freeze for spirits and everything else hiked.

Just two years ago, the five main alcohol trade bodies - BBPA, the Gin and Vodka Association, the Scotch Whisky Association, the Wine and Spirit Trade Association and the National Association of Cider Makers - joined forces to put in a joint Budget submission.

A strange decision even at the time, but it seems like an age away now…