Pro-pub MPs to meet Treasury to call for scrapping of beer duty escalator

Save the Pub Group chairman Greg Mullholland, All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group chairman Andrew Griffiths and South Staffordshire Conservative Gavin Williamson will push the case for the end of the escalator.

The escalator increases beer tax by 2% above inflation every year and is currently in place until 2014/2015. The result has been a beer tax rise of 42% since 2008.

The meeting with Javid comes as a direct result of an adjournment debate held in the Commons on 2 July.

A date for a broader parliamentary debate, as a result of the e-petition calling for the scrapping of beer duty escalator hitting 100,000 signatures, has still to be confirmed. Industry sources are hopeful that could be as soon as the end of the month.

Mulholland said: “The beer duty escalator is not only damaging to this important sector of the economy, which flies in the face of Government calls for growth, but also is self defeating as due to pub closures and falling sales, it doesn’t raise the money predicted by the Treasury."

Griffiths agreed: “Britain's brewers and pubs could be delivering growth and providing jobs, but the duty escalator is holding us back. It is time the Government realised just how damaging this tax is, and consign it to the scrap heap"

Williamson added: "We are all aware of the huge deficit that needs to be reduced as well as the major problem of binge drinking in the UK. However, I am seriously concerned that imposing even higher taxes on beer could have a crippling effect on the various pubs and breweries in South Staffordshire which contribute so much to the area both economically and socially".