Trade rallying cry for final push to scrap Alcohol Duty Escalator

With less than a month to go before the Budget on 19 March, the organisation has outlined five ways members of the trade can get behind its Call Time on Duty campaign.​

It claimed that since the Alcohol Duty Escalator was introduced in 2008, tax on wine has increased by 50% and by 44% on spirits, costing the industry vital jobs and unfairly impacting consumers’ pockets.

The escalator increases the amount of duty levied on wine and spirits by 2% above inflation every year. It was famously scrapped for beer by the Chancellor at last year’s Budget.

UK consumers now pay more in alcohol duty than France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland combined, the WSTA said.

The five WTSA steps:​

• Email your local MP via the Call Time on Duty website​ and request that they write to the Chancellor on your behalf.
• Encourage your friends, family and colleagues to email their local MP as well.
• Follow the campaign on Twitter and tweet your followers to also get behind the campaign.
• Send a letter or a press release to your local paper and outline the impact of the Escalator on your business.
• Display a copy of the campaign poster​ around your workplace.

Jobs boost​

In December, Ernst and Young published research that found scrapping the Alcohol Duty Escalator will create more than 6,000 jobs and boost the public finances by £230m in 2014 alone.

Miles Beale, chief executive of the WSTA, said scrapping the escalator one year early would help the Chancellor reduce the deficit and cut unemployment.

He said: “The escalator is bad for the economy, bad for business and bad for the consumer. It is vital to spell out clearly to the Chancellor the significant contribution of a great British industry to jobs and growth in the UK – as well as its potential if he scraps the escalator one year early in next month’s Budget.”

Last month, the chair of the All Parliamentary Wine and Spirit Group Geoffrey Clinton-Brown MP, told the PMA​ that the Government should remove all alcohol from the duty escalator and freeze duty levels for the coming year.