Tories want more alcohol tax
by JFC AdminNow smoking has been banned, it’s time to focus on beer and whatever the problem the solution always seems to be more tax. Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith has proposed to his party that raising taxes on alcohol will tackle the binge drinking culture.
As a country we’re already taxed quite highly on alcohol, that’s why so many people go over to France to stock up. We’re still cheaper than Scandinavian countries and I can tell you from my trip to Denmark that their higher prices do not put people off drinking, it just changes their behaviour slightly. Most people there tend to go out later but will have drinks at home first, so their alcohol consumption is the same it’s just less money is spent in pubs.
Combined with the smoking ban, higher alcohol prices will just make more people drink at home which is bad news for the pub industry. Last week when it was raining most of the time in London I did a fairly unscientific survey (well really just an excuse to go to the pub) and quite a few pubs around my area of London were less busy than usual, this is probably because smokers wanted to stay at home as they didn’t want to smoke in the rain.
So what will a higher alcohol tax achieve?
- More trips to France for cheap booze (good for EuroTunnel and the ferry companies but bad for the environment).
- More people drinking at home (good for Tesco, bad for the pub trade).
- The poor get slightly poorer and the rich don’t even notice the tax.
It won’t even help reduce underage drinking. Those underage tend to adapt what they drink to what they can afford so those who just have pocket money to rely on will be buying things like 2 litre bottles of cider, and extra 10p or so on that wouldn’t really make much of a difference.