Ask your MP to take action to stop a 7% beer tax rise!

email your MP before the next the 2011 Budget now.
Since 2008, beer duty has gone up by an incredible 26%, and VAT has risen by a third to 20%.

In 2008, the Government also introduced the “beer duty escalator”, which automatically increases beer duty by an additional 2% above inflation every year. This year, that would mean a further 7% tax rise and would put 10p on a pint in the pub.

CAMRA has forecast that, with duty and VAT on a typical pint approaching £1, a pint of real ale in the pub could reach £2.90 in 2011 - up from £2.45 in 2008.

Coupled with rock-bottom alcohol prices in supermarkets and large pubcos’ high tied beer prices, these duty increases are putting huge pressures on pubs and are contributing to the closure of 29 pubs every week.

We need your help to persuade the Chancellor to freeze beer duty and end the unfair beer duty escalator in the Budget on 23rd March. Please use this website to email your MP and ask them to sign EDM 1475, “Beer Duty Escalator”, a Parliamentary petition which calls for the escalator to be abandoned. It’s vital that as many MPs as possible sign this EDM to show the Government that we want a fair deal for beer and pubs. Don’t worry if your MP can’t or won’t sign EDMs – we’re giving them the option of writing to the Chancellor instead.

The Prime Minister has said that he wishes to deliver a "pub friendly Government". It's now time for the Chancellor to take action and make this promise a reality.

SIBA launches Proud of Beer video

SIBA (The Society of Independent Brewers) has launched a 5 minute video explaining why we should be proud of British Beer. It features dozens of the UK's brewers from the smallest to the largest explaining why they are proud to brew British Beer. 1500 people are employed in the UK in brewing beer, it contributes £28bn to the British economy in taxes and jobs and 400,000 people depend on British beer for their work.

These British brewers therefore ask why, if they are proud of British Beer, the Government has raised taxes by 26% in the last two years and if nothing changes will tax it by a further 20% in the next 4 years. Currently 29 pubs a week are closing because of high beer taxes. British beer is being abused say the brewers and they therefore ask MPs to persuade the Treasury to freeze beer duty, end the beer tax escalator and stop more pubs closing in their constituencies.

The stirring music of Gustav Holst's adaptation of his Planets Suite Jupiter for "I vow to thee my country" is the background music throughout the film.
By Iain Loe