The Campaign has been set up by a group of smaller UK brewers. We would like to see long-term reform of the system by which beer is taxed. Our concern is that the high burden of tax is now making the Industry financially unsustainable. This affects not just the brewers but also pubs. Beer taxes in the UK are higher than almost anywhere else in the world and are disproportionate.

 

Our starting point is to focus on achieving reform of Small Brewers Relief (SBR). It is a government policy that has been very helpful in encouraging the development of small brewers. However, the policy was not fully thought through when introduced in 2002. It has caused serious market distortion and has ended up acting as a barrier to growth. The focus on SBR highlights the wider problem of UK duty rates being too high…the 50% rate works well in Europe because average duty is less than a fifth of that in the UK.

 

Our second objective is to achieve at least a freeze on future duty rates whilst there is a longer-term review of the tax burden on beer and post Brexit revisions can be made to the system. We hope these will include a gradual reduction in the overall rate of duty to eventually bring it into line with other comparable countries, and an immediate reduction for lower strength beers (below 3.5% abv) and beer served in the On-Trade (pubs and restaurants where consumption is in a safe supervised environment).