Duty cut by 1p in Budget

Great news along with the fact that the beer tax escalator has also been scrapped.

Cheers!

Many of them got their increase in early didn't they?

Anyway the Chancellor said that he fully expects the decrease to be passed on to the customer - so I suggest writing to him if you do not see a decrease come next week.

Most pubs work to the nearest 5p or 10p so there is no chance of this

The only people who will gain are the brewers - I bet the wholesale price of a firkin of ale will remain unchanged.

Since the Chancellor has made this gesture, wouldn't it be good if the brewers and even pubs chipped in to offer consumers a, say, 5p reduction at the pumps.

But looking up into the sky, I see a herd of pigs flying past....

Of course when the duty increased, the pub companies at least added their markup to retain the percentage, i.e. doubled it, before passing it on to the pub which was then expected to do likewise.

Some pubcos had already upped their prices before hearing what was in the budget. TANJ

I think you are all missing the point slightly .... this was all about preventing the tax on beer going up - by 6p per pint this time! And the reason many of us campaigned so hard was too many pubs were going out of business and this showed no signs of stopping.

The point was to keep pubs in business.

So now the pub gets an extra 72p per firkin in sales that it will not have to pay in its wholesale price. This was aimed at helping them to keep in business!! Why should they pass that on to customers? If the tax had gone up with the escalator it would have been an extra £4.32 they would have had to pay for a firkin - probably, as you say, rounded up by the brewers, delivery etc.

If the pub dropped the price, rounding from 1p to 5p, they would be giving away £2.88 per firkin.

Every little helps and I really want my lovely little local, with its

No I don't think I am missing the point.

The Chancellor said, and this is a direct quote " We’re taking a penny off a pint. The cut will take effect this Sunday night and I expect it to be passed on in full to customers."

His whole terminology suggests that in this case 'customers' are beer drinkers.

Beer drinkers, if nothing else, are a cynical bunch and of course nobody I know expects any reduction at the pumps. And of course, for reasons stated above, 1p in a situation where most pubs round to the nearest 5p is meaningless.

My point was that sometimes people respond to gestures of good will. If the industry actually made the effort to reduce prices, that might be more than rewarded by a positive respone from beer drinkers. A gesture from the industry might well be met with a gesture from beer drinkers to visit their pub more often. If I were a landlord, I'd rather sell two pints at £2.95 a pint than one at £3.00.

There seems to be an almost universal belief that its all 'take, take, take' in the industry. Prices only ever go one way. The result is that more people are forced into alternatives, be it buying beer in supermarkets for home consumption, clubbing together to buy a wholesale barrel or two to make an 'ad hoc' pub in somebody's house and drinking at around £1 a pint, or drinking in Wetherspoons at £1.49 a pint (with your 50p CAMRA voucher).

Here too, we cynical beer drinkers look at Wetherspoons and think 'They wouldn't be selling beer at £1.49 if they weren't making a profit even at that level.' And then we look at our basic corner boozers with their much lower overheads and see they're selling the same beer at £3.10! People vote with their feet and wallets. You rarely see a quiet Wetherspoons.

It's not that I don't want to go to my local more often, it's just that I can't afford to do so.

I didn't know that.

I don't much care about a 1p reduction.

I DO care that the escalator has been scrapped.

I've seen price increases, no penny off.

In my local pub a day or two after the Chancellor announced the 1p off a pint of beer it went by 9p a pint! I recall Enterprise Inns were blamed but I find that very hard to believe.

I think it's a case of Killing the Golden Goose and the British "Pub" is dying because of it. Nothing but Greed rules these days!

Cheers John

Well locally (Hebden Bridge) I haven't noticed any price decreases or increases, which suits me fine. That suits me fine. Over and above the duty increases however the price of a pint seems to have increased from around £2 to around £3 very quickly.

I must admit however that I don't go in many pubco pubs but tend to frequent free houses and the odd club (very odd club in one case!)

Around my way to £3.30 around a year ago and now seeing £3.50(ish) on a regular basis. I don't live in London!

but I think its wrong to have expected a 1p decrease, its a nice PR thing and I think fullers made the gesture, but the beer duty (almost certainly all of which had already been paid in pubs selling beer the day after the budget) is just one aspect of the costs which translate into price of a pint.

its no good having a 1p cut, if your business rates tax went up by 2% instead, or your pubco decided to charge more per barrel, your electricity bills went up and so on.

the point isnt it went down 1p so much as it didnt then add further to costs going up

agreed!

Seems to have gone up a lot more in the last 2 years!