Do Your Duty - sign the petition against the beer escalator

Tomorrow (Wed) is budget day, the one day of the year that all drinkers can guaranteed to get screwed by the Government. The horrendous beer tax calculator is still on the books, which adds 2% plus inflation to the price of beer. This makes a 45% tax rise on beer since 2008!

There is a petition to sign about this but only has 12,000 signatures at the moment, odd that a certain organisations do not seem to be supporting this?

Pete Brown has more on the duty escalator over at his place.

Below are some infographics from the British Beer & Pub Association

• 950,000 British jobs depend on the UK beer and pub sector – 34,000 fewer than last year 

• There are now 900 breweries in the UK – a vital part of Britain’s manufacturing mix

• £13 billion is paid in wages in the sector

• Brewing and pubs are worth £19.4 billion to the UK economy (Gross Value Added)

• The beer and pub sector contributes over £11 billion in tax revenues

• 52,000 public houses in the UK
•  2% of GDP is contributed by pubs
• Almost 600,000 people are employed in full and part-time jobs

• Over 80% of pubs (i.e. around 40,000 outlets) are small businesses which are independently managed or run by self-employed licensees. 
• Beer represents 68% of all alcoholic drinks sold in pubs 
• pub food market is currently estimated to be worth in the region of £6 billion per annum