Save the pub or safeguard health? The battle raging over the price of a pint

The great British boozer has become the latest battleground for health campaigners as they take on the drinks industry.

Experts on alcohol harm reduction have criticised a £9m campaign, Long Live The Local, by the major brewers and pub chains calling on the government to cut beer duty in this month’s budget.

Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, chair of the Alcohol Health Alliance who recently quit his position as Public Health England’s chief alcohol adviser over its links to the drinks industry, is one of several who claim that making alcohol more affordable increases harm.

A slick video which has been widely shared on social media, encourages supporters to sign a petition urging the chancellor to cut beer duty at a time when three pubs a day are closing in the UK.

So far more than 100,000 have signed and 40,000 have emailed their MP. About 20,000 of the UK’s 48,000 pubs are backing the campaign.

Made by the Havas agency, the campaign, produced for Britain’s Beer Alliance, a group of brewing and pub-owning interests, highlights concerns that a cornerstone of British life is under threat. “Pubs bond people together,” said David Cunningham, programme director at the Alliance. “We think that’s worth fighting for.” But Gilmore said the UK would benefit from a beer hike rather than a cut. “Calling for further cuts in duty on alcohol is irresponsible when you consider it contributes to 24,000 deaths and over 1 million hospital admissions every year,” he said.

“Rather than yet another cut in duty, the government should increase it by 2% above the rate of inflation, to reduce harm and raise money to invest in the NHS, police and alcohol treatment services. Our surveys show that would have the support of the majority of the British public.”

George Osborne cut beer duty three times and oversaw two freezes as chancellor. It went up last year and now the industry is braced for it to rise annually in line with inflation, bringing the Exchequer an extra £150m a year. Independent pubs, which comprise 80% of the market and operate on very thin margins, would be hit hard by any rise and have little option but to pass it on to customers.

“If you look at people who drink beer, it’s the hard-working people who Theresa May wants to help,” said Brigid Simmonds, chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA). “When the beer duty escalator was operating, between 2008 and 2013, beer duty went up by 42% and we lost 5,000 pubs and 58,000 jobs.” Pubs say a hike in duty hits them disproportionately because seven out of every 10 drinks they serve are beer.

But Colin Shevills, director of Balance, an agency in north-east England that seeks to reduce people’s alcohol consumption, said the focus on cutting beer duty was misplaced.

“Beer duty has fallen 16% in real terms since 2012, yet pubs still close. All that happens is that supermarkets can pass on the cuts to their customers while publicans can’t. It makes it harder for pubs to compete.”

Dave Mountford, a publican in Derbyshire and a critic of the big brewers, said pubs had not seen any of the previous cuts passed on to them, a claim disputed by the BBPA. “Any reduction in beer duty will have zero impact on prices as it simply provides higher levels of profit to brewers and pub-owning businesses,” Mountford said.

A survey of pub owners in north-east England, conducted for Balance, found that 48% of respondents believed cheap supermarket alcohol was the main cause of pub closures – compared with 4% who cited alcohol taxes. Almost nine out of 10 said that recent cuts in duty had had no positive impact on their business.

Other factors are at work, too. It was recently reported that nearly 30% of young people are teetotal. Meanwhile, coffee shops are becoming alternative community venues and the cost of living is squeezing people’s leisure spend.

At The Adam and Eve in Homerton, east London, where the ad was filmed, manager Justine Bonner said if pints went over £5, customers would notice.

“People haven’t got the money they used to have,” she said. “The people who go out, young people especially, can’t afford to go out in this area and will move on to the next one.”