Following the announcement of the UK Government’s Budget on Wednesday 26th November, Dr Alastair MacGilchrist OBE, Chair of SHAAP said:
“While it is welcome that the Chancellor did not cave to industry demands to freeze or cut alcohol duty and seems to have returned to the conventional approach to alcohol duty which is to increase it in line with inflation each year, it is a shame that the opportunity to introduce a duty escalator was not taken. This was introduced by the late Alastair Darling under the last Labour government and raised additional revenues for the Exchequer to go some way to covering the costs of alcohol harms to public services and communities. Not only that, but alongside other measures introduced by the Scottish Government, the escalator saw the number of people dying as a result of alcohol in Scotland start to fall.
“The harms caused by alcohol affect each of us directly or indirectly and making alcohol less affordable via taxation is a key way recommended by the World Health Organization to reduce consumption and therefore harms. I would urge the Chancellor to give due consideration to an escalator as a way to raise much-needed Treasury income and to chip away at the burden of alcohol harms felt across Scotland and the UK.”