70% of the cost of a bottle of Scotch is tax. It’s time to reduce that burden in the upcoming Budget!
UK spirits – our iconic national drinks – have faced a difficult trading environment as export markets have been hit, punitive tariffs remain on Scotch Whisky and the damage to hospitality has been significant.
As the UK look to recover from Covid-19, we ask the Chancellor to support our growth industry in three ways in the upcoming Budget:
Continue to support our distilleries as the invest and innovate to back British growth and continue to deliver funds to the public purse.
Support our iconic UK hospitality sector with targeted measures to help businesses and employees in pubs, bars and restaurants, including furlough, ongoing direct support for businesses, and business rate relief.
Progress with the Alcohol Duty Review to create a fairer system that supports both growth and puts HMT revenue on a sustainable footing for the future
Our supporters include micro businesses and craft distilleries, award-winning producers and internationally renowned brands. We are also joined by representatives from the hospitality and tourism industries. Members of our Alliance all benefit from the growing popularity of premium British spirits.
Last year, independent research showed spirits generated £13bn for the economy and had an export value of £6 billion– making it the largest food and drink export.
The number of distilleries in the UK has grown to 470 and the industry now supports hundreds of thousands of jobs across the UK.
The spirit of entrepreneurship has led to the industry tripling in size in the last decade. As such, spirits duty receipts generated nearly £4bn for the Treasury – a year on year increase of more than 10%.
Lowering the duty on spirits will support jobs, growth, exports and investment – all while providing more money for the public purse.
The UK is a proud spirits producing nation.
Our spirits industry is a vital part of the tourism and hospitality sector. We can’t afford to put this great British success story at risk.
That’s why we’re asking the Government to back the industry by reducing the burden of spirits duty and preventing the imposition of unfair tariffs on our world-leading products.
