New alcohol duty system - ask your MP to attend the debate

Alcohol duty contributes around £12 billion per year to the public purse - less than half the £27 billion estimated annual cost of alcohol harm.

The Government are currently considering changes to the way alcohol is taxed and, on Thursday 7 July, there is an opportunity for MPs to debate the proposed changes.

We want to make sure that alcohol duty and the impact that it can have on alcohol harm is raised in the debate – in front of important Government ministers.

Can you send our briefing for the debate to your MP and ask them to attend the debate to raise points around how the price of alcohol can be an effective way of reducing harm?

Alcohol duty contributes around £12 billion per year to the public purse - less than half the £27 billion estimated annual cost of alcohol harm.

The Government are currently considering changes to the way alcohol is taxed and, on Thursday 7 July, there is an opportunity for MPs to debate the proposed changes.

We want to make sure that alcohol duty and the impact that it can have on alcohol harm is raised in the debate – in front of important Government ministers.

Can you send our briefing for the debate to your MP and ask them to attend the debate to raise points around how the price of alcohol can be an effective way of reducing harm?

New alcohol duty system – ask your MP to attend the debate

Send your MP our briefing on the new alcohol duty system and ask them to attend the debate on Thursday.

We included some text you can use below, but please insert your own reasons why this is important to you.

Find your local rep

Subject:

Dear XXX,

I am writing to let you know that there is a debate on the new alcohol duty system in the House of Commons on Thursday 7 July. I have attached a briefing from Alcohol Change UK here ahead of the debate and would be delighted if you were able to attend the debate as my MP.

The briefing is available at: https://tinyurl.com/5bt5zrdd

This debate has been called to provide MPs an opportunity to discuss the new duty system and alcohol taxation in general. Evidence shows that managing the price of alcohol is an effective way to reduce avoidable alcohol harm.

Alcohol duty contributes around £12 billion per year to the public purse - less than half the £27 billion estimated annual cost of alcohol harm.

Alcohol Change UK are calling for the new duty system to do four things:

• Alcohol duty to at least cover the costs of alcohol to society
Alcohol must be taxed in proportion with the harm it causes. Alcohol duty currently contributes around £12bn a year in revenue, while alcohol harm is estimated to cost between £27bn and £52bn a year – more than double, and possibly up to four times as much.
• The bands should be adjusted to encourage downwards reformulation
The proposed bands are too wide. The threshold between the third and fourth bands should be 6.5% rather than 8.5%, since 6% is widely considered to be a strong beer or cider.  To encourage reformulation of higher strength beers and ciders, a 6.5% upper limit should apply to this band.
• Alcohol duty to be consistent across drink types
The current system creates a market for cheap, high-strength products, which do most damage to health. The system should be consistent across drink types, rather than giving preferential tax rates to some and not others. For example, while the wine, spirits and beer categories are largely in line with each other, there is still a huge exception for cider in the 3.5-8.4% band, which is being taxed at a far lower rate. 
• Alcohol duty to automatically increase in line with inflation or earnings
To ensure it always performs a harm reduction role, duty can’t be indefinitely frozen or allowed to stagnate. This would make sure progress is made towards reducing harm and improving health, year-on-year.

Please do read the full briefing on the new alcohol duty system and attend the debate in Parliament next week.

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