Eddie Barnes: Battle of the Booze
The Tories have announced their plans for a booze crackdown here in Manchester today. They aim to substantially increase the price of lager, cider and alco-pops through a new tax.
As tax is reserved, the plans will apply in Scotland where, as has been well publicised, the SNP administration is planning to introduce its own minimum pricing policy. This would mean that cheap high-strength drinks - lager, cider, and alcopops for example - would have a price floor under which they could not be sold.
But if the Tory plan might end up increasing the price of those drinks above that floor anyway, making the minimum pricing scheme superfluous, on all but cut-price spirits.
Which makes me wonder whether the entire SNP alcohol strategy should now be re-named as the "Glen's Vodka price increase (Scotland) Act" and have done with it.
As tax is reserved, the plans will apply in Scotland where, as has been well publicised, the SNP administration is planning to introduce its own minimum pricing policy. This would mean that cheap high-strength drinks - lager, cider, and alcopops for example - would have a price floor under which they could not be sold.
But if the Tory plan might end up increasing the price of those drinks above that floor anyway, making the minimum pricing scheme superfluous, on all but cut-price spirits.
Which makes me wonder whether the entire SNP alcohol strategy should now be re-named as the "Glen's Vodka price increase (Scotland) Act" and have done with it.
Labels: alcohol, Conservatives, Eddie Barnes, SNP
posted by Administrator at
17:05
1 Comments:
That'll go down like a lead balloon with the drinks trade - at least with the SNP proposal they would have sold less but at higher profit margins, but the Tory proposal would see less sales but the benefit of higher retail prices going to the exchequer!
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