Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the increase in alcohol duty on (a) economic growth and (b) job creation within the Scotch Whisky industry.

The potential impacts of the recent changes to alcohol duty rates were published at Spring Budget in HMRC’s Tax Information and Impact Note and can be found online: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-alcohol-duty-rates/alcohol-duty-rate-changes#summary-of-impacts.

This Government is supporting Scotch Whisky. We have provided a series of cuts and freezes to alcohol duties in the past decade. Before Spring Budget 2023, the spirits industry has benefitted from cuts or freezes to spirits duty at eight out of the last nine fiscal events, since the end of the duty escalator for spirits in 2013. The most recent alcohol duty freeze from Autumn Budget 2021, including the extension to 1 August 2023, represented a total tax cut of £2.7 billion over the next four years.

We have also undertaken the biggest reform of alcohol duties in 140 years and moved all alcohol products to being taxed based on their strength, narrowing the gap between spirits and still wine.

Further, we have removed punitive tariffs on Scotch Whisky imposed on the US market and are committed to protecting the interests of Scotch Whisky in trading agreements, ensuring that they face lower tariffs for export, and that the unique characteristics and global reputation of Scotch is protected, as demonstrated recently in our free trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand, and the CPTPP.