Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) has revealed eighteen pubs in Britain are closing every week as the rising cost of beer forces landlords out of business.
The campaign group said, the rate of closures has grown by six a week since the spring and has called for “urgent” action by the Government to halt the decline.
The real ale group said that 450 pubs have shut between March and September, equivalent to 18 pubs each week. This compared to a closure rate of 12 a week over the previous six month period.
CAMRA described the rise in pub closures as “very concerning”.
The campaign group said that the closures have been triggered by high beer charges due to the Government’s controversial ‘beer duty escalator’. Low alcohol prices in supermarkets and the recession were also blamed.
The duty escalator, which was introduced in 2008 by the former Labour administration, means that the amount of tax paid on beer automatically increases by 2 per cent above inflation each year.
As a consequence, tax on beer has gone up by 40 per cent since 2008 and now accounts for over a third of the cost of a pint, CAMRA said.
The average cost of a pint of real ale has increased from £2.34 in 2007 to £2.91, while a pint of lager has increased from £2.57 to £3.09.
The group said that 5,800 pubs have shut since the escalator was introduced in 2008. Fewer than 58,000 pubs remain open in Britain.
CAMRA released the figures ahead of a Parliamentary debate last week.
Pubs and breweries forced a discussion among MPs on whether the beer duty escalator should be abandoned by getting 100,000 signatures on a petition.
According to figures from the CGA-CAMRA Pub Tracker, the most recent pub closures have been in heavily populated areas.
The Midlands has the highest rate of pub closures, with 155 closures in the last six months, followed by the South-East and London, where there were 101 closures.
Only the North, South-West of England and Mid-Wales saw increases in the number of pubs opening in the last six months.
While there has been a clear rise in the number of pub closures since the spring, a CAMRA spokesperson said that the number of commercial premises being shut remains below its 2009 peak.
At the height of the downturn in 2009, 52 pubs were closing each week. The closure rate has fallen gradually since then but the spokesperson said that the latest rise marks “the first time closures have spiked up” since 2009.
Currently the beer duty escalator is in place until 2015. The campaign group said that beer sales are “plummeting” as a result of the mounting costs. According to the British Beer and Pub Association UK beer sales decreased 5.6 per cent between July and September alone.
CAMRA’s chief executive, Mike Benner, said: “As the pub closure figures show, the future of Britain’s valued community pubs remains in jeopardy.
“With pubs finding it ever harder to maintain consistent footfall at a time when prices are ever increasing, it is only hoped that Parliament will today take the first steps by voting to review punitive taxation policies on Britain’s national drink.”
Chairman of the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) Keith Bott, said that the maths behind the beer duty escalator do not add up.
He said: “The standard response seems to be that revenues from alcohol excise duty make an important contribution to reducing the deficit we inherited from the last Government.
“However, according to Treasury estimates, the Exchequer will receive just £35m in added duty from the escalator in 2013/14. This amount would be largely offset by the boost in sales and employment-related taxes that a beer duty freeze would create.”
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