Government proposes minimum alcohol price

Glaucus said:
Well yeah, but it won't affect a lot of drinks and the 40p isn't tax, which is what it sounded like a few people think.
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It'll affect a lot of the supermarket trade, the typical crate of larger for around £10 deal will be no more (I think, not done any calculations :)). But in the grand scheme of things it may not bring in that much more money to the government through vat.
 
Who actually get the profits from a scheme like this as afore mentioned above?

40p >£1 for example: I have no idea what a can of Beer costs to make and deliver from a brewery. I assume all these beer offers are loss leaders, but not to a huge extent, just cost price.

By raising this fictional can of beer's price someone is making a huge extra slice of profit and VAT?

Why didn't they just TAX the living hell out of booze +50p a pint or £3 a litre spirits and be done with it ?
 
!bluetonic! said:
Unlike having your own oil well, for cheap fuel, or tobacco plants for cheap cigarettes, it's concievable to brew your own alchohol at home. Maybe this tax will encourage the uptake.
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I await a busier work schedule if this takes off as stills aren't the safest thing to have bubbling away in your home.

I am surprised at this as the Tories, Labour and Lib-Dems parodied the SNP for bringing in the exact same law in Scotland. Will we now see an apology from Cameron for adopting a law change that he formerly opposed?
 
kwerk said:
The government should make it so you need a lisence to buy alcohol like with guns or driving cars. Alcohol kills far more people than guns ever did but you can still just walk in to a shop and buy it no questions asked??

They could put on your lisence how many units of alcohol you can buy each month, worked out by government doctors from your age/sex/BMI.
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Yes, that's the best black market campaign i've ever seen.

I seriously hope you were kidding
 
[FnG]magnolia;21534323 said:
In the same way that escalating cigarette prices make no difference to smokers, increasing booze prices won't put off the seasoned alcoholic.
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Well, your wrong that escalating prices doesn't change behaviour, it does. It's just a slow process which also can't be done in isolation, but cultural education, which is a generational thing.

In the 50's ~80% of men smoked, this has tailed off now to ~22% through the combination of education & cultural acceptability, banning advertising and price rises. You will never stop the hardened smoker or drinker, even if you make it illegal, the best you can do is limit the exposure to the majority.

As for this proposal, no it doesn't affect the majority of the responsible drinkers....yet, as we don't drink the cheap **** like white lightning anyway....but, once you have a fixed price, there is only one way that will go and that's up.

So give it 'x' years and that will be £1 per unit then £1.50....

koolpc said:
I drink about 6 bottles of wine a week with the wife and upping the price doesnt bother me. It will only bother those who drink themselves silly
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Well, you think that is moderate responsible drinking, which I understand from a social pov is causing no issues, but from a health pov even that is in excess of the recommended unit amount / week and can lead to health issues such as liver disease, throat/mouth/bowel cancer etc
 
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As usually the Government trying to 'fix' the drinking problem when really they are lining their own back pockets with more money in the long run. They know rising prices won’t make a blind bit of difference. Its part of the British culture and has been for decades along with Smoking and Football.

People go out and gets smash off their face for various reasons. It makes them feel better, relieve themselves from this “if you are not stressed at work then you are not working hard enough” working culture or depression. Not because it’s cheap or easy accessible, maybe it is for some people that’s the reason but not for all of us.

If the Government put more time into finding out why people in the UK are heavily drinking instead making more profit then they would stand more of a chance of stamping out the binge drinking culture.
 
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Damnations Fury said:
Unless your drinking the really really cheap stuff and or purchasing the large pack offers on beers, it doesn't seem to make much of a difference form my calculations.
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Like I said, not yet...but once you have set a price per unit, it will only increase. probably every year in the budget.

So it won't be that long until it is affecting you.
 
Damnations Fury said:
Unless your drinking the really really cheap stuff and or purchasing the large pack offers on beers, it doesn't seem to make much of a difference form my calculations.
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70% of all alcohol is now purchased in a supermarket. I imagine the majority of their alcohol sold is multipack or offers (ok I'm guessing). So I think it will make a decent amount of vat in the extra.

Even on stuff like Carlsberg that they regularly sell for the equivalent of 50p a can or less will have to rise to 68p (it's 1.7 units iirc). I would suggest the size of the displays for the carlsbergs/fosters/stellas etc are so huge the majority of their sales are the stuff that would have to rise in price.

I just wish it worked the other way around so everything had to be sold at 40p per unit so I could buy warsteiner for £1 a bottle ;)
 
Freakbro said:
Like I said, not yet...but once you have set a price per unit, it will only increase. probably every year in the budget.

So it won't be that long until it is affecting you.
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And as was mentions on 5 money this morning, they have generated extra VAT at for instance £3m for arguments sake. When they get what's required and the amounts sold drops to again for arguments sake 1.5m they will then increase taxes elsewhere to generate revenue for what they just lost.
 
Of course it wont work, but they're not stupid - they know that. Only reasons for it are to be 'seen' doing something to help the binge drinking problem to the masses, and get a little increase in tax income without further upping the tax%.
 
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