Spirits: Excise Duties
The question
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of spirits duty on the ability of pubs to compete with off-trade retailers.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson
At Autumn Budget 2025 the Chancellor confirmed that alcohol duty will be uprated on 1 February 2026 to main its current real-terms value. The government does not expect this to have any significant impact to GDP, nor competition between the on and off trades.
Following a detailed review between 2020 and 2023, a new duty system was introduced in August 2023. Information about this review and its outcomes are available here:
www.gov.uk/government/consultations/the-new-alcohol-duty-system-consultation
The Government plans to evaluate the 2023 alcohol duty reforms in late-2026, in line with our commitment to do so three years after they took effect.
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