Spirits: Excise Duties
The question
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of spirits duty on the viability of pub in coastal communities.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson
Alcohol duty is paid by producers, and is therefore not typically paid directly by pubs. Further, according to estimates derived from sales data collected on behalf of the Office for National Statistics, only around 15% of spirits are consumed on-trade.
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 on competition between the on and off trades.
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