Alcoholic Drinks: Excise Duties
The question
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, further to the Autumn Budget 2025, for what reason alcohol duty is being uprated by RPI rather than CPI inflation.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson
The Office for National Statistics, regulated by the UK Statistics Authority, produces a range of inflation statistics. The most widely used estimates of inflation, both by Government and the private sector, are the Consumer Prices Index and the Retail Prices Index (RPI).
Alcohol duty, like many other taxes expressed in cash terms, is indexed to RPI.
On the wider considerations about the extent to which RPI is embedded in the UK's economic and legal system, I refer the Hon. Member to the answer given on 13 November 2025 to PQ UIN 88538.
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