Pub campaigners are welcoming a fall in the number of pub closures in the UK, but have called on the government to cut beer tax to help reinforce the fragile recovery.
The figures1 published by CAMRA, compiled by independent research company CGA Strategy, show that 27 pubs a week closed in the second half of 2015, compared to 29 a week in the previous six months.
A report from the Centre of Economics and Business Research2 last year showed pubs and drinkers would benefit from a cut in beer tax – conclusions supported by the improving figures.
It found that beer would have increased by 16p a pint, more than 1,000 additional pubs would have closed, 750 million fewer pints would have been sold and 26,000 jobs would have not been created had the beer tax not been cut in 2014.
CAMRA is now calling on the government to continue and strengthen its support for pubs by further cutting tax to help keep beer affordable and pubs open.
More than 3,000 CAMRA members have already lobbied their MPs to call for a reduction in beer duty and the Campaign is urging as many people as possible to make their views known via camra.org.uk/beertax2016
Particularly encouraging is news that closures of local community pubs have fallen, down from 26 closures a week to 20.
Community locals are particularly vital to the overall wellbeing of their users, as shown by CAMRA’s recently released research3 into the benefits of pub going.
Tim Page, chief executive of CAMRA said: “The latest figures show that the work of campaigners across CAMRA, the wider pub and beer industry and the government is taking effect and arresting the decline in the number of pubs being lost every week.
“However it’s a fragile recovery which could very quickly be reversed if the government fails to build on this positive development and misses the chance to support the British pub and beer industry by reducing tax again.
“The report produced by CEBR for CAMRA at the start of 2015 showed how cutting beer tax would have a great economic benefit for the country and the reduction in closure numbers is further proof that the Chancellor’s decision was a good one.
“It’s pleasing to see that our campaigning to protect community pubs is having an effect, with closure numbers reducing. Local pubs are vital to their communities and the wellbeing of their users, as a recent report from Oxford University showed. As well as reducing tax the government can continue to support these pubs by strengthening national planning regulations and supporting local groups seeking to list pubs as Assets of Community Value.”