The British chancellor Gordon Brown's plans to raise beer taxes in Britain by a penny a pint, announced in the budget speech, has outraged the British beer industry, Food Production Daily reports. Modest as the plans may seem, the announcement was a slap in the face for the industry that had been campaigning for reduced beer taxes in order to be able to compete with the cheaper beer sold across the Channel in France. British beer tourism to France has hit hard against many British brewers, and the budget will hardly turn the trend, the reasoning goes.

"The only winners will be the smugglers, and the French Treasury who already collect duty and VAT on the million pints brought in from Calais every day. It is a duty hike too far, a duty hike which makes no economic sense", Jonathan Neame, managing director at Britain's oldest brewery, Kent-based Shepherd Neame, tells the news service. With its proximity to the Channel, Shepherd Neame claims that beer tourism has led to a sharp decline in its local sales.

16 April, 2003