The Chancellor George Osborne has today cut the duty on cider and spirits by 2%, frozen duty on wine and cut beer by a penny a pint for the third year running in his last pre-election Budget.
The Chancellor George Osborne has today cut the duty on cider and spirits by 2%, frozen duty on wine and cut beer by a penny a pint for the third year running in his last pre-election Budget.
Speaking in the House of Commons today, he told MPs:
"Last year, thanks to the persistent campaigning of my honourable friends for Burton, Keighley and Ilkley, I cut beer duty for the second year in the row and the industry estimates that it helped created 16,000 jobs.
"Today I am cutting beer duty for the third year in a row and taking another penny off a pint.
"I am also cutting cider duty by 2% to support our producers in the West country and elsewhere and to back one of the UK's biggest exports, the duty on Scotch whisky and other spirits will be cut by 2% as well. Wine duty will be frozen, more pubs saved, jobs created, families supported and a penny off a pint for the third year in the row."
The announcement will be seen as a major success for the industry's Drop The Duty campaign and the work done by the Wine & Spirits Trade Association and Scotch Whisky Assocation.
Other changes revealed by George Osborne include the cutting of corporation tax to 20%, the abolition of Class 2 National Insurance and the simplification of tax for self assessment. This will see the self-assessment form replaced by a new digital system.
He also confirmed a lift in the national muinimum wage, as recommended this week by the Low Pay Commission, to £6.70 in the Autumn, and the biggest hike in the apprentice rates.
"This Budget does more to back business and make make work pay so that we have full employment," he told the House of Commons. "This budget backs the self-employed, the small business owner and the home-buyer."
The Chancellor also announced he was boosting UKTI's funding to boost exports to China and confirmed the small business rates relief that was announced earlier this week. "This hasn't kept pace and needs more reform," he said.
He also cancelled the fuel duty increase scheduled for September, freezing the price of petrol.
The OBR expects unemployment to fall from 5.7% today to around 5.3% for 2015 and revised its GDP forecast up to 2.5% this year.
Stay tuned to our website for further reaction to today's Budget, or follow @harperswine on Twitter. Let us know what impact this will have on your business by emailing Arabella Mileham or commenting below.