With hopes of the nation’s economic recovery on a knife edge, it seems almost bizarre to think that one of the things retailers and the drinks industry will be contemplating over Christmas, is just how far the government will go come the New Year to try to force up alcohol prices.
A report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research today suggested the coalition’s plans for minimum pricing would see an average household in large parts of Britain face a £50 a year hike in spending on alcohol.
But in Westminster there is a sense of a growing realisation that, of all times, this may not be the right one to start ramping up family bills, especially with so much doubt over the potential health benefits of the policy.
Reports at the weekend suggested a sizeable number of Tories are now calling on the PM to drop the plans, while Lib Dem sources were quoted by at least one newspaper as saying they were “dead in the water”.
This may be a false dawn for those who hope the plans to impose a 45p per unit minimum price may yet be stopped, but there does appear to be a gathering momentum.
Meanwhile the UK government has until next Thursday to come up with a legal case to the EC as to why it should press ahead with minimum pricing in the face of opposition from a host of European countries triggered by the proposals in Scotland which see its government at war with one of its most prized industries.
It may not be dead in the water, but at a time of so much economic uncertainty, the proposals are looking increasingly isolated, lacking in evidence and economically risky at a time when MPs in the fragile government are crying out for the PM to concentrate on the main job of salvaging UK PLC.
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