Brewery boss urges Chancellor to ‘give us a level playing field’ in budget

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The head of a Cornish brewery is urging the government to lessen the taxation for those in the pub and brewing sector ahead of next week’s budget.

Kevin Georgel, the Chief Executive of St Austell Brewery, says any increase in taxation now would inevitably lead to the closure of more pubs.

Mr Georgel said: "It's the toughest time that I've experienced in 30 years... whether it's energy, food inflation, raw material costs, wages, we've seen extraordinary inflation over the last four years.

“We've had a difficult summer actually in the South West, we've had terrible weather, visitor numbers have been down and as we go into the budget, the industry just needs to get the message across to government finally that we need the incentive and the encouragement as a really progressive industry that's investing to give us a level playing field and to stop the punitive and disproportion level of taxation that this sector has seen for many, many years now.

“St Austell Brewery last year invested over £20 million across the South West into our pubs and into our brewing capability and we need the economic backdrop to incentivise that continued investment. The reality is it's not there at the moment because the the government almost use our industry as a cash cow, we are overtaxed phenomenally, we're very happy to pay our share of tax, but we're not happy to pay a disproportionate amount of tax, which is what we do today".

In the last five years, overheads have increased dramatically for publicans. A profit of 27p per pint in 2019 has now dropped to 12p as a result of increased outgoings and higher taxes.

Tanya Williams has run the Polgooth Inn near St Austell for 14 years and says to achieve the bottom line is getting harder.

This is her message to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, ahead of the budget.

"I think if you can get a grip of how important pubs are in rural communities and in cities as well, then there has to be an understanding that we need to be able to do our jobs properly and we are struggling to do our jobs properly because we don't have the tools to do it because we feel like it's a battle, every other step is a battle and that's that's really hard and it's getting a lot of people down and a lot of people therefore handing the keys back".

The Treasury has so far declined to comment on budget speculation but the Prime Minister has said the government plans to keep its manifesto pledges.

The Autumn Budget will be delivered on 30 October.