Cider: less apples more problem drinking?
The claim
“We do need to tax some of the problem drinks, and I would say if you look at some of the really high strength, super-strength ciders and lagers – things like White Lightning, which you can buy, you know three litres for sort of 3.99, I’m sounding a bit expert on this in a worrying way – but that stuff has never been near an apple, it’s not cider, it’s just something that people use to get off their heads. And I think we should tax that more aggressively.”
David Cameron, Fuller’s Brewery in Chiswick , 12 April 2010
The background
David Cameron was campaigning at Fuller’s Brewery in Chiswick, where he repeated his plans to tackle binge-drinking but also expressed his delight that the ten per cent increase on duty on all cider had been defeated.
Last October the Conservative Party published their plan to tackle binge drinking and alcohol-related violence and disorder on our streets. Amongst other taxes, the Tories said they would impose an extra 85p levy on a 2-litre bottle of super-strength cider.
Then last month - during his budget speech - the chancellor, Alistair Darling, announced a 10 per cent increase on duty on cider making the point that in September “changes will be made to the definition of ‘cider’ to ensure that specific strong ciders are taxed more appropriately.”
The Conservatives opposed the ten per cent across the board increase with David Cameron commenting, ”of course we need a higher tax on the dangerous high strength, things like White Lightning, which have as much relation to an apple as I do with Gandhi. But proper cider that people like to drink down the pub, we shouldn’t be having a great tax hike on that.”
The Government has since had to drop its plans for the ten per cent, and the duty will now only last until 30 June, unless the new Parliament votes to continue with the higher rate.
But does Mr. Cameron still want to have his cider and drink it? He’s glad the 10 per cent tax has been dropped but wants super-strength ciders to be more heavily taxed.
The analysis
Not all ciders are created equal. Ciders vary in terms of their alcohol by volume (abv, measured as a percentage), and white ciders may be made from apple concentrate or corn syrup rather than from apples. There is debate about whether such ciders should really be called cider but they are not necessarily higher strength than so-called ‘real ciders’.
Simon Russell, spokesman for the National Association of Cider Makers, told FactCheck:
“If they [the Conservatives] are talking about cider which is 7.5 per cent or above, the vast majority is under 5.5 per cent. At 7.5 per cent and above you are already at breakpoint with significantly higher duty, and it is a tiny percentage of the total cider market.”
He claims that context is always lost in these discussions, and that strong white cider represents just 6 per cent of total cider and is in long term decline. “Cider makes up 9 per cent of the total alcohol consumed in the UK, so white cider accounts for half of one per cent of total alcohol consumption,” Mr Russell added.
David Cameron has cited White Lightning as an example of a cider that should be more heavily taxed, but in fact Heineken announced at the end of last year that they were delisting the drink from the 31 March 2010. Moreover, the abv content of White Lightning had been lowered from 7.5 per cent to 5.5 per cent in April 2009.
FactCheck asked the Conservatives to clarify their policy and to define what David Cameron defines as ‘super-strength’ cider but have yet to receive a reply.
The verdict
It is consistent to oppose a ten per cent increase across the board on the duty on all cider but to seek to increase the duty on higher strength cider.
But David Cameron clouds the issue by not knowing his White Lightning from his Diamond White, and by being unclear on what exactly he means by ‘super-strength’ cider.
If the Tories clarify their position we will add an update.
There are 5 comments on this post
It is encouraging that someone is publically trying to untangle the difficult situation that cider makers find themselves.
If the REAL issue is to tackle those ciders that are cheap to buy and fuel binge drinkers, then it might be more appropriate to tax based on apple juice content – the small scale cider makers rarely dip below (say) 85% juice content – mass producers will use a lot lower percentage. Trying to compare cider to beer, which is generally a lower ABV than cider, seems to be a poor way to go about things, although something like the sliding scale of duty that small breweries pay might actually be a step forward…
However, whilst politicians carry on believing that high alcohol content = bad and therefore must be taxed, I think cider makers and the NACM have got a lot more work to do! After all, if you are in the business of a variable level of juice content (e.g. mass produced cider), you can easily lower the ABV by watering the cider down further. If you are making a full juice cider then you have relatively low control of the final ABV – it being dependant on the amount of sugar in the apples.
I tend to see the Conservative position as a bit of ‘bandwagon jumping’ – as they clearly don’t have any better handle on the issue than the rest! However, whatever caused the reversal of the tax rise, its good for artisan producers!
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It is a bit of a misleading blog .If you go round the towns you will see the drunks with their white ciders at 11 in the morning most days.These supermarket/offlicence bottles are not pub drinks and yes they should be priced off the marketThey are all over 5.5% and some up to 7.5%.They are the drinks the alcoholics and the yobs get off their heads with.
Binge drinking is a totally different problem .It is mainly young people going out pubbing and ending up in a paralytic state.
The two should not necessarily be bracketted together.How you control the former should be by rigorous taxation , the latter by rigorous punishment
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As Andrew Quinlan of The Orchard Pig points out in this Guardian Article “There aren’t problem drinks, there are problem drinkers.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/24/budget-2010-cider-duty-rise-rural-economy
And I agree with The Wurzels “We are all very upset that scrumpy cider, being one of the few pleasures that we cherish down here on the farm … is being hit by such a tax rise. We all realise that we have to tighten the string on our trousers but we feel we are being unfairly penalised.”
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@adrian clarke
With pub prices as they are, you’ll find its quite a good idea to get tanked up on cheap cider from the supermarket before you go to the pub…it only takes a couple of alcopops when you get there then.
I’m not the only one who has thought of that by the way…its a big part of the problem
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Thames Reach is an organisation that works with over 7,000 homeless people every year and we strongly support an increase in tax on the superstrength ciders and lagers, 6% and upwards. This is because they are destroying the lives of so many homeless people and cause far more deaths amongst this group than either crack or heroin. It is only the superstrengths that we are targeting. It seems a little churlish to criticise David Cameron for muddling his White Lightnings and his White Aces. Essentially we are concerned at the extremely cheap ciders frequently made from apple pulp, glucose and corn syrup – not the real ciders. And the white ciders really are incredibly cheap. I litre of White Ace in my local shop retails at £1.15 whereas a litre of meths costs £2.68. Not much chance of the homeless moving across to meths then. So it may be that the white ciders only make up a small part of the market, but the damage they are doing to health and to local communities through anti-social behaviour is considerable. A higher tax is, in our view, entirely justified, and it will come.
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