Government Watch
After consultation, the Government seems to be putting the controversial
licensing and "full" pint measures on the back-burner.
The licensing plan was to transfer responsibility for pub drink licensing
from hearings in open court before magistrates for low fees
to (potentially) expensive bureaucratic procedures within local councils before politicians.
The "full" pints plan was to make 95% of a pint legal, making beer unique
in the weights & measures sphere. Would you accept 95% of a litre of petrol
when paying for a litre?
New Year
After the success of the English national blanket hours extension till 1am on Tuesday 4 June,
it seems likely that the New Years Eve extension (covering 36 hours) will become permanent.
Beer Orders
The Government also seems to be having a rethink over the Beer Orders revocation.
The main part of the 1989 Orders is now redundant: there are no large brewers
with large pub estates any more, though Wolverhampton & Dudley and Greene King
are close to the 2,000 pub limit.
The lesser aspects of the Orders do have some use still.
For instance they contain some protection against closure of community pubs
and against brewers selling pubs with covenants preventing their further use as pubs.
Sense of Duty
As predicted in the printed edition of ALE 305,
the Chancellor introduced a new progressive
system of beer tax in his Budget this year, which means that smaller
brewers will pay less tax than larger brewers. However, those who
might have been expecting the price of beer to drop by 14p a pint
'in time for the World Cup', as mischievously implied by Mr Brown, will
have been disappointed: instead, that '14p a pint' is money that the
smaller brewers can use to improve their business, whether it be
investing in plant or estate, or marketing, or being able to compete
on price with the bigger brewers who can offer bulk discounts to the pubcos.
ALE Summer 2002 No. 307
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