Tax as high street gets lifeline

VAT freeze is why cider’s looking rosy

DAWN Leworthy first started making cider in her garden shed in 2000. She now brews 660 gallons each year in the traditional way.

Dawn, 48, who owns Delvin End Cidery in Sible Hedingham, Essex, presses locally-grown apples on a restored 100-year-old cider press.

She is delighted with the Chancellor’s decision to freeze cider and beer duty.

“I think it’s a Budget aimed at helping small businesses like mine to prosper and succeed,” she said.

“Freezing alcohol duties, especially on British-produced beverages like my cider, beers and even gins brewed in microbreweries, has a knock-on effect on prices down the line. The drinker in the pub benefits too.

“I’m also pleased about the business rate relief for small operations like mine.”

Pleased

The mother-of-two is particularly happy that Mr Hammond appears to have fought off EU pressure to slap taxes on micro-breweries producing fewer than 1,540 gallons of cider. Any amount less than this is protected from duty by an ancient law, but the EU appears determined to bring the UK in line with other bloc members by taxing smaller brewers.

Dawn said: “It’s nice to know that smaller producers, who already have a lot of competition from the big companies, don’t have to bear this extra burden.”

And she said she declared herself “really, really pleased” at a tax on plastic packaging which does not include at least 30 per cent recycled material.

“I’m forced to use single-use plastic liners in my boxes, which I don’t think is helpful to the environment,” she said.

“But the bottles I use are mostly recyclable, so the manufacturer will escape that tax and won’t be passing it on to me.”