Budget 2013

The Chancellor's Budget for 2013 has raised a lot of concerns among the people. The most criticised of all the policies was the 1p cut in beer prices instead of the 3p rise that was intended for April. Especially after the cuts to the NHS this was surely the last thing we expected.

With the price of beer falling, the consumption of beer will rise and this increase will lead to an increased burden on the NHS. In 2011, there were one million alcohol related hospital visits which was double the amount from 2003 showing alcohol related burdens on the NHS are continuing to rise. Surely if anything the government would be trying to bring this which the planned 3p rise would have done. However this was scrapped and the government took a big U turn by bringing beer prices down by 1p. A decline in beer prices is just an incentive to consume more and increase the load on the NHS' back.

The statistics, although they are not very admirable, are a clear indicator of what needed to be done. Figures from a 2008 government report that estimated that the cost of alcohol harm to the NHS in England was £2.7 billion in 2006/07 prices. This accounted for the costs of hospital inpatient stays, day visits, outpatient visits, A&E visits, ambulance services, GP consultants, nurse consultants, lab tests, drugs to treat alcohol dependency, specialist treatment services and other healthcare costs. If we take net prescription items in 2010, there was a 1.4% increase compared to the year before, from £2.38million to £2.41million.

This graph shows that as the beer duty rate increases, the amount of beer consumed decreases, but also beer revenue increases. Increasing the beer duty rate may mean less consumption of beer but it reduces the burden on the NHS. Furthermore, beer duty revenue increases which means more money for the government which can be injected back into the economy or spent in the Healthcare sector. On the whole it is clear that cutting the duty on beer was not the best decision to compliment the NHS cuts.