Letter: Beer tax targeted at wrong people

Letter: In this year's Budget, the Chancellor announced that beer, wine and spirits would be taxed at a higher rate and that rate would increase every year for the foreseeable future. Alistair Darling claimed this was part of the war on binge-drinking which, I think most would agree is a spiralling problem possibly not helped by the same Government's introduction of 24-hour drinking.

But are they targeting the right people with their binge drink taxation?

Ask yourself, when did you last see a drunken teenager in such a state because of his penchant for real ale?

The fact is that if you want to attack alcohol abuse, you need to target the alcohol abusers. That's not the average drinker in the average Shrewsbury pub after a day at work.

It's the kids in the local park loaded up on high-volume cider or the alcopop drinker who hasn't learned to drink responsibly.

But the higher taxes don't seem to be targeted in that direction. In fact alcopops are amongst the least taxed drinks. There seems to be an attack across the board which damages local pubs as much as it does the binge-drinker's wallet.

Daniel Kawczynski MP

Shrewsbury