The MD of JW Lees Brewery has decried the Government’s “sneaky” measures to increase the tax burden on the pub sector, after alcohol duty was increased by 3.7 percent on the same day the UK became the country with the highest tax on wine in Europe.

William Lees-Jones warned that the nearly 200-year-old brewery has recently been forced to increase prices by 2.7 percent in order to stay afloat, adding “we’ve reached a tipping point where the government just can’t tax us any more.”

“If the UK inflation target is 2 percent, why not just increase all taxes by 2 percent?” asked Lees. “It feels really sneaky the way that pubs have been targeted with such high taxation since our exposure to National Minimum Wage, National Insurance, Alcohol Duty, Extended Producer Responsibility packaging charges and Business Rates mean that taxation for pubs has grown by 8.2 percent of sales as a result of the last two budgets.”

“JW Lees Brewery last year made a return on sales of 7.1 percent and so Rachel Reeves has effectively wiped out our business and the only way that we can survive is by putting up our prices. But we know that the more we increase prices the less that we will sell.”