The Sun is calling for a beer tax rise to be halted so Brits can still afford a pint. We want Chancellor George Osborne to freeze it in next month’s Budget.

New figures reveal the hated beer duty escalator has been hiked by 42 per cent since its launch in 2008, and Britain’s beer drinkers already pay the second highest duty of EU drinkers.

That means that one third of the proceeds of every over-priced pint in Britain’s pubs now goes to the Treasury.

To well-paid MPs drinking subsidised champagne in Westminster bars the price of a pint may seem like small beer, but to ordinary working people it matters.

The freeze would cost Mr Osborne less than £100 million – a tiny sum compared to our successful demand last year to abolish fuel duty rises.

It is also crucial to Britain’s pub industry – already ravaged by price hikes and the smoking ban – and the hundreds of thousands whose livelihoods depend on it.

JD Wetherspoons founder and chairman, Tim Martin, has pledged his support:

“Once again The Sun has its finger on the pulse. A pub is the centre of many communities and so
many have shut down.

“We don’t mind paying taxes but Britons pay 40 per cent of the excise duty for the whole of Europe.

“We wholeheartedly back The Sun’s campaign.”

A CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) spokesperson said:

“The taxman is taking more than a £1 pint in duty and VAT from every pub pint. This level of taxation is leading to pub going becoming an expensive luxury.

We will be running our Axe Beer Tax campaign until budget day on 20 March, and we will be giving out more than 300,000 beer mats across the nation alerting drinkers to the Chancellor’s planned beer tax hike.

Go to www.MashBeerTax.org to directly message your MP to freeze the beer tax.

“The Prime Minister promised that this would be a ‘pub friendly Government’ – if he is to keep his
word he needs to tell the Chancellor to stop increasing tax on beer”.