Rishi Sunak: I won’t apologise for cutting alcohol duty on champagne in prosecco in Budget
Rishi Sunak said this morning he will not apologise for cutting alcohol duty on Champagne, prosecco and other sparkling wine in the Budget.
Speaking to Sky News, Rishi Sunak said: “I’m not going to make any apologies for that. We have an irrational system at the moment of how we tax alcohol.
“The new system we are going to bring into place is going to be simpler, it is going to be fairer and it is going to be healthier and it is going to support pubs.
I know many people enjoy, whether it is a bottle of prosecco, to celebrate something.
Rishi Sunak this morning
“We’ve seen sparkling wine sales in the country double in just the last five years, fuelled by actually bottles of prosecco that may cost £7 or so and the price of those bottles will come down by about 87p.
“And I think that’s a good thing actually, because everyone when something good happens wants to celebrate with a bit of bubbly and we’re actually going to remove the completely irrational duty premium that those drinks currently bear – they are no more alcoholic than still wine but they pay a lot more duty.
That seems to me to be unfair and silly and I’d like to sort that out.”