Modelling the effects in England of reforming the UK alcohol duty system


Why this is important

In the UK Government’s October 2021 budget, an announcement was made of a proposed overhaul to the way in which we tax alcohol. Prior to leaving the EU, there were restrictions on the mechanisms by which the UK could tax alcoholic products. Leaving the EU has afforded the UK an opportunity to move away from EU regulations about how alcohol is taxed to introduce a new alcohol duty system where all alcoholic products are taxed on the basis of their alcohol content.


Research question

What is the potential impact of the proposed new alcohol duty system on alcohol consumption, health and health inequalities and how do these effects compare with alternative systems?


Methods

We used the Sheffield Tobacco and Alcohol Policy Model (STAPM).

We undertook new analysis of data from Kantar Worldpanel to understand how different population groups consume alcohol at different strengths. This new data was then be incorporated into STAPM to estimate how the proposed duty changes, which involve different price changes depending on the alcoholic strength of each product, might affect alcohol consumption and health over the subsequent 20 years.

We also investigated the distributional impacts of the new proposals to understand which groups in the population (based on age, sex, deprivation or drinking level) might be most or least affected by the new duty regime.

Finally, we compared the effects to alternative alcohol duty structure options.


Outputs

  • Responded to a call for evidence from HM Treasury around alcohol duty systems.
  • Responded to HM Treasury’s Alcohol Duty Review consultation, January 2022. This included preparing a short report on modelling the potential impact of alcohol duty reform based on findings from our NIHR funded SYNTAX project.
  • Paper in preparation ‘The impact of introducing a strength-based alcohol duty system on health outcomes in England: A modelling study’

Reproducibility notes


Funding

  • The SYNTAX project: The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Public Health Research Board, Project number 16/105/26.
  • Research England through the QR Policy support fund.

References