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Written question asked by Baroness Coffey (Conservative) on Friday, 19 November 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 23 November 2010. It was answered by Justine Greening (Conservative) on Monday, 29 November 2010 on behalf of the Treasury.

Excise Duties: Beer

Question
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) how many brewers that received small breweries relief in 2009-10 had received such relief in previous years;
Answer

In 2009-10 there were 666 breweries that paid duty at a reduced rate due to the small breweries' relief. Of these 578 also benefited in 2008-09, while 503 did so in 2007-08.Information on specific breweries is taxpayer confidential and therefore cannot be disclosed by HMRC.The foregone duty can be approximated by applying the full duty rate to small breweries' clearances. This gives us an estimated cost to the Exchequer of £125 million since 2002-03. However this does not account for any reduction in clearances that may have resulted if the relief was not in place; over this period the number of breweries utilising the small breweries relief has grown from under 400 to over 650.A yearly breakdown is given in the following table.

Number Clearances (hl) Estimated Exchequer cost (£m)
2002-03 394 850,000 5
2003-04 428 600,000 10
2004-05 476 1,050,000 20
2005-06 509 1,100,000 15
2006-07 580 950,000 15
2007-08 611 1,100,000 15
2008-09 646 1,100,000 20
2009-10 666 1,150,000 25

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
26162; 519 c638W
Session
2010-12
Subjects
Beer Excise duties
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk