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The value of vaping and smoking will enhance following tax rises introduced in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Budget.
A brand new tax on vapes of £2.20 per 10ml of e-cigarette liquid will kick in from October 2026.
That will probably be accompanied by an equal enhance of £2.20 per 100 cigarettes in tobacco duty to “maintain the financial incentive to switch from tobacco to vaping”.
Reeves additionally set out speedy above-inflation will increase of two% on tobacco and 10% for hand-rolled tobacco.
On alcohol duties, she mentioned that, from February 2025, there could be a 1.7% discount in draught beer duty, to shave “a penny off a pint in the pub”.
However, charges on non-draught merchandise, equivalent to wine and spirits, will rise by the upper RPI measure of inflation.
Defending the rise, the chancellor mentioned “two-thirds of alcoholic drinks sold in pubs are served on draught”.
The UK Spirits Alliance (UKSA) referred to as the hike a “kick in the teeth”, including: “Today’s decision won’t stop thousands more pubs and distillers closing down.”
However, Katherine Severi of the Institute of Alcohol Studies welcomed the transfer saying it will “help narrow the widening gap in affordability between pub and supermarket alcohol”.
“There are both public health and economic reasons to move people back to drinking in pubs and not at home.”
In its final Budget earlier than shedding the election, the earlier Conservative authorities mentioned it needed to introduce a vaping tax and set up a session on the adjustments.
The session mentioned the tax aimed to make vaping “less accessible to young people and non-smokers while also raising revenue for funding vital public services like the NHS”.
It had proposed totally different ranges of tax based mostly on the quantity of nicotine in the vaping liquid. However, Reeves has as an alternative opted for a flat price.
Head of the UK Vaping Industry Association John Dunne referred to as the vape tax a “nonsensical move” that penalised individuals who used vapes as a technique to surrender smoking.
He mentioned: “Some three million adults are former people who smoke due to vaping, which is strongly evidenced as the simplest method to give up standard cigarettes, saving the NHS thousands and thousands of kilos in treating sufferers with smoking associated circumstances.”
The new Labour government had already said it wanted to stop vapes being branded to appeal to children, and has announced a ban on single-use vapes, due to come into effect in England in June 2025.
Ministers have also pledged to continue plans, set out by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, to ban people born in or after 2009 from buying cigarettes.
In a measure aimed to encourage manufacturers to reduce sugar content in drinks, the Budget confirmed an increase to the Soft Drinks Industry Levy.
The present exemption for milk-based drinks will probably be reviewed.
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