The Autumn Budget is a speech in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer provides an update to Parliament on the economy. Earlier today (26 November 2025), Chancellor Rachel Reeves stood at the despatch box in the House of Commons to deliver the Autumn Budget 2025. She updated MPs and the public on the overall health of the economy and announced changes to taxes and government spending.
The Budget provides a crucial moment for the Government to take action to prevent the raising harm caused by alcohol. The default policy is for taxes to rise with inflation each year, to stop the value of the tax being eroded. Find out more about why Alcohol Duty is important.
The Chancellor announced that from 1 February 2026, the UK Government will be
- Uprating alcohol duty by 3.66%, in line with inflation as judged on the Retail Prices Index (RPI)
- Uprating Small Producer Relief discounts so eligible small producers receive relative duty reductions as now
The Government also published the first National Licensing Policy Framework for the hospitality and leisure sectors, following a public consultation on proposed licencing reforms. This is new guidance for local authorities, not a change to the law. The guidance applies only to on-trade premises, such as pubs, bars, and restaurants, and suggests that local authorities should consider business investment and growth when making licensing decisions.
While we support modernising the outdated Licensing Act (2003), the real modernisations that are needed are those that address the harms caused by cheap, round-the-clock alcohol from supermarkets and online deliveries.
We were glad to see the guidance highlighting that entertainment and socialising do not need to be centred around alcohol, as we highlighted in our submission to the public consultation.
However, asking local authorities to consider business investment and growth in their licensing decisions risks keeping alcohol centre stage, which is worse for our high streets, health and public finances.
Read a recent blog post explaining the wider licensing reforms being considered by the Government.
In response to the announcements, Dr Richard Piper, CEO of Alcohol Change UK, said:
“By keeping alcohol duty in line with inflation, the Government has taken a welcome step forward, while raising much needed revenue. This could see duty receipts rise to £14bn per year by 2030/31, which can be put to good use improving the nation’s health and public services.
“But overall, we expected bolder action today, proportionate to the scale of harm caused by alcohol to so many lives and communities across the UK. This real-terms freeze in alcohol duty means that we are still only recovering a fraction of the total cost of alcohol to society (conservatively estimated at £33bn annually). Reintroducing Labour's alcohol duty escalator would have reduced alcohol harm and bolstered public finances even more.
“It was good to see that, following input from experts in alcohol harm, the National Licensing Policy Framework is even clearer that it will apply exclusively to the on-trade. But the really big issue with the Licensing Act is that it currently fails to protect vulnerable people, including heavier and dependent drinkers and children, especially from rapid and online deliveries. We urge this Government to take urgent action to bring the Licensing Act into the digital age.
“From poor sleep, stress and anxiety to more visits to our GPs and A&E departments, the harms caused by alcohol are felt by millions of us every day. Add to this time off work and lost productivity and we can see how our nation’s economy is held back by booze. The recent Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)’s latest study laid bare the impact of alcohol on our workforce and workplaces, including more sickness absence and reduced productivity caused by ill health. IPPR made a clear economic case for action and predicts that raising alcohol duty by RPI+3% could raise an extra £4.6bn* while improving the nation’s health and wellbeing.
“The country needs this Government to be bolder, bringing meaningful change to alcohol harm. This means urgently introducing proven measures that have broad public support such as Minimum Unit Pricing, reintroducing the alcohol duty escalator and restricting ‘always on’ advertising of alcohol on our screens, streets and spaces.”
