Alok Sharma, the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Reading West, and local Conservatives have launched a petition calling on the Government to help save our local pubs from closure and safeguard jobs.

Alok Sharma said: “With 39 pubs closing across the country every week and local Reading pubs under increasing threat, we believe that the Government should be doing more to save British pubs. 33% of the price of every pint goes in beer tax to the Chancellor and now the Government plans to increase beer tax further. Quite simply, enough is enough.”

Alok continued: “We want the Government to cut taxes on lower alcohol drinks and raise taxes on problem drinks like high strength ciders and alcopops in order to use the tax system to target binge drinking whilst ensuring that responsible drinkers and the traditional British pub are not unfairly penalised. The British pub is a vital part of our local communities and for too long the Government has tried to tackle binge drinking by punishing responsible drinkers and landlords. With massive tax hikes and heavy-handed regulation, all Labour will succeed in doing is closing down more pubs. This has to stop. We want the Government to trust adults to make informed choices, not punish them for the actions of an irresponsible minority and existing laws should be enforced to deal firmly with irresponsible drinkers and premises.”


Alok concluded: “We are going to be taking our petition to every pub in the Reading West constituency. The response to the petition so far from local people and pub landlords has been fantastic. At this very difficult economic time we need to be doing all we can to help local businesses and safeguard local jobs.”