We have a problem with alcohol in Britain, more so than in any other country — or so we are led to believe. The answer? Raising taxes, restricting access, controlling communication, banning advertising and tightening regulation. Problem solved. This is the well-trodden path of the anti-smoking lobby, so it should work here, too.

But alcohol, in moderation, of course, is different: healthwise, socially, culturally and economically. We are inundated with arguments and reports on why alcohol producers and pubs should have their activities restricted, yet no account is taken of the economic, social and cultural damage that would be caused by following the anti-alcohol zeitgeist.

Tax on all alcohol increased by 9 per cent in the last Budget but did the price go up? No. In fact, the average price of beer in the supermarkets went down. An excise duty increase does not reduce demand; instead, it shifts the point of purchase from the controlled environment of the pub to the discounting, loss-leading supermarkets and, ultimately, to the unscrupulous bootlegger.

Even before the last punitive Budget, beer production in the UK was being pushed to the margin. The big brewers were making less than 1p per pint and were not even recovering their capital costs — unsustainable in the extreme. This is before this year's 10 per cent drop in pub demand and before further above-inflation increases in duty, planned over the next few years.

Beer in Britain is already the highest-taxed in Europe and, per unit of alcohol, is more expensive than wine, vodka and high-strength cider. Surely, we have got this the wrong way round? We need to shift consumption towards lower-alcohol products and a controlled environment in which to enjoy them.

Yet the British pub, once the cherished heart of its community, has been brought to its knees by multilayered petty bureaucracy and excessive taxation. Thirty-six pubs close each week, a figure that is set to accelerate. Most people in the country want to have a strong, vibrant pub near them, characterised by great beer, good food and wine and, crucially, good ambience and fellowship. Such pubs exist, but they are struggling against a Government that has come to regard pubs as a tax-collection point on one hand and a social problem on the other.

In today's Pre-Budget Report I hope that HM Treasury will stand up for beer and pubs and recognise what their figures have shown them for five years: raising taxes on beer does not increase revenue, but simply squeezes the producer, closes pubs and reduces VAT. A few economic chickens have come home to roost recently ... but there is room for one more.

Beer (a low alcohol drink) and pubs (a controlled environment) are, in my view, part of the solution to our broken and fragmented society, not part of the problem. And at a time of economic downturn, the one thing we need to maintain, in particular, is social cohesion.

If the anti-alcohol arguments and punitive taxes prevail, then it will be the good guys — the community pubs, the small brewers, the local cider makers, small wine makers — and not the irresponsible retailers that are most at risk. And if we lose them, we will have experienced an act of gross cultural vandalism.

— Jonathan Neame is chief executive of Shepherd Neame, the Kent-based brewer and pub operator

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