Simon Dodd, Commercial Director at The Orchid Group

How the Emergency Budget will affect UK pubs:

“No further duty increase and a reversal of the duty on cider has been welcomed by The Orchid Group.  The green shoots of recovery we and our sector are starting to experience should now, we hope, continue.  However, Orchid are strongly against the VAT increase from 17.5% to 20% which will be imposed on January 4th 2011.  Our recovery is fragile and the increase of 6p a pint in Jan 2011, followed by a CPI +2% in March 2011 (another circa 6-8p on a pint) could dramatically damage our recovery.”