Alcoholic drink .

alfmurph

This is just for Scotland . Due to the SNP government trying to stop even moderate drinkers by taxing a 1 litre bottle of spirits almost 7 pounds more than the rest of the UK you can avoid this by buying from Amazon . Just bought 8 bottles for the holiday season saving myself 50 pounds .

Woodstok2000

I wouldnt mind so much if it was actually tax revenue that could pay for better services, but the tax is exactly the same. The MUP money goes straight into the retailers pocket (minus a slight uplift due to VAT) - ridiculous.

flaneurs_lobster

alfmurph said:

This is just for Scotland . Due to the SNP government trying to stop even moderate drinkers by taxing a 1 litre bottle of spirits almost 7 pounds more than the rest of the UK you can avoid this by buying from Amazon . Just bought 8 bottles for the holiday season saving myself 50 pounds .

Thanks for the tip. Was this alcohol delivered to an address in Scotland? If so then Amazon are possibly breaking the law if they do not apply Minimum Unit Pricing to alcohol sales (although it seems that the legislation doesn't quite cope with alcohol dispatched from outside Scotland)..

Nothing to stop those Scottish residents who live close enough to the English border popping over to Tesco in Carlisle or Bewick for their cheap booze. 

The legislation on minimum alcohol pricing is not really aimed at someone who can spend three figures on booze at an online retailer.

The idea is to keep the price of Buckfast or Frosty Jack's high enough to provide a deterrent or at least a price barrier to excessive drinking. The MUP has been shown to have achieved at least a moderate reduction in some consequences of alcohol abuse.

Woodstok2000 said:

I wouldnt mind so much if it was actually tax revenue that could pay for better services, but the tax is exactly the same. The MUP money goes straight into the retailers pocket (minus a slight uplift due to VAT) - ridiculous.

Absolutely right. The Social Market Foundation has recently published a paper calling for just this.

https://www.alcohol-focus-scotland.org.uk/resources/The-price-is-right-May-2025-1.pdf 

molerat

Nothing to stop those Scottish residents who live close enough to the English border popping over to Tesco in Carlisle or Bewick for their cheap booze.

Back in the day it used to be a booze cruise to Calais.

I get mine personally imported - I know someone who goes down to England most weeks so gets a shopping list from the family to bring a stash back and I always stop in Carlisle on the way back up - fill up the tank and the boot !

Some of the prices are dramatic - 18 pack of Magners cider - Scotland £23.17, Asda England 2 for £20 !

I do love the hypocrisy of the SNP in complaining about tariffs on whisky.

flaneurs_lobster

molerat said:

I do love the hypocrisy of the SNP in complaining about tariffs on whisky.

Not sure they've got any choice, booze is 25% of Scotland's export revenue (plus whatever is flogged to the rest of the UK).

So they promote it as an industry and penalise it as a consumer product. 

At least they don't have any ciggie factories any more to worry about.

Woodstok2000

molerat said:

Nothing to stop those Scottish residents who live close enough to the English border popping over to Tesco in Carlisle or Bewick for their cheap booze.

Back in the day it used to be a booze cruise to Calais.

I get mine personally imported - I know someone who goes down to England most weeks so gets a shopping list from the family to bring a stash back and I always stop in Carlisle on the way back up - fill up the tank and the boot !

Some of the prices are dramatic - 18 pack of Magners cider - Scotland £23.17, Asda England 2 for £20 !

I do love the hypocrisy of the SNP in complaining about tariffs on whisky.

Alcohol absolutely, but petrol is generally cheaper up here than in England. Its 130.9p a litre where I am, but 135p in Carlisle at the moment.

ButterCheese

regarding Amazon - wouldn't it depend on where the warehouse was i.e. Scotland or England?  If the trading name or warehouse was in England, surely you are then buying from England but just getting it delivered to Scotland therefore they're not required to apply the increased alcohol tax?

molerat

Woodstok2000 said:

molerat said:

Nothing to stop those Scottish residents who live close enough to the English border popping over to Tesco in Carlisle or Bewick for their cheap booze.

Back in the day it used to be a booze cruise to Calais.

I get mine personally imported - I know someone who goes down to England most weeks so gets a shopping list from the family to bring a stash back and I always stop in Carlisle on the way back up - fill up the tank and the boot !

Some of the prices are dramatic - 18 pack of Magners cider - Scotland £23.17, Asda England 2 for £20 !

I do love the hypocrisy of the SNP in complaining about tariffs on whisky.

Alcohol absolutely, but petrol is generally cheaper up here than in England. Its 130.9p a litre where I am, but 135p in Carlisle at the moment.

You mean Edinburgh is cheaper than Carlisle, a bit of an outlier in prices, just about cheaper than anywhere else in Scotland or England.

flaneurs_lobster

ButterCheese said:

regarding Amazon - wouldn't it depend on where the warehouse was i.e. Scotland or England?  If the trading name or warehouse was in England, surely you are then buying from England but just getting it delivered to Scotland therefore they're not required to apply the increased alcohol tax?

It seems that Amazon have agreed to apply the MUP when the booze is shipped from one of their Scottish distribution centres (they've recently gone through the licencing procedures to make this possible). The regulations are far from exact, and obviously their application is not focussed on this bit of the market. 

The major retailers who trade in Scotland are all compliant (both online and in-store), the focus is on the corner shops/markets/unlicenced informal retailers (bloke in a van).

molerat

Amazon will likely only store / ship non affected products from their Scottish warehouses.  The Scottish government cannot (yet) legislate on cross border trade within RUK, only on trade originating within Scotland.  I wonder how they get round the 10am and 10pm rule for products shipped from Scotland - do they deliver anything before 10am ?

Woodstok2000

molerat said:

Woodstok2000 said:

molerat said:

Nothing to stop those Scottish residents who live close enough to the English border popping over to Tesco in Carlisle or Bewick for their cheap booze.

Back in the day it used to be a booze cruise to Calais.

I get mine personally imported - I know someone who goes down to England most weeks so gets a shopping list from the family to bring a stash back and I always stop in Carlisle on the way back up - fill up the tank and the boot !

Some of the prices are dramatic - 18 pack of Magners cider - Scotland £23.17, Asda England 2 for £20 !

I do love the hypocrisy of the SNP in complaining about tariffs on whisky.

Alcohol absolutely, but petrol is generally cheaper up here than in England. Its 130.9p a litre where I am, but 135p in Carlisle at the moment.

You mean Edinburgh is cheaper than Carlisle, a bit of an outlier in prices, just about cheaper than anywhere else in Scotland or England.

Not just edinburgh. Most of the borders, Perth, Stirling, Central belt, Glasgow, even in Inverness it's cheaper than Carlisle.