The Chancellor may have felt in need of a stiff drink after absorbing the latest productivity figures handed to her by the Office for Budget Responsibility, and who could blame her? The OBR is widely expected to have significantly downgraded its productivity forecasts while at the same time conceding that it’s been overestimating productivity growth in recent years. Better make it a double, Rachel, just don’t tell the IPPR!
The left-wing think tank has called on the government to hike alcohol taxes in order to combat the productivity-sapping impact of hangovers. The policy wonks claim that “the impact of workers routinely drinking alcohol is undermining productivity and stifling growth.” Well, it’s a theory. Other people point to historic underinvestment, creaking national infrastructure, poor training and skills development, sclerotic economic growth and excessive regulation but since economists still refer to “the productivity puzzle” we may as well throw hangovers into the mix, too.
And if moving to tackle that raises some additional cash for the Treasury, so much the better.
Head of Health at the IPPR, Sebastian Rees, said that nudging (taxing) people away from alcohol will lead to “more inclusive workplaces” and an uplift in wellbeing, performance and productivity. This seems like wishful thinking, to me.
The think-tank claims that 73 per cent of the 2,000 employees they surveyed for their research agreed that “employers have a responsibility to reduce alcohol harm” while more than half reported that their employer had not “provided any guidance, training or inclusive alternatives to events featuring alcohol.”
Again, this all seems a bit of a reach. I see the wisdom in not hosting every work event in a boozer but is it really an employer’s responsibility to offer training on how, when, where or whether someone should have a pint or a glass of wine? I’ve been working in the City for a decade and drinking culture has changed hugely in that time, not least thanks to the proliferation of fantastic alcohol-free beer on tap and, it must be said, the complete normalisation of not drinking.
The authors of this fun-sapping, finger-wagging, tax-loving report do concede that ramping up the price of a drink “could be unpopular with the public and [pose] a political risk” so all we can hope for is that the Chancellor recognises this advice, files the recommendation in the shredder and moves on to looking for some genuinely pro-growth policies. I’d raise a glass to that.