SMOKING, DRINKING, DRIVING DEARER

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34123, 8 April 1976, Page 17

SMOKING, DRINKING, DRIVING DEARER

(N.Z.PA. Staff Crspdt* LONDON, April 7. The smokers and drinkers who bore much of the burden of the last British Budget have again been asked to pay more for their pleasure. The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Denis Healey) announced in his Budget yesterday increases on beer, spirits, wines, cigarettes. cigars and tobacco. This is what the smoking, drinking Briton will now have to pay: An extra one penny (about 2c) on a pint of beer. Thirty-one pence (about 59c) more for a bottle of spirits. Twelve pence (about 21c) more for a bottle of fortified wine. Another six pence (about 11c) for a bottle ot table wine. Between three and three and a half pence (5-6 c more) for a packet of 20 cigarettes. King-size filter-tipped cigarettes will now cost 50.5 pence ($1.01) for a packet of 20. Tobacco for “roll-your-owns” and cigars also goes up. but pipe tobacco does not.

There was also a grim message to motorists among the 18,000 words in Mr Healey's Budget speech: the price of petrol will be increased by one penny (about 2c) to'the equivalent nf $1.30 a gallon (middle grade) from next Friday.