SHEPHERD Neame is leading the fight for a freeze on duty as beer sales slump to a 150-year low.

Jonathan Neame, chief executive of the Faversham brewer, went to Westminster on Monday to press the case for no more tax rises.

Mr Neame was speaking on behalf of the British Beer and Pubs Association which is alarmed at the startling drop in beer sales and the closure of 50 pubs a month across the UK.

He spelt out the industry’s challenge to the Parliamentary Beer Club, a group of MPs and peers with special interest in beer and brewing.

Mr Neame urged them to persuade Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling to half further tax increases on beer and instead raise taxes on wine and "hard liquors" such as vodka which have enjoyed a duty freeze for 10 years.

"The beer industry is facing one of the toughest challenges in its history and although there is pressure in some quarters for a rise in excise duty, we think that would be completely and utterly counter-productive," he said.

The Government’s tax take on beer would fall if it imposed another rise, Mr Neame warned. "WE want a fair deal relative to other products. Beer has nothying more t6o give, the industry has been taxed to the poiont where it has nothing more to give."

Mr Neame admitted that beer was often blamed for the booze culture affecting young people. But he stressed that this was caused mainly by consumption of cheap vodka sold in supermarkets.

"It is overwhelmingly in the country’s social, economic and cultural interst to have a strong pub trade because in pubs people drink the lowest form of alcohol called beer - four per cent."