MPs are calling for a cut in the duty on beer in the Budget next week to stop North West drug barons using bootlegging to finance their evil trade.

Members of the Parliamentary Beer Club, including Ribble Valley MP Nigel Evans, are alarmed that organised criminals in the region are using the profits from smuggled booze from the continent to pay for drugs deals.

They were shocked to be told by Whitbread's Bill Simpson, that half the 1.1million pints a day bought cheaply across the channel and smuggled into Britain were being commercially re-sold.

Mr Simpson revealed that 70 per cent of the bootleggers lived outside London and the South East with a big chunk of the illegal booze heading to the North West.

In total, the smuggling of booze bought in France where duty is 4.4p per pint resold in the UK where the duty is 37.7p per pint is costing the Exchequer £250m a year in lost duty. Mr Simpson said that the amount imported since the European Single Market ended Customs Duty at UK points of entry, has risen from 400,000 pints a day to 1.1m now and will double to 2.2m by the year 2000.

He predicted that 10,000 UK pubs could shut unless Chancellor Kenneth acted on Tuesday. Mr Evans, who is a member of the club executive, said: "This is a very serious problem in the region.

"I know that organised crime is making use of the profits.

"It apears that money from cheap drink is being used to finance drug smuggling. Action is needed. It is vital that something is done to break the link between crime and bootlegging, to save pubs in the region and to protect North West brewers and the drinks trade from the smugglers.

Alan Meal, Labour MP for Mansfield, has written to Mr Clarke calling for duty to be slashed. He said: "Customs officers reckon that ongoing criminal activity is linked to the bootleg trade, a significant reduction in domestic tax would reduce criminals' profit margins, save jobs and save pubs."

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