Is Britain too drunk to go to work?

Are you feeling ok? You look a bit green. As well you might, if you’re part of Britain’s boss class. New research by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), a left-leaning think tank, suggests that our workplaces are in the grip of a booze crisis.

It found that, over the course of a single working year, nearly a third of those surveyed admitted to pulling alcohol-related sickies. While that might be good news for Pret, which keeps hungover office workers going with morning-after black coffees and bacon butties – sorry, Triple Bacon Ciabattas… – the number of days lost to alcohol-induced migraines and junk sleep is taking its toll on British productivity.

The report makes the obvious point that those who manage to turn up after a big night out – pasty-faced, sweaty and with big bags under their eyes – don’t do much when they do get to their desks. But the situation is worst with Gen Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, which is poised to be the largest part of the labour force.

As a cohort, “generation sensible” likes to insist they drink less than their elders. And yet, approaching half (43 per cent) have taken hangover sickies, citing the pressure to fit in at work for attending alcohol-drenched social events. Yes, that’ll be it, not the prospect of free booze…

Midweek bacchanalia – sorry, team-building… – is estimated to cost the economy £5 billion a year. But with the autumn Budget now on the horizon, might the government bring down the tax hammer to encourage a little more sobriety in Britain’s workforce and, in the spirit of in vino veritas, to bring some much needed extra cash to Treasury coffers?

Measures that chancellor Rachel Reeves might look to include for our own good include the return of the alcohol duty escalator. Prior to its cancellation by George Osborne, duty rates increased each year in real terms, at inflation plus 2 per cent. Standardising duty rates across all drinks with the same alcohol level by volume (ABV) would have a similar heady effect.

As someone who barely drinks at all these days, partly because I’m disabled and have to drive everywhere (public transport is a hostile environment…), you could consider me as an interested observer. I don’t call in sick as a consequence of hangovers because I don’t get them – so an increase in booze duty is scarcely going to bother me.

However, I imagine that if the government follows the IPPR’s programme, those that enjoy a drink after work will be quite cross. The hospitality industry, already battered by higher taxes and soaring costs, would surely share that sentiment. Job cuts and closures are already on its menu. New duty regulations would only make the situation worse.

Tax increases are never popular, and I’m afraid that there are more of them on the way. However, some are easier to swallow than others, and this one would go down like a pint of sour beer, particularly when the UK already has some of the highest rates of alcohol duty in Europe.

That’s not to say I don’t recognise that there is a problem. Clearly there is. Employers really ought to wake up to it. By allowing boozy cultures to flourish, encouraging the absenteeism and low productivity that go hand in hand with them, they’re kicking themselves in the bottom line.

Ministers have to live in the real world and I’m afraid most of the IPPR’s prescription is too hard to swallow. To accept its recommendations, the government would have to be blind drunk.