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Rishi Sunak’s government has been criticised by a leading Brexiter, after it quietly announced it would not be legislating to expand the use of imperial measures in the UK.
The decision to drop the idea, which had been hailed as a potential “Brexit freedom”, came after it turned out that only a tiny fraction of British businesses and consumers wanted to see a bigger role for imperial units.
The government revealed on Wednesday that out of 100,000 people who responded to a consultation on boosting Britain’s “long and proud history of using imperial measures”, only 1.3 per cent were in favour of increasing their use for buying or selling products.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, former business secretary, said the decision not to expand the use of traditional British measurements — such as gallons, pints, pounds and ounces — was regrettable.
“It is a small reminder that we have government of the bureaucrat, by the bureaucrat, for the bureaucrat,” he said.
The government began a review of units in September 2021 with the aim of giving business and consumers more choice in the domestic sale of goods, but quickly ran into a wall of public apathy or antipathy.
Current UK law requires metric units to be used as the primary indicator for all trade purposes for the majority of goods; where imperial units are used alongside metric units, they must be less prominent.
Sales of pints of draught beer are among the few exceptions, while miles are the standard measurement used on road signs.
As it announced that it had decided not to change the law, the government noted that the majority of respondents to its consultation “expressed limited or no appetite for increased use of imperial measures”.
It added that arguments against the change cited “consumer confusion, increased costs for businesses and barriers to international trade”. It said these concerns were raised by both businesses and consumers.
However, in one piece of good news for imperial measurement enthusiasts, the government has announced changes to the specified sizes of pre-packaged still and sparkling wine.
These will allow wine, including champagne, to be sold in 500ml and 200ml containers, as well as a new 568ml quantity — otherwise known as a pint — if the industry decides it is worth making the new containers.
Sir Winston Churchill was an enthusiast for a pint of champagne, saying it was “enough for two at lunch and one at dinner”. Poet Robert Burns also imagined a man toasting his “bonny Mary” with a “pint o’ wine”.
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