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Alcohol

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I certainly meant no offence to him in not mentioning him specifically. His speech added to the debate, and I am sure that the Minister will make due reference to it and right the balance should any offence have been caused. I have to admit that while he was on his feet I had to leave the Chamber for a comfort break, so I did not hear his entire contribution. I will certainly deal with his point as I progress, but I have only just started. I do not want to disappoint him with the belief that I will go on for too long, but I have a few other things to say. I did not attend the Delegated Legislation Committee that he mentions, so I have no specific knowledge of what my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) said. I can, however, ensure that I clarify the Conservative position. As I said, my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire has not had a response from the CMO. We agree that pricing can have a significant role to play in reducing alcohol consumption, but there is a lack of empirical evidence about the effects in terms of market changes, the economic well-being of low-income groups, and illegal trade. If we really want to tackle alcohol, it is very important that the measures taken are evidence-based. If not, we risk bringing Government action into disrepute, having no real impact on alcohol consumption and, yet again, being left with the negative impact of the unintended consequences of ill-thought-out legislation. Our debate started with the Chairman of the Health Committee giving us a run-down of the figures, and it may be timely to remind ourselves of a few of the particularly striking ones. In 1947, we drank 3.5 litres of alcohol per head in this country; now, the figure is well over 9.5 litres. The British Medical Association believes that we have some of the heaviest levels of alcohol consumption in Europe; if that were causing us no harm, there would be no problem. A 2009 survey found that young people are drinking twice as much as they did in 1990, and that a third of men and a fifth of women are drinking 21 units per week. Alcohol policy has always been difficult for the Government to deal with. The hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor) took us back probably as far as I have ever heard any Member take us in describing how deeply ingrained alcohol is not only in our British culture but in causing the problems that we now see. It is accepted in a way that other mind-altering drugs are not, and successive Governments have had to strike a difficult balance, encouraging people to drink responsibly while not punishing the responsible drinker. I do not believe we have got that balance right, and there is a heavy cost to that failure. The president of the Royal College of Physicians estimates that there are 30,000 to 40,000 deaths a year because of alcohol, and liver cirrhosis increased more than fivefold between 1970 and 2006. The number of under-18s hospitalised for alcohol misuse has increased by nearly 40 per cent. since 2002-03, to more than 12,000 in 2007-08, and the number of adults hospitalised increased by 80 per cent. to nearly 200,000 in the same period. We have a big problem, and any doctor will tell us that it is causing them serious concern. It has a huge impact on the NHS, and it is estimated that alcohol misuse costs the NHS about £2.5 billion every year. At a time when we are looking to get the most out of the NHS, getting to grips with alcohol abuse will not only save lives and prevent illness but save millions of pounds that we can reinvest in improving services. The link between alcohol and crime is well established. According to the British crime survey of 2008-09, the victims of nearly half of all violent crimes believe the offender to have been under the influence of alcohol. That is a staggering figure. Alcohol misuse has an impact on countless family breakdowns, mental health illness, poor sexual health and even obesity—it is the cornerstone of poor public health in the UK. For every person who is drinking too much and suffering harm, I can guarantee that four or five family members or friends around them will be suffering as a result of their excessive drinking. There are clearly many options open to Governments for how best to tackle alcohol abuse, and one that the Health Committee has recommended is minimum pricing. The report highlights evidence showing that a rise in the price of alcohol is the most effective way of reducing consumption. We have known about the link between price and consumption for years, but of course there are powerful lobbying groups that are keen to say that minimum pricing will not reduce alcohol intake. We can consider our own anecdotal evidence. When I was younger, my parents would have an occasional whisky in the evening and having a bottle of wine was a rare treat. They could not afford to have one often, but now I might go home and have a couple of glasses of wine because it is a great deal cheaper. Both the Government and Opposition Members want to increase the price of alcohol, because we believe it will have an impact. The question, as hon. Members have said, is what is the most effective way of doing that. We must consider what we need in place to get the outcomes that we want. We believe in a targeted approach via an increase in duty on problem drinks—alcopops and super-strength beers—and a ban on the sale of alcohol below cost price. Similar approaches have succeeded in reducing the consumption of problem drinks in Australia and Germany, and Alcohol Concern has stated:""Strong cider, strong beer and alcopops are some of the most irresponsibly priced and problematic alcoholic drinks available in Britain. Measures of this kind would be a positive step towards making them much less attractive to teenagers. It may also encourage production of low alcohol products, increasing consumer choice for responsible drinkers."" In support of an increase in duty rather than minimum pricing, I shall quote the Health Committee's report. It states:""The main case for higher sales duties rather than minimum prices is that minimum prices would lead to higher profits for producers and vendors of alcohol, assuming that any fall in sales would be more than offset by the increase in revenue from each unit. In contrast, a rise in duty would avoid this, producing not additional profits but extra money for the Exchequer. A rise in taxes can also be justified, as we found in Scotland, on the basis of recovering the costs imposed by alcohol…the duty on alcohol currently raises far less."" I have mentioned other potential advantages of increasing sales duties, one being that it would allow us to target stronger drinks. Minimum pricing is regressive in that the capital made by increasing the price of alcohol will go straight to the supermarkets and shops that sell the alcohol. Instead, why not tax the alcohol so that the profits of any increase can, as the report says, go back to the Government to help to balance the books or—in an ideal world—for reinvestment in alcohol prevention and treatment? The debate on minimum pricing might in any case be entirely immaterial, owing to a recent ruling from the European Court of Justice. Will the Minister clarify this? The court decided that minimum pricing legislation on cigarettes in France, Austria and Ireland infringed European law. According to the European Commission, that legislation""undermines the freedom of manufacturers and importers to determine the maximum retail selling prices of their products and, correspondingly, free competition."" I see no reason why alcohol would be treated differently from cigarettes, so I fear that the Government are behind the curve, which is not a new problem. As the Health Committee report states,""the response of…Governments"" has sadly lurched""from the non-existent to the ineffectual."" The evidence may suggest that minimum pricing is the answer, but it might not be possible because of that ECJ ruling. There is no doubt that we need radically to change how we view alcohol and that we need to attack on several fronts. On price, licensing and education, we need attitudinal change and, crucially, overarching, funded public health programmes delivered through ring-fenced public health boards, to which the Conservatives are committed. We need not only to utilise current legislation, but a tougher licensing regime that will give local authorities and the police much stronger powers over licensing, including the ability to remove licences from, or to refuse to grant them to, any premises that are causing problems. The hon. Member for Luton, North mentioned what the Health Committee report says about the Licensing Act 2003. It states:""The worst fears of the Act's critics were not realised, but neither was the DCMS's naive aspiration of establishing cafe society: violence and disorder have remained at similar levels, although they have tended to take place later at night. The principle of establishing democratic control of licensing was not realised: the regulations governing licensing gave the licensing authorities and local communities too little control over either issuing or revoking licences, as ACPO indicated. KPMG examined the alcohol industry's voluntary code and found it had failed.""