Alcohol Harm Commission: Report 2020

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, there is always a danger when addressing lifestyle choices that policymakers indulge in overreach. The relentless war on alcohol emanating from public health over recent years is no exemption. This can mean the state trampling on individual agency, a point well made by the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, in yesterday’s Question on obesity. There is another danger when reports are commissioned to look at harms: that they see only harms and see harms everywhere. This can mean a disproportionate focus on risk and a loss of balance.

My concern about the direction of this report is that it moves away from the sometimes exaggerated health harms of individual alcohol use into the broader social and economic realms. In doing so, it may deploy guilt by association by linking alcohol and drinkers with reprehensible behaviours such as domestic abuse, family neglect, crime and child suicide and with a financial burden on public services. There is also the danger of conflating causation with correlation. This can mean that harms associated with a small minority are projected population-wide. Indeed, the proposed illiberal solutions, such as minimum pricing, treat everyone as a potential problem drinker and alcohol per se as a harmful substance.

Surely we need balance. Alcohol is a legal and enjoyable part of human engagement and relaxed sociability for millions of people. The direction of this report could disproportionately penalise and unfairly demonise the vast majority of those who drink responsibly.

Finally, can we remember the hospitality industry? With lockdown, some 10,000 pubs, clubs and restaurants were forced out of business in 2020. That awful loss of jobs and livelihoods looks set to continue. We have seen curfews and pubs open but with alcohol banned in Scotland and Wales. This smacks of a joyless puritanism. I appreciate that I am almost a lone voice here, but there is no democratic mandate for “Temperance UK”. Policy interventions should be targeted, discreet, and aware that alcohol can be harmful but usually is not, and that grown-ups should be free to choose how they use alcohol regardless of risks.