Alcohol: Minimum Pricing

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, as I said in my earlier Answer, the Government will launch a consultation on the level to be set for a minimum unit price for alcohol. The Government will consider a range of issues in detail as part of this consultation.

[Lord Haskel]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Henley]

The noble Lord understands the law very well. He is absolutely correct in that. These are matters for enforcement and we think that they should be taken up by the police and, subsequently, the licensing authorities. It is possible to remove the licence from an individual or a pub if it sells alcohol to someone who is obviously inebriated.

[Lord Haskel]

My Lords, have the Government considered achieving the minimum price by raising the tax rather than the price? If you raise the tax, we all benefit. If you raise the price, it is a windfall for the drinks industry.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I have to be very careful about what I say about changes to the taxation regime. It is slightly more complicated than that in that you would have to even out the tax rates on different forms of alcohol, which vary a great deal. That is one of the reasons why sometimes you find the two-litre bottle of cider that I mentioned earlier being so much cheaper than equivalent forms of alcohol. At this stage, we are looking at minimum pricing but no doubt it would be possible to look at other matters as well.