Alcohol Strategy: Role of Drinks Industry

Lord Henley Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I join other speakers in offering my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, on securing this debate and on the contributions that we have heard during it from other speakers. We have had a range of views and I think we could say that we are all agreed on one thing: the damage that alcohol can cause. However, as to the solutions, I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, who said that he did not know what they were and that there might be a whole range of them. The solutions seemed to vary from more regulation to self-regulation and a bit of both. I want to set out roughly where the Government are in relation to these matters.

We believe, and I think the House is in agreement with this, that drinking alcohol to excess is a key cause of societal harm, including crime, family breakdown and poverty, as well as being a leading cause of health harm. At odds with the trends across Europe, alcohol consumption in the United Kingdom has increased quite dramatically over the past 50 years, although there has been a positive reduction in overall alcohol consumption over the past few years. That is a good thing but we believe that it is still too high and that it causes misery and pain to individuals, destroys families and undermines communities. Binge drinking accounts for half of all the alcohol consumed in this country and the crime and violence that causes generates mayhem on the streets, spreads fear in our communities and drains hospital resources. I was grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for reminding noble Lords just what A and E can look like on a Friday or Saturday night.

The Government are therefore convinced that tackling the problems of alcohol is a priority, which is why we launched our alcohol strategy in March. We have witnessed a dramatic change in people’s attitude to alcohol over the past decade. We have seen a culture grow where it has become acceptable to be excessively drunk in public and for people to cause nuisance and harm to themselves and, equally importantly, to others. A combination of ignorance, irresponsibility and poor habits have led to alcohol-related harm across crime, health and all other areas costing society an estimated £21 billion per year, which I think was the figure that the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, quoted. Some 44% of all violent crime is carried out by individuals under the influence of alcohol. There were almost 1 million alcohol-related violent crimes in 2010-11 alone, and alcohol is one of the three biggest lifestyle risk factors for disease and death in the United Kingdom, after smoking and obesity.

I assure the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, that we take the health side of this very seriously. The alcohol strategy that we published in March might have emanated from the Home Office, but it had input from all other departments. The Department of Health takes these matters very seriously. In his foreword to the alcohol strategy, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister made it very clear that we will not tolerate this level of alcohol-related harm.

The Government’s alcohol strategy therefore sends out a strong message that we will crack down on the binge-drinking culture in our country; cut the alcohol-fuelled violence and disorder that still affects many of our communities; and cut the number of people drinking irresponsibly. If I take that original figure I gave, £21 billion per year, for all the costs of alcohol-related harm, the cost of crime alone is estimated to be in the order of £11 billion per year. That is simply unsustainable.

The strategy sets out a wide range of actions to tackle the excessive consumption of alcohol, including the introduction of minimum unit pricing. I remind the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, that although Scotland has announced its intention to bring in minimum unit pricing, it has not been brought in yet. In our strategy for England and Wales we announced that we will bring in a consultation on the level of minimum unit pricing, not on whether we should have it. We will be doing that in the autumn; we shall put forward a range of options as to what would be appropriate. There will also be a commitment to consult on a ban on multi-buy promotions. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, that we have rebalanced the Licensing Act to enable local agencies to take the right action, including giving local councils the power to use early morning alcohol restriction orders and charge a levy for late-night licences to contribute to the cost of extra policing. Last week we published our response to the consultation, Dealing with the Problems of Late Night Drinking, and I commend that to noble Lords.

I am grateful, again, to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, that he offered praise for the changes we have made in licensing. I imagine that he was one of those, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, who took part in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act that my noble friend, my predecessor, took through this House last year, which dealt with some of these matters.

The noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, also asked about the Government’s spending on alcohol awareness, and claimed that it was comparatively low compared to what the industry itself was spending. The strategy sets out how the Government and industry will work together to tackle alcohol-related harms and will help to give individuals the information that they need to drink responsibly. We launched a fully-integrated Change for Life campaign in February this year, communicating the health harms of drinking. Our intention is to extend this social marketing campaign if the evidence shows that it improves health outcomes and is good value for money. We all know that advertising does not always work; one remembers the story of the late Lord Leverhulme, who said he knew that half his advertising worked and half did not but that the trouble was that he did not know which half worked. We want to look at our advertising, therefore, and see what works and what does not.

On the subject of advertising, again there have been differing views from noble Lords. I appreciate what my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones said about there possibly not being a case for further regulation in this field, whereas others—I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Rosser—would prefer a greater degree of regulation. Extensive regulatory regimes are already in place to control advertising and marketing of alcohol products, which are pretty robust, despite what has been said, especially in relation to the protection of young people and vulnerable groups. Obviously, as I said, we will have to look at the evidence on that and at the evidence of the effect of that advertising. We would prefer to continue down a route of self-regulation but, obviously, if we find that advertising is causing problems, we might have to consider that as an area for regulation in future. My gut instinct would be not to go for further regulation at this stage, when we have a pretty robust regulatory regime as it is, with a great deal of self-regulation and co-regulation.

It is also acknowledged, and I think that most noble Lords would agree with this, that alcohol consumption in moderation can have a positive impact on adults’ well-being, especially where this encourages sociability. Well run community pubs and other businesses form a key part of the fabric of neighbourhoods, providing employment and social opportunities in our local communities. At a time of austerity and global economic pressures, the alcohol industry and the wider retail and hospitality sectors play a key role in our economy, contributing some £29 billion each year and playing an important part in our exports. In total it is estimated that some 1.8 million jobs in the UK are related to the alcohol industry, so a profitable alcohol industry enhances the UK economy.

The strategy puts a strong focus on a responsible industry that has a direct and powerful influence on consumer behaviours. It is the responsibility of the entire industry, alcohol producers and retailers in both the on-trade and the off-trade, to promote, market, advertise and sell their products responsibly, and that is what we want. We know that growth and responsibility can exist well together. The Government welcome self- regulation and active initiatives, driven by the licensing trade in partnership with the police and local authorities. I was very glad that both the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones and others mentioned Best Bar None, Purple Flag and businesses joining together to form business improvement districts.

The noble Baroness also mentioned Durham. I have visited the project in Durham; I did so partly because I had been at university there many years ago, and things have changed somewhat now. I was taken around by the Chief Constable of the Durham constabulary and I was very impressed with what they were doing. We have seen in Durham that a thriving and growing night-time economy can operate where excessive drinking is tackled consistently and robustly by business, the police and local authorities. As the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, said, over the three-year period of taking part in a Best Bar None scheme in Durham, licensees reported an estimated 75% cumulative increase in trade; a 50% increase in town-centre footfall and an expected 87% reduction in violent crime, and we should all note that last figure. As well as sending out clear messages that crime and disorder will not be tolerated in pubs, clubs and wider locations, such schemes have been proven to increase footfall and stimulate other businesses, whether cinemas, restaurants or whatever.

The Portman Group, which the noble Baroness knows well from her past—I believe that she was chief executive—introduced a Code of Practice on the Naming, Packaging and Promotion of Alcoholic Drinks in 1996. All alcohol products sold or marketed in the UK are subject to the rules of the code, which prevent alcohol being marketed to children in a way that would encourage excessive or irresponsible consumption. We are working with the Portman Group to ensure that, where unacceptable marketing occurs, it results in the removal of offending brands from retailers.

The Government’s Public Health Responsibility Deal also taps into the potential for businesses to work with the Government and public health organisations to improve public health through their influence over food, physical activity, alcohol and health in the workplace. The responsibility deal recognises that there are areas where doing nothing simply is not an option, but the something to be done is not always necessarily best done by the Government.

I see that my time is coming to an end. We are beginning to make progress in this area: the fall in alcohol consumption over the past few years is something that we should welcome, as we should the further progress that we hope to make as a result of the alcohol strategy. While progress continues to be made, there is still more to be done. That is why the strategy sets a new challenge to industry on product labelling, unit content, actions on advertising and product placement. We all agree, as I think my noble friend Lord Roberts of Llandudno said, that there are no simple solutions. However, we accept that we should rightly be challenged on our policies, and there is no better place for that than this House.