Alcohol

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, I am not sure who considers alcohol to be habit-forming and hallucinatory—whether it is my noble friend or others. I think it depends very much on the quantities in which it is taken.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that the 1.3 billion unit reduction in alcohol consumption of which he spoke represents a reduction of only 2%, and that the alcohol industry itself cannot be relied on to assess objectively the scientific evidence that points strongly towards the need for things such as minimum unit pricing and for alcohol taxation to be proportionate to the alcohol content of drinks?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, as I say, an independent assessment of the responsibility deal will be done by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. It is important that the assessment is independent and certainly is not undertaken by the industry or, indeed, by the Department of Health. It is worth noting that the consumption of alcohol seemed to peak in 2005 and has declined slightly since then. I am not in any way minimising the appalling damage that alcohol does to the lives of many people, but consumption is coming down slowly.