Health: Alcohol Abuse

Lord Rosser Excerpts
Tuesday 21st January 2020

(4 years, 10 months ago)

Lords Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Williams of Trafford Portrait Baroness Williams of Trafford
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Under EU regulations, companies do not have to put the calorie content on any drinks with an alcohol volume above 1.2%. I utterly agree with my noble friend that, if people knew how many calories they were consuming in just a glass of wine, they might think twice about how many glasses of wine or other drinks to have. A fact for today is that some canned cocktails contain the equivalent of six Krispy Kreme doughnuts’ worth of calories.

Lord Rosser Portrait Lord Rosser (Lab)
- Hansard - -

My Lords, 20 people a day die as a direct result of alcohol and 24,000 a year die where alcohol was a factor. Does the fact that the Home Office is responding to this Question about an effective strategy for dealing with alcohol abuse mean that the Government regard this as a matter for which the Home Office is the lead department, rather than it being a health issue for which the Department of Health and Social Care should take the lead? Why is the Home Office responding to this Question, rather than the Department of Health?

Baroness Williams of Trafford Portrait Baroness Williams of Trafford
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The noble Lord makes a valid point. Alcohol harm has a cross-government response, involving departments such as health, education and the Home Office. If we do not work together, we will diminish our responsibilities as a Government. In the troubled families programme, which is led by MHCLG, alcohol and substance abuse contribute to an awful lot of the problems in some of the families it deals with.