(12 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberI am grateful to my hon. Friend for making the point that pubs play a very important role in our communities. Pubs have nothing to fear from the minimum unit price that is being introduced today. That will not have an impact on them. I hope that we will see more people feeling able to go to pubs, particularly those in town centres which until now people have often felt unable to visit because of the brawling that they see in the streets. However, we will be looking very carefully in a number of areas to ensure that what we are doing is very clearly focused on those outlets that are bulk-discounting cheap alcohol, which enables people to get drunk before they go out, not affecting the pubs.
Why has the voluntary agreement that the Government said they had with the supermarkets failed?
(14 years ago)
Commons ChamberWill the Home Secretary join me in wishing Northumbria police warm congratulations on the opening of the new area command at the north Tyneside headquarters, especially given that it was built with money from the Labour Government?
I rather hope I might at some stage be given an invitation to visit the new area command. May I say, however, given that Northumbria has been mentioned, that I was pleased to speak to Sue Sim recently, following the difficult time that Northumbria police had earlier this year in dealing with the case of Raoul Moat, to congratulate her on how she and her force dealt with that case?