Alcohol Taxation

Andrew Griffiths Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. I declare an interest as chairman of the all-party beer group. I agree with her about the need for the Government to take action. Does she agree with me on this point? Twenty years ago, the price in a supermarket and the price in a pub were much the same at about 75p a pint. Today, a pint costs £3.10, £3.20 or £3.30 in a pub, whereas in a supermarket it remains at about 70p or 80p. That has encouraged people to drink more and more at home and discouraged them from drinking in a safe, supervised environment such as the community pub that is at the heart of many of our towns and villages.

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank my hon. Friend: he makes an excellent point about the decline in rural pubs and why any action that the Minister takes has to take into account the impact on rural pubs and, of course, town pubs.

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[Dr Wollaston]

Asda has acquired a veneer of respectability by signing up to the new responsibility deal, but I would ask whether it is killing its customers with such pricing. Asda has liked to boast of its responsible approach in removing low-price offers from its foyers, but I put it to Asda that those who conduct proxy sales on behalf of teenage binge drinkers have no trouble in locating the cider at the back of the store. It is the ultra-low pricing that is causing the carnage.

I recognise that the Government are trying to introduce a floor price for alcohol that will include duty and VAT. The trouble is that the policy will not go far enough to solve the problem, as it will still allow white cider to be sold at below 10p a unit. It will establish the principle of minimum pricing without the prospect of delivering any meaningful results. Will the Minister set out what responses she has received from public health experts on that point? All the public health advice that I have seen is entirely pessimistic. The Daily Telegraph pointed out today that the policy will catch only one in 4,000 of the drinks currently being sold and will do nothing to save lives.

[Andrew Griffiths]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it was this Government who introduced, for the first time, a ban on below-cost selling? That was an important line in the sand—the first time that a Government have said that selling booze too cheaply is a bad thing. The question now is how cheaply?

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the current tax system seems to encourage people to drink ever stronger and stronger drinks? The tax system encourages the strength of wine to increase dramatically, and the drink of choice of young people is now vodka.

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. We need to show what minimum pricing means in practice if we set a reasonable price. If we set a minimum price of around 45p a unit, as the Scottish Government are planning to do, in a Bill introduced at the end of October, it would mean that a bottle of whisky containing 28 units could not be sold below £12.60, a bottle of wine containing 10 units could not cost less than £4.50, and a pint of beer with two units could not cost less than 90p. Such prices would not suck all the fun from a night out; in fact, they would not raise the price of alcohol in the on-trade at all.

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[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Miss Chloe Smith)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) on securing the debate. I recognise that, as a general practitioner, she can draw on direct experience on dealing with the adverse effects of alcohol on health. I also acknowledge her reference to the contribution in The Daily Telegraph today from other professionals in the field.

I can assure all hon. Members who have spoken—it is a pleasure to hear so many—that not only GPs have such concerns about the effect of alcohol on the welfare and well-being of society; that concern is shared by the Government. It is clear that alcohol abuse causes serious harm to health and leads to considerable costs to the NHS and that many towns and cities are affected by alcohol-related violence and crime, as my hon. Friend has said. Like her, of course I abhor behaviour such as that in the example on which she finished her speech.

For all those reasons, the coalition Government are committed to tackling problem drinking across a range of fronts. I shall set out a few points on which action has already been taken. I shall try to do so quickly, to get on to minimum unit pricing, as my hon. Friend has requested. I will begin by trying to tackle a couple of points made by other hon. Members. Irresponsible drinkers, rather than responsible drinkers in pubs and other places of safety, are the problem.

I shall try to tackle a couple of the specific questions. If I do not do get there in time, I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me if I write to her on a couple of points. With regard to measures that the Government have already taken, I hope that they will demonstrate and reassure her that the Government are committed to an evidence-based approach. I specifically reassure her of that today. It is, of course, a subject on which data speak clearly. It is a complex subject that requires much analysis of evidence.

I shall start that process with what the Government have done. My hon. Friend will know that the Treasury published the review of alcohol taxation in November 2010, which among other things identified a problem with so-called super-strength lagers, about which others have spoken today. The Government confirmed in the 2011 Budget that action would be taken to discourage consumption of those drinks, introducing two new additional duties, which should help. There are also targeted approaches on other types of drink—for example, a minimum juice content for products that qualify as cider. I note my hon. Friend’s point about ciders.

[Andrew Griffiths]

The Minister has clearly got up to speed quickly on her brief. With regard to cider, does she agree that it seems completely incongruous that the 4% duty paid on a pint of beer is twice that paid on cider—2%—at exactly the same strength?

[Miss Smith]

I am aware of that specific point, and I am sure that my hon. Friend and his colleagues will be even more aware of that tonight at the all-party parliamentary beer group’s Christmas party, if I have that correct. If he will forgive me, I will focus on minimum unit pricing in this debate, to deal with points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes. I shall briefly note that she raised the wider impacts of alcohol. Of course, it is not just the duty system that is important. I direct her to the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, which I hope will help with the late-night economy. To make an important point, I direct her to a forthcoming paper from the Department of Health, which, with the Home Office, is responsible for this area, that will consider the wider social and health impacts of alcohol. I have no doubt that she will look at that in some detail.