Alcohol Strategy: Role of Drinks Industry

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Coussins]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what they consider to be the role of the drinks industry in helping to prevent alcohol misuse and anti-social behaviour, and in promoting responsible drinking, in line with the Government’s alcohol strategy.

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, I begin by declaring my interests. I am a former chief executive of the Portman Group and the Drinkaware Trust, and a former member of the Alcohol Education and Research Council and the Advertising Standards Authority. Currently I am a paid consultant to two drinks producers, Brown-Forman and Heineken, but I emphasise that neither company has asked or suggested that I table this debate, nor have they had any discussions with me about it.

Despite these connections, I would be the first to say that when it comes to irresponsible behaviour the industry has certainly not been blameless. I joined the Portman Group in 1996 at the time alcopops burst onto the market and I saw some dreadful examples of products and marketing campaigns that were inexcusable and that would now breach every rule in the book of the codes of practice that were subsequently developed and which apply today. However, I believe the industry has come a long way and is now genuine in its intentions to promote responsible drinking and prevent misuse. I also believe the industry is effective in its actions and, indeed, has been a helpful model to other sectors.

Promoting responsible drinking and being a successful, profit-making business are not conflicting, mutually exclusive objectives. I am pleased that the latest alcohol strategy and the responsibility deal acknowledge the industry as a key partner and press exactly the right buttons to stimulate innovation and link the industry ever more closely into the community partnerships which are, frankly, the only way in which we will ever make a lasting impact on the drinking culture in this country.

The situation is not altogether negative. Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the vast majority of people—78%—are drinking within government guidelines. Per capita consumption fell from 9.5 to 8.3 litres between 2004 and 2011, putting the UK a fraction above the European average and lower than France, Spain and Austria. According to the ONS, young people’s binge-drinking is at its lowest ever recorded level, and fewer children aged 11 to 15 are trying alcohol than ever before. Drinking at harmful levels is falling and drink/drive fatalities have fallen by 85% since 1979.

Yet there is still a significant minority who do drink to excess and cost the UK economy a staggering £21 billion every year. Alcohol-related hospital admissions are up and alcohol-related deaths have doubled since the early 1990s. Alcohol-related violent crime has fallen significantly but still accounts for nearly 1 million incidents every year. Individuals, families, communities and businesses are being damaged.

To tackle these problems, the Government are right to treat the industry as a key stakeholder who can have a significant positive impact. This is partly about demanding strict standards of commercial behaviour which prohibit the industry from doing things such as targeting its marketing to under 18s and linking alcohol with sexual success, and a host of other strict and detailed rules which are policed by the Portman Group, the ASA and Ofcom.

However, it is also about what the industry can do proactively. For example, 61 companies fund the Drinkaware Trust, now a charity under independent governance with trustees from many sectors, including health professionals. Almost all ads for alcoholic drinks now carry the Drinkaware website address and that attracts 300,000 people a month. In-kind media support from industry totals £26.5 million, significantly exceeding the Government’s target of £15 million. This also compares positively with the Government’s spend on alcohol campaigns of only £4.65 million for the past two years. Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether this is likely to go up.

However, it is the Responsibility Deal that demonstrates the most imaginative and transformative potential of corporate responsibility. Nowhere else in Europe has achieved anything like it—and all without red tape.

It has four key commitments. First, to take 1 billion units of alcohol out of the market by 2015 by reformulating existing brands to contain less alcohol and by innovating to bring new, lower-strength brands on to the market, helping more people to drink within the guidelines by providing a wider choice of lower alcohol products. This is significant because it shapes the drive to reduce consumption in a consumer friendly way: the issue becomes one of drinks, not of alcohol.

Secondly, the industry will help consumers understand units better and it has pledged that by December 2013 over 80% of the products on the shelves will carry clear unit content, the Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines and a warning about drinking while pregnant. It is well on track to fulfil this commitment, with over 60% of labels and containers already complying with 18 months still to go. Mandatory labelling would almost certainly need EU legislation and take years to achieve, so the UK industry is leading the way by doing this voluntarily.

The third pledge is to provide more support for communities to develop local schemes such as Best Bar None, Purple Flag, community alcohol partnerships and business improvement districts. This is vital because alcohol harms in the UK vary hugely across different regions. For example, data from the North-West Regional Health Authority show rates of alcohol specific mortality and liver disease in Blackpool at nearly three times the national average; hospital admissions in Liverpool, nearly 2.5 times the national average; and binge drinking in north Tyneside, 1.5 times the national average.

One of the reasons these community schemes work is because they offer a win-win outcome. For example, in Durham there has been a 75% increase in trade in pubs which run the Best Bar None scheme because it makes the pub a safer and more attractive place to go. At the same time, figures suggest an 87% decrease in violent crime.

Finally, under the responsibility deal, producers have committed continued support to Drinkaware, not only by paying their dues and sitting back but by using their brand marketing to promote the charity’s campaigns and government guidelines. During the last FA Cup competition, for example, more than 50 million football fans saw Drinkaware branding through a beer sponsorship which featured Drinkaware on the stadium perimeter. Every sixth ad shown at the matches carried the Drinkaware message. We know that it had a positive effect because during the two semi-final matches in April there was a 30% increase in direct traffic to the Drinkaware home page.

Being a partner in the alcohol strategy of course means, by definition, that there are other groups involved too. The industry should not be the scapegoats for all the blame when something goes wrong. Pubs often get it in the neck for offering so-called 24 hour drinking when in fact only a minute percentage of the UK’s licensed premises have a 24-hour licence, and most of those are in airports or hotels. The fact is that we have seen a reduction in consumption since we have had a relaxation in the licensing regime.

Producers often get it in the neck, too, for their advertising but, as I said earlier, there are stringent restrictions on the content, placement and timing of alcohol ads and the new strategy has given a clear mandate to the ASA and the Portman Group to review the rules further.

Supermarkets often get it in the neck for selling alcohol too cheaply—I find some of their discounting practices very worrying—but even price is not a straightforward issue. There is certainly a proven link between price and consumption but I am not so sure that there is a proven link between price and harm. After all, alcohol is even cheaper in France and yet alcohol harms there are falling. Our real target should be the drinking culture and harmful patterns of drinking, whatever the price of the stuff.

Other partners include parents, and one might ask why, according to Drinkaware, most parents do not plan to talk to their children about alcohol until well past the age when they are likely to have had their first drink.

Law enforcement, too, has a role. One might ask why you can count on one hand the number of prosecutions of licensees for selling drink to customers who are already drunk, when this has been against the law for years. Voluntary initiatives on the part of the industry should be a complement to, and not a substitute for, proper law enforcement. I would be grateful for the Minister’s comments on that point.

The drinks industry will always and rightly come under close scrutiny and deserve even tighter regulation if it falls short of the standards which it has set for itself and which others expect of it. It must make sense to harness business skills, marketing expertise and product innovation to the effort to reduce alcohol harm, where, self-evidently, the traditional health education approach alone has failed.