Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

My Lords, I want to focus on alcohol-related harms, the worst of which was so eloquently described by the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, in her deeply moving maiden speech.

The Licensing Act 2003 is a spectacular failure in public health terms. This Bill is a missed opportunity. Alcohol misuse abounds, costing £17 billion to £22 billion per annum, around £770 per household. Alcohol costs the NHS £2.7 billion per annum, double the amount of 10 years ago in real terms and rising. Last year, best estimates are that 40 per cent of the 319,000 people injured in violence in England and Wales were intoxicated at the time of injury and 70 per cent of accident and emergency attendances after 10 pm relate to alcohol misuse.

So what are the possible solutions? The first is pricing alcohol to return its relative cost in relation to income to where it was 20 to 30 years ago. Irresponsible off-licence promotions at less than 60 pence per unit of alcohol must end. Alcohol is ludicrously cheap; supermarket cider is commonly less that 50 pence a pint. Indeed, the late night levy that the Bill provides should also cover the NHS costs from the high accident and emergency attendances. The drinks industry profits could underwrite some of the costs that they actually incur.

Secondly, licensed premises’ cumulative impact and saturation policies should be statutory rather than simply constituting the current ambiguous guidance. A decision to deny a licence is easily overturned. A clear example comes from my home city of Cardiff, where the council licensing committee’s sensible decision not to grant permission to extend an off-sales licence in St Mary Street from 6 pm till 11 pm was easily overturned by well paid lawyers of a large supermarket chain, even though the area has seen the highest incidence of violence according to police and accident and emergency attendances of any street in the city over the past 10 years, and there were already other outlets. The Bill needs amendment to really strengthen the local voice in licensing decisions, and to ensure that cumulative impact and saturation policies include consideration of supermarkets and other off-licence outlets.

Thirdly, we can learn from South Dakota’s SCRAM project. Alcohol fuels about half of all violent crime and road deaths, particularly among young new drivers. An alcohol monitoring requirement, estimated to cost about £1 a day and producing an 80 per cent sobriety rate in the programme, is cost-effective and potentially saves many lives. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, like the North report, estimates that 16,000 injuries and up to 168 deaths caused by car crashes could be avoided in the first year of a reduction in the blood/alcohol limit for drivers from 80 to 50 milligrams per 100 millilitres and to zero for new drivers.

The fiscal reasoning behind the policing changes in the Bill seems illogical. We are asked to endorse changes costing somewhere in the region of £100 million per annum, yet the Government continue to refuse to fund, by their own estimate, £1 million to £2 million for the office of the chief coroner. Just two judicial reviews avoided would fund the chief coroner, whose creation was supported across both Houses to provide leadership and bring justice to the bereaved victims of crime. This is hardly joined-up financial planning.

As for Wales, the amendments in the other place do not respect the spirit of devolution, as they provide the Secretary of State with powers over local authorities in Wales, which needs to be able to defer implementation until the results from England are proven.

As a UK drugs policy commissioner, I will seek to amend the drugs section to improve the proposals, because I fear that they will only be expensive wallpaper as drafted and will fail to reduce the real harms that they are meant to address.