Alcohol

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, as I say, an independent assessment of the responsibility deal will be done by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. It is important that the assessment is independent and certainly is not undertaken by the industry or, indeed, by the Department of Health. It is worth noting that the consumption of alcohol seemed to peak in 2005 and has declined slightly since then. I am not in any way minimising the appalling damage that alcohol does to the lives of many people, but consumption is coming down slowly.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, the BMA concluded that the Government’s alcohol policy had been weak and ineffective due to an overreliance on working with the alcohol industry. Does the Minister concur with the BMA’s judgment that the responsibility deal has pursued initiatives that are known to have little effect in reducing alcohol-related harm and that the responsibility deal should now be abandoned?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, I can only repeat that we will have an independent review of the responsibility deal, at which point we will have objective evidence on which to assess it. I agree entirely with the noble Baroness that the health world, including the BMA and many of the royal colleges, takes a very strong view about alcohol. Many doctors see the appalling impact that it has on individual lives day in and day out, so we take their views extremely seriously.