Alcohol Strategy (EUC Report)

Lord Patel Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I will be brief, because much of what could be said has already been said. I was going to say that the only thing left that has not been covered is how occasional or moderate alcohol drinking is quite satisfying, but my noble friend Lady Murphy even covered that—she did not leave it for me. I agree that we should thank the EU committee and my noble friend Lady Prashar for presenting this report. It is a well-produced report that makes all the points and highlights the lack of a co-ordinated alcohol strategy in the EU and the United Kingdom. We have a piecemeal approach, and it would be nice to develop a co-ordinated strategy.

Let me deal briefly with one or two of the committee’s recommendations and the Government’s response. First, I agree with my noble friend Lady Murphy about pricing. Why is pricing not based on strength of alcohol? That would mean that those who enjoy alcohol could drink lower-strength alcohol, which would be more popular. It is higher-strength alcohol that is largely responsible for the behaviour we see from those who drink too much. So I would support that and I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response.

I know that bottles are labelled saying that alcohol can be harmful during pregnancy, but that does not go far enough. In my clinical practice I have always advocated giving up drinking during pregnancy, or even before if you intend to become pregnant. The labelling should be much stronger.

I was interested in Recommendation 11, on marketing. The Government’s response seems rather a fudge. It states:

“This work will lead to a new draft of the Directive by June 2016. The revised Directive will need to be transposed into UK law”.

It would be nice to know the Government’s view on marketing, rather than their saying they will wait until the EU produces something. The Government must surely have a view on marketing.

Recommendation 12 says that,

“the Government should press the Commission to propose amendments to the Food Labelling Regulation”.

My noble friend Lady Murphy referred to the calorific content of some drinks and how that may affect nutrition. The Government seemed to be quite strong on this, saying that we should have labelling related to nutritional and calorific values, but in their response they seem to have weakened. I may have misread their response, but it would be nice to know which strategy is correct.

I will finish there as most of the other points have already been made in great detail by other speakers.