Alcohol: Minimum Pricing

Lord Roberts of Conwy Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I have to be very careful about what I say about changes to the taxation regime. It is slightly more complicated than that in that you would have to even out the tax rates on different forms of alcohol, which vary a great deal. That is one of the reasons why sometimes you find the two-litre bottle of cider that I mentioned earlier being so much cheaper than equivalent forms of alcohol. At this stage, we are looking at minimum pricing but no doubt it would be possible to look at other matters as well.

[Lord Roberts of Conwy]

My Lords, have the Government considered the 24-hour drinking introduced by the party opposite? Is that not partly to blame for what we are suffering socially now?