Alcohol Strategy

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Friday 23rd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. There are still issues about alcohol and other goods, such as cigarettes, being imported in ways that avoid paying tax to the Government. Much of that involves organised crime groups. One of the things the Government are doing is creating the new National Crime Agency, which will strengthen our ability to deal with organised crime, and the specific border police command will strengthen our border security to enable us to fight those problems even better than we are able to do today.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

Clearly, the Home Secretary has been sent to the House today in a shameful attempt to divert attention from the disastrous Budget, but can she tell me why if somebody is prepared to spend £60 a night in sunny Stratford, they will be diverted from spending an extra pound in the supermarket to load up before they go out?

[Mrs May]

First, I congratulate the Labour Whips on having managed to circulate their questions to their own Whips to stand up on the Back Benches to comment. What we are doing—

[Lyn Brown]

There are four Whips behind you because there is no one else in the House.

[Mrs May]

Does the hon. Lady want an answer to her question or not? By setting a minimum unit price, we are tackling the cheap alcohol that is sold and the bulk discount sales of alcohol, which mean that people pre-load at home. They are often drunk when they leave home. They go to their town centres and sadly, they create the drunkenness, the brawls, the fighting in the streets, the mayhem that mean several things. It means that the police have to spend money and deal with those issues. It means that accident and emergency departments in our hospitals are having to deal with people in drunkenness; every year, 1.2 million admissions to accident and emergency units are alcohol-fuelled. It also means that many law-abiding citizens just do not feel able to go into their town centres at night, particularly on Fridays and Saturdays, and I think it is time we did something about it, and that is what this Government are doing.