Business of the House

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

There was a lot of discussion about this in the House yesterday in a lengthy urgent question and during a great deal of Prime Minister’s questions. Next Tuesday, there will be questions to the Secretary of State for Health and his colleagues on the Floor of the House, and next week there is an Opposition day debate in which the Opposition have yet to decide what to debate. Putting all those things together, I am sure that there will be many further opportunities for these issues to be debated on the Floor of the House.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Once again this year over the Christmas period, we have seen our A and E departments and police cells clogged up with people who have simply had too much to drink. A constituent of mine from Barton Seagrave wrote to me this week to say the following:

“I feel that we have to claim back our town centres at the weekends from drunks and protect our Health Service from thoughtless, ignorant abuse. To me it isn’t rocket science. When we see how the Drink Drive campaign has changed behaviour over the years, plus the Seat Belt campaign what we need is a government led campaign to educate against such boozy and loutish behaviour.”

May we have a Government statement or debate in the House on this important topic?

[Mr Hague]

These things have, quite rightly, been debated in the House from time to time. We have introduced a radical package of measures to overhaul the Licensing Act 2003, including providing more local powers to deal with problem premises, doubling the fine for persistent under-age sales, and giving residents a greater say about licensing decisions in their area. We have banned the worst cases of very cheap and harmful alcohol sales. We are challenging the alcohol industry to raise its game in doing more on a voluntary basis, including by widening the availability of lower-strength alternatives in pubs, removing high-volume and high-strength beer and developing new retail standards. I hope that a great deal will continue to be done to address the problem that my hon. Friend rightly raises.