Alcohol Strategy

Stephen Gilbert Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). Like other hon. Members, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) on securing a debate that she has revisited time and again since coming to the House.

As a relatively new MP, I was reflecting on the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) is a bit like a bellwether. When he is the first to rush to defend the Government’s policy, one knows that the policy is wrong. This morning, many hon. Members have asked where the evidence is that leads us to consider the need to introduce minimum pricing. In 2008, the university of Sheffield conducted a Government-funded study, which found that setting a minimum price of 50p a unit for alcohol could result in 3,000 fewer deaths a year. In 2009, the chief medical officer in England supported that view. In 2010, the Select Committee on Health and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence also backed a minimum price. Also in 2010, that policy found its way into the coalition agreement, which states:

“We will ban the sale of alcohol below cost price. We will review alcohol taxation and pricing to ensure it tackles binge drinking without unfairly penalising responsible drinkers, pubs and important local industries.”

That is exactly the point that other hon. Members have made. The opposition to minimum pricing is setting up a straw man in saying that it would penalise moderate drinkers. In fact, as other hon. Members have said, the study by Alcohol Concern suggests that with a 50p minimum price, moderate drinkers would be only £12 worse off a year, whereas the cost to the harmful drinkers—those who cost our economy through lost productivity, revenue lost to the health service, and tragic deaths such as that identified by my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (John Pugh)—would be £163 a year.

[John Pugh]

I hate to stand up for the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), but the relationship between price and consumption is a lot more subtle than hon. Members have indicated. Recently, at least until a couple of years ago, the price of alcohol was going down, and levels of consumption have also reduced throughout the country.

[Stephen Gilbert]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point, but the issue concerns consumption among problem drinkers and those vulnerable people about whom we in the House must be especially concerned. In many cases, people suffering from addiction are not able to articulate the best course of action for themselves.

[Eric Joyce]

rose—

[Stephen Gilbert]

I will not give way as I want to move on swiftly and look at some of the false arguments that are used to prevent a move towards minimum pricing, including the suggestion that such pricing may fall foul of European competition law. Belgium, Luxembourg and Poland have laws on commercial practices and consumer protection that ban below-cost sales. Some Spanish provinces have banned alcohol promotions that directly incite excessive alcohol consumption, and national legislation in Sweden stipulates that the price of alcohol cannot be lower than the cost price plus a reasonable addition, which the Swedish National Institute of Public Health recommends should be 25% or more of cost price.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Southport said, examples of good practice show how we can tackle alcohol-related disorder in our communities. The Newquay Safe Partnership has worked effectively to try and reduce the cost of such disorder by introducing Challenge 25 and ensuring that people are able to spot fake ID, by education outreach in the local schools, and by the creation of a confidential number to report instances of proxy buying when an adult purchases alcohol for children. A “follow home” scheme means that a case of antisocial behaviour by a visitor to Newquay will follow that person home to be dealt with by their local police force. Newquay Safe Partnership has reduced the cost of crime in Newquay by about £250,000 a year. Incidents of violence have reduced by 7%, and those of nuisance behaviour by 22%. I will happily provide hon. Members with other examples at a later point.

Two points should be added to our alcohol strategy. First, we need a licensing requirement for toughened glass in pubs and clubs. A discarded bottle or pint glass is a fairly dangerous weapon, as my constituent Jack Nutting knows. Toughened glass can be used for pint glasses, and plastic bottles can be used instead of glass bottles. Newquay is already moving forward on that licensing requirement, and the rest of the country could learn from that. Secondly, as I said yesterday in questions to the Home Department, there is no specific offence of urinating in the street, and at the moment police use get-around powers, most amusingly that of littering. When considering the consequences of alcohol in their totality, that issue also needs to be reviewed.