Alcohol Strategy

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Friday 23rd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

This announcement about the alcohol strategy is extremely important, but the way in which it has been done is a complete shambles. It has been rushed out on a Friday morning when many of our colleagues have engagements in their constituencies and without notifying the Select Committee on Home Affairs. So, despite the many pieces of work the Committee has done on this issue, its members do not have the chance to be here in Parliament to scrutinise the strategy.

Why are we debating it today rather than on Monday, as was previously planned? It cannot be to ensure that Parliament hears the details first, because we have had the chance to read them in the Daily Mail, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph, and all the other newspapers that were given the details yesterday. I even have the press pack, complete with questions and answers, which was given to the media yesterday and not to the House. It includes considerable additional information that has not been given to the House as part of the Home Secretary’s statement today. Nor can the reason be for Parliament to debate the statement, when only two hours’ notice has been given of a statement on a Friday. I take this opportunity, Mr Speaker, to apologise to the students I was due to meet in Pontefract at lunch time and have had to let down. Many of our colleagues will be in the same position.

The only reason we are sitting on Friday is so that the Budget debate could take place today rather than next week, Parliament could finish 10 days early and the Prime Minister would not have to answer Prime Minister’s questions next week. There is no precedent for handling a long-awaited consultation document in this way, on a Friday morning, with no notice. Over the past 10 years, there have been only three Government statements on a Friday: on the Iraq war, on swine flu and on Libya—all of them involving serious issues around national emergencies. What is the national emergency today?

What is the national emergency that prompted a decision to be made late yesterday afternoon to brief an important and serious strategy to the newspapers which meant that a decision was made this morning to interrupt the debate and make an oral statement? The only emergency is that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have gone wobbly over the coverage of their Budget. Their Budget has gone wrong because pensioners are furious about the granny tax, middle earners are shocked to discover they will be paying the higher rate and everyone else is furious that the Government are bringing in a £10,000 tax break for the highest earners in the country, including, we discover, half the Cabinet. This is not about a 40p minimum price; it is about their failings on the 40p tax. The Home Secretary is being used as a human shield for the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, and she should have said no.

The issue is extremely serious. The Home Secretary is right: 1 million violent crimes each year are linked to alcohol. Nearly 9,000 people die each year as a result of alcohol abuse. Many people—indeed, most people—drink moderately and responsibly, and we enjoy it. The Home Secretary is right to say that responsible drinkers should not be penalised, but we cannot stand by and ignore the serious problem of dangerous alcohol abuse. Many policies have been tried already, including linking duty to strength and giving the police stronger powers to clamp down on alcohol-related antisocial behaviour, but she is right: they have not solved the problem.

The Home Secretary is also right to say that more now needs to be done. Many of her policies are sensible and we will support them. I agree that this is the right time to try minimum pricing. There are serious questions that she should answer—and the House should have the opportunity to debate—about how we ensure that supermarkets do not simply get a huge windfall, and what safeguards there should be for pubs. I agree, too, that we should explore the issue of sobriety orders, but these are serious questions that the House should have the chance to debate, to make sure they are not used wrongly for domestic violence cases and do not tackle the seriousness of the abuse.

I agree too that licensing is important. I hope the Home Secretary will now support our proposals to put public health in the terms for licensing decisions. More needs to be done on prevention, which had little mention in the statement—little wonder perhaps, when alcohol education is being watered down in schools. These are all extremely serious issues and we should have the opportunity to debate them properly in Parliament; but we do not have the opportunity for many MPs to ask questions today and to intervene and discuss the issues with the Home Secretary.

Will the Home Secretary tell us when the decision was taken to make the statement today? Will she agree to come back to the House and properly debate the strategy, giving the Home Affairs Committee and others the proper chance to ask questions? Does she agree that she is wrong to treat something so serious in such a cavalier fashion in the announcements made to the House? Does she agree that the Government are wrong to use a serious alcohol strategy as a cover for their chaotic confusion over their dreadful Budget? Will she treat the issue with the seriousness it deserves? We will give it proper support, if she will do so for the future.

[Mrs May]

That was the usual response from the right hon. Lady—bluster and political point scoring. One thing was missing. After the disaster of Labour’s Licensing Act 2003, after election text messages saying, “Couldn’t give a XXXX for closing time,” and after all that drink-fuelled violence and disorder, there was not even a hint of apology from the right hon. Lady.

I suggest that the right hon. Lady speaks to the previous Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), who said that he regrets not doing more during his time in office to tackle the problems caused by binge drinking. It is a shame that she cannot bring herself to be as frank about her party’s record in office.

It was difficult to decipher the right hon. Lady’s questions about the actual statement on alcohol strategy. I think she raised two points. She asked about ensuring that the minimum unit price did not lead to a cash windfall for supermarkets. I do not believe it will, because the supermarket industry is highly competitive; it has small margins on its goods and I expect money made through higher alcohol prices to be passed on through lower prices for other goods. When the cost of living is an issue, I should have thought that the right hon. Lady would welcome that.

The right hon. Lady asked about health bodies. They will of course be in a position to contribute to local licensing decisions; indeed, the new public health and wellbeing bodies will be able to participate, alongside the police and local authorities, in setting strategies to deal with alcohol in their local area. The right hon. Lady now takes an interest in health bodies having a role, although sadly she and her party opposed the Bill that enabled them to be set up.

I recognise that the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, is not in the Chamber, but last year he said:

“May I welcome the Government’s proposals for a minimum price for alcohol? They are of course in keeping with the recommendations that the Home Affairs Committee made last year.”—[Official Report, 24 January 2011; Vol. 522, c. 3.]

In 2008, the Home Affairs Committee talked about the cheap availability of alcohol, recommending that

“the Government establish as soon as possible a legal basis for banning the use of loss-leading by supermarkets and setting a minimum price for the sale of alcohol.”

What I think I deciphered from the right hon. Lady’s bluster is that the Opposition actually support the idea of an alcohol strategy and what the Government are doing. If I am correct, I welcome that.