Alcoholic Drinks: Standards
(asked on 26th October 2017) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to promote the consumption of lower strength alcohol.
The 2016 UK Chief Medical Officers low risk drinking guidelines provide the public with the most up to date scientific information to help people make informed decisions about their own drinking. Guidance on low risk drinking is also contained in the Public Health England ‘One You’ campaign. The alcohol industry made a pledge in 2012 to reduce alcoholic strength of its products, which has seen 1.3 billion units of alcohol removed from people’s drinks.
The Department held workshops last autumn with industry and public health experts, with the aim of encouraging the public to move towards lower strength alcoholic drinks from the industry standard, and commissioned research on the impact of developing and introducing new descriptors for alcoholic products above 1.2% alcohol by volume (ABV).
There have been no recent discussions between the Secretary of State for Health and Chancellor of the Exchequer on promoting low-strength alcohol beverages.
The duty rates on beer, cider, wine and spirits increased by Retail Price Index inflation, in line with the previous forecasts, including financial incentives to produce lower levels of alcohol. Rates were published on 13 March 2017 and are available here:
Earlier this year the Government also launched a consultation on options to ensure duty rates for cider and wine better correspond to alcoholic strength, and to encourage the production and consumption of lower strength drinks. One option looked at the impacts of a new low-strength wine band between 5.5% and 8.5% ABV. The Government is currently considering all consultation responses and will announce its next steps in due course.