Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the paper by Aveek Bhattacharya entitled How dependent is the alcohol industry on heavy drinking in England? published in August 2018, to what extent the alcohol industry is planned to be consulted as a stakeholder for the updated alcohol strategy, following the finding in that paper that alcohol industry revenue in England would decline by 38 per cent in the event that all consumers drank within the Chief Medical Officer's Low Risk Guidelines.

The Government’s new alcohol strategy will set out targeted action to prevent and reduce harmful drinking, support vulnerable people affected by others’ alcohol misuse and improve the pathways into treatment for people with alcohol dependency.

As we develop measures to include in the strategy, we are consulting widely across government and with a range of stakeholders including representatives of the alcohol industry, the health sector, academics, the voluntary sector and the licensed trade.