Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the policy paper entitled The Government’s Alcohol Strategy, published on 23 March 2012, CM 8336, whether his Department plans to publish a new strategy to help tackle (a) the number of deaths and (b) the cost to society due to harmful alcohol consumption.

There are no current plans to publish a new alcohol strategy. However, we continue to address the harms caused by alcohol misuse including through establishing specialist alcohol care teams in hospitals.