Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the response by Baroness Williams of Trafford on 21 January (HL Deb, col 1043), what instructions they have given Public Health England about monitoring and assessing the efficacy of minimum unit pricing in Scotland; and when will Public Health England be reporting any such findings.

Public Health England have not been formally commissioned to undertake a review of the evidence of Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) in Scotland. However, as part of their role in gathering evidence across areas to feed into the policy making process they are monitoring progress of MUP in Scotland and working closely with partners there to understand the impact of the policy. The Scottish Government is taking forward a comprehensive evaluation of the impact of introducing MUP. The Scottish legislation also includes a sunset clause and the Scottish Government are required to present a report on the impact of MUP to their Parliament five years after implementation. which will be published in 2023.