Hansard

I support everything that Richard Simpson and Mary Scanlon have said in connection with amendment 1. As we have heard, both the cabinet secretary and the committee have considered two University of Sheffield studies. The committee has not been persuaded by those reports, although there is absolute consensus on the scale of the alcohol problems that challenge us in Scotland.A policy of minimum pricing for alcohol is wrong first and foremost because, as Richard Simpson said, it will impact disproportionately on poorer people in our communities and, at the same time, put £144 million into the pockets of business. The cabinet secretary said that the figure is £67 million, but the fact is that the policy will put money into the pockets of businesses and not into the pockets of people in our communities. People in my constituency did not send me here to do that.The proposed policy will not put a penny towards paying for extra health or addiction services or putting extra police on our streets. Although I favour using price to limit the consumption of alcohol, in a country such as the United Kingdom that should be done on a consistent basis, with no anomalies, through taxation. The revenue should be invested in the facilities and services that we need.Other views that have been expressed on minimum pricing are straightforward. Some believe that the policy is well intentioned but marginal at best, badly targeted, irrelevant to the aim of changing culture and, probably, illegal within the EU context.Advocates of minimum pricing may argue that the additional costs are a necessary evil to reduce alcohol abuse, but they operate on the assumption that heavier drinkers—those who are causing the problems—are more responsive to price changes than are moderate drinkers. However, there is no direct correlation between alcohol misuse and consumption; on the contrary, it could be argued that responsible, moderate drinkers are more likely than those who regularly abuse alcohol to mind their wallet and abstain from buying their alcohol at increased prices. In addition, an unintended consequence could be that those who cannot afford to purchase alcohol will obtain it by theft or other dishonest means. We have seen that with drugs.It is important to recognise that a minimum pricing policy would mainly penalise responsible drinkers by blindly raising alcohol prices for everyone in Scottish society. Such a scatter-gun approach cannot be right. The policy is a crude tool to punish those who are not a problem, while doing nothing to combat those who are.The Government and Scottish National Party back benchers have acknowledged that they do not know how the European Court of Justice will rule if the industry challenges the policy, as we anticipate might happen. We believe that minimum pricing may be illegal under EU rules on competition. The committee heard evidence that it may also influence wider global issues and cost jobs in our vital spirits industry.The most recent submission that we have received from the Law Society of Scotland refers to the opinion of Advocate-General Mengozzi in case 108/09, Ker-Optika Bt v ÀNTSZ Dél-dunántúli Regionális Intézete. We see that, once more, the European Court has not agreed to the Hungarian Government’s arguments about health benefit, proportionality and so on. The Scottish Government has told us that those arguments will feature highly when it discusses its policy in the European Court, as I am certain it will have to do.I am extremely concerned that if the Scottish Government imposes an extra duty on spirits on health grounds, that will be a green light to every other Government in the world to do the same. We know that in the past, countries such as South Korea have tried to impose punitive taxation on whisky imports to protect the domestic market.The cabinet secretary has not shared the legal opinion given to the Government by its advisers, despite the precedent for doing so cited by Jackie Baillie. If the cabinet secretary really cares about securing this policy, she will share the advice and persuade members of the Scottish Parliament once and for all about the legal competence of the proposed measure. My understanding is that a precedent was provided by the Shirley McKie case.The proposal would penalise responsible drinkers. Based on a minimum price of 50p per unit, the policy would lead to an increase in the price of Stowells of Chelsea wine while the price of Buckfast would not go up by a penny.Relevant legislation has only recently come into force. I endorse entirely the views that we have heard in committee that we need better enforcement of legislation. I take the point that much of the relevant legislation is recent and will take a while to bed in, as Richard Simpson so eloquently said.Minimum pricing is wrong because it will do immense damage to the vital spirits industry in Scotland. The Scotch Whisky Association estimates that whisky exports alone could fall by in the region of £600 million per year as Governments across the globe sought to copy the Scottish Government’s lead and increase duties on whisky. It is lamentable that no economic impact study was ever undertaken by the Government.When we took evidence on the policy from the authors of the Sheffield study, they likened it to a weather forecast. We must bear it in mind that the country was brought to a standstill last winter because of the weather forecast, the policies and the bad winter that we had. We were gridlocked, we were tied up in our homes, there was no policy and there was no way that we could move across Scotland, simply because this Government did not produce the right policies so that we could access our roads during the winter. Given that, how can we have confidence in a policy that has been likened to a weather forecast?The Scottish ministers consistently argue that because Scotch whisky is a premium product, minimum pricing will not affect it, but that is not the view of the Scotch Whisky Association, Whyte & Mackay, Pernod Ricard and others. Opposition to minimum pricing is widespread throughout Scotland and among politicians from all parties. Gordon Brown and the Labour Government at Westminster rejected the policy, arguing that it was important to take properly targeted and effective action.Drinking levels in France are falling, but the figures mask the rise in binge drinking and an increase in the drinking of spirits. As the convener reported to the committee following her visit with other committee colleagues, drink prices are extortionate in Finland. She said:“The problem for Finland is external, with Estonia being so close. Because the prices for alcohol in Finland are so high—of course, the tax revenues go to the state—”—which is different from the Scottish Government’s policy—“people simply make a short trip to Estonia to load up. There are also special boat trips to Estonia. Cheap alcohol can even be ordered on the internet. For all I know, it is possible for people to get it delivered to their door, like Tesco and Sainsbury’s deliveries.”—Official Report, Health and Sport Committee, 10 February 2010; c 2696. Yet the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing has been in denial that such cross-border issues or internet trading will undermine her proposed policy. We heard evidence from the retailers that such cross-border trading happens in Enniskillen. We also know about the issue from my colleague Hugh Henry, who discussed the issue with the TDs who represent border areas in the Republic of Ireland. They told him that more than 60 per cent of all alcohol sales in Ireland are now made in Northern Ireland. We heard that up to a third of the people travel from southern Ireland to Northern Ireland to shop, which has consequences on both sides of the border. Those are facts and evidence, not simply assertions, as the cabinet secretary has claimed.The cabinet secretary, I and others who are well paid and have internet access and credit cards can go online to do our shopping and have deliveries made from Carlisle to any Scottish destination, especially destinations such as Edinburgh, Fife and Glasgow. Such facilities are simply not available to the poorer people in our communities, so the policy has a prejudice in favour of the better-off. From the start, this Government has been about helping the better off in society and not helping the least well off.The proposal would create the opportunity for booze runs to Carlisle or Berwick-upon-Tweed, not only for people like me who have the means to load up the car and have a day out but for those people with white vans who sell tobacco illegally in our communities, who could load up and return to sell alcohol along with tobacco. Many such people are associated with the drugs trade, so we should worry about that. What we do has the potential to reinforce criminality.We should also worry about the impact on Scottish retailers. Some European studies have shown that people may turn to more harmful drinking patterns—for example, pre-loading, in which they consume cheaper alcohol at home before they go out—in response to price increases. The cabinet secretary has never explained to the Parliament why the drop in alcohol consumption between 2003 and now has not resulted in all the benefits that she talks about, so she has not persuaded me.10:15