Hansard

Scotland’s relationship with alcohol has—rightly—concerned the Parliament deeply over the past decade and a half. We know that alcohol use is one of the top risk factors for non-communicable diseases. All too often, international comparisons place Scotland well behind the health curve of our European neighbours.

I called this debate following constructive cross-party discussions. I wish to enable a non-partisan and collaborative conversation that reaches across the chamber.

The Scottish Government’s strategy in “Changing Scotland’s Relationship with Alcohol: A Framework for Action” has seen a good deal of progress since 2009 and much of that work remains on-going. However, we cannot be complacent and we must look to the next steps for action in the medium term. That is why I am commencing today our cross-parliamentary consideration on where next for alcohol. I welcome suggestions and I look forward to substantive contributions from all participants.

Our 2009 strategy was based largely on recommendations made by the world’s leading authority on non-communicable disease prevention—the World Health Organization. The WHO’s priority actions are evidence based and encourage countries worldwide to implement 10 priority measures on alcohol, including measures on pricing, availability, marketing and advertising, as well as drink-driving policies, community action and health service programmes such as alcohol brief interventions. We are making good progress on the WHO recommendations and we should all be proud that the Scottish approach fares so well against the WHO checklist.

Just last month, another world-renowned body—the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development—published a report on the economics of tackling harmful alcohol use. The OECD further validated the Scottish approach and advised that the most effective and economically prudent package should include fiscal and regulatory measures, healthcare interventions and a strategy that combines healthcare and regulatory measures.

It is clear that international experts feel that we are heading in the right direction, but we are not there yet by any means. There can be no dispute that one death associated with alcohol is one too many. While there remain averages of around 700 hospital admissions and 20 deaths a week because of alcohol misuse, no morally responsible Government or Parliament can rest easy.

It is true that the number of alcohol-related deaths has fallen by 35 per cent since 2003—I welcome that, of course—but the number remains 1.4 times higher than that in 1981, which concerns me greatly. Furthermore, I am sure that every member will agree that the rise in alcohol-related deaths that is seen in the most recent data, for 2013, is of great concern.

It is too early to know whether that rise marks the beginning of an upward trend, but we must be alert to the possibility that alcohol-related harm may increase again as the economic climate improves. It is highly likely that declining affordability because of the economic downturn in recent years is responsible for a substantial proportion of the improvements that we have seen. That is why an effective pricing mechanism that is capable of responding to affordability is important. That view is endorsed by the WHO and the OECD.

Our European neighbours look to us as pioneers on pricing. Many await the outcome of the minimum unit pricing litigation. We have the support of many, and I thank people for all their efforts on that in many areas. I thank Alcohol Focus Scotland, Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems, the British Medical Association Scotland, Eurocare and the many advocacy bodies across Europe and the member states that have shown their support for many of our policies. We will wait and see. As the Presiding Officer said, this is not the place for the debate on minimum unit pricing. That matter will be determined in September.

Our framework for action goes much wider than minimum unit pricing. It contains more than 40 measures that seek to reduce consumption, support families and communities, encourage more positive attitudes and positive choices, and improve treatment and support services.

We continue to take a whole-population approach, because alcohol use impacts on people from every walk of life. Although it is true that heavy drinkers consume by far the greatest proportion of alcohol that is drunk in this country, the harms of alcohol use can be far ranging. Even relatively modest consumption patterns increase the risks of non-communicable diseases such as cardiac disease and cancers. Harm to others can manifest in many ways, from impacting on parenting capacity to potentially serious alcohol-related violence.

Our journey has seen great strides forward. Time constraints do not permit me to go into every detail of the significant progress that has been made across the breadth of the strategy, so I will highlight a few examples.

Our introduction of the quantity discount ban saw alcohol sales reduce by an estimated 2.6 per cent. We legislated to ban irresponsible promotions and we have made a record investment of more than £278 million since 2008, of which £250 million has gone directly to the 30 alcohol and drug partnerships that we have established to meet local priorities.

We introduced a lower drink-drive limit last year. That move is now being called for in other parts of the United Kingdom, and it has already had promising results. We have improved substance misuse education through the ability of the curriculum for excellence to take a broad look across health and wellbeing, and we have introduced a hugely successful nationwide alcohol brief interventions programme. More than 470,000 ABIs have been delivered.

I will touch on that programme for a moment. I am keen for us to get to the harder-to-reach consumers of alcohol through it. That is why we are doubling the capacity from this year for national health service boards to deliver ABIs in wider settings, from a 10 per cent to a 20 per cent quota.

We need to focus on health inequalities. We have seen improvements in alcohol-related health inequalities in recent years, but death rates for those in the most deprived groups are still six times higher than those in the least deprived groups. That is why we specifically emphasise tackling inequalities through the work of ABIs. We are also looking at how uptake can be facilitated in justice settings such as custody suites and prisons.

I will return briefly to education, because I am sure that there will be a consensus in the chamber that getting our messages right about alcohol is imperative. That is why I am delighted to announce that, this year, the Scottish Government will develop a new social marketing campaign around parents as role models, which will run in early 2016.

We must do all that we can to protect children and young people from exposure to alcohol-related harm. That is why the Air Weapons and Licensing (Scotland) Bill creates new offences of supplying alcohol to children or young people for consumption in a public place, which fulfils a manifesto commitment. That is also why I am sympathetic to the spirit of Richard Simpson’s ideas about advertising and marketing, where he focuses on the exposure of children to alcohol advertising. I am sure that we will have further positive discussion on that. The moral imperative is strong, and I look forward to finding areas of parliamentary consensus.

That brings me to one of the difficulties in taking a truly holistic approach to tackling alcohol-related harm—the limitations on the Parliament’s ability to take action in some areas. While powers on broadcast advertising remain reserved, we do not have the full levers at our disposal to protect children and young people from the more influential channels such as television and, increasingly, digital platforms, including social media.

The devolution of power over broadcast advertising was not among the recommendations to come out of the Smith commission process, and nor was the consultation that this Government requested on alcohol duty rates. With the chancellor’s recent abolition of the duty escalator, combined with cuts and freezes across various alcohol categories that will only make alcohol more affordable, the case for the Scottish Government to have a say on UK alcohol duty has never been stronger. The devolution of weights and measures powers would also allow Scotland to further tailor our approach to serving sizes, which would complement the multibuy discount ban.

I intend, in a positive and constructive way, to engage with the UK Government on those issues, and I hope that we can arrive at some consensus that will allow us to move forward on a UK basis. If not, I hope that Scotland will have the appetite to move forward on those issues.

The alcohol licensing regime, which is being further enhanced through the Air Weapons and Licensing (Scotland) Bill, provides a robust locally led system for regulating the sale of alcohol. Local licensing boards are equipped to take decisions on licence applications that take full account of the public health objective that Scotland has enshrined in the licensing system.

Our national alcohol charity, Alcohol Focus Scotland, has been working to empower local players to present robust evidence to local licensing boards that will support their consideration of applications for premises and help to tackle issues such as overprovision. Today, I am pleased to confirm additional funding to Alcohol Focus Scotland for a new post to assist in that.

This October, Scotland will have the great honour of hosting the prestigious Global Alcohol Policy Alliance conference, with international experts coming together to share knowledge and build capacity around tackling alcohol-related harm. I very much look forward to engaging in constructive discussion at the conference about the latest thinking worldwide. I am sure that there will be ideas that we will wish to capture for Scotland, and perhaps ideas that others will want to take forward in the rest of the world. I expect the next phase of our alcohol strategy to be ready in early 2016.

Over the coming months, I urge all members to reflect on the progress that we have made on the journey so far, since our framework’s launch in 2009. I have laid out some of that today, and I hope that there will be consensus that that has been a good start.