Hansard

I will not vote in favour of the Government’s minimum price policy; I will vote for Mary Scanlon’s amendment. I will do that because I am not persuaded by the evidence, for the reasons that I will give in a moment.However, I am bound to say that if we are not careful, there is a real risk that we will run this debate on an entirely polarised basis whereby everything that the SNP Government says on alcohol is rubbish and everything that I say on behalf of the Liberal Democrats is absolutely right. Such an approach would not contribute to the public’s believing that we are taking the debate on alcohol seriously.It is perfectly right for all members present to express their legitimate criticisms—I will make mine—but we must do so in terms that leave open questions. For example, I believe that taxation and price could have a role to play, therefore I will be extraordinarily cautious not to advance arguments against price that could equally apply to taxation. I urge some caution.It would be churlish not to acknowledge that the committee expressly asked the cabinet secretary to give us a price so that we could discuss the matter in advance of today’s final decision—the final decision in the committee, but not the Parliament—understanding exactly where we were in relation to the proposal. It would also be churlish not to acknowledge the cabinet secretary’s genuine attempts to assuage some of our concerns by suggesting reporting and sunset clauses. We may not agree with those measures, but it would be churlish, in my humble opinion, not to recognise that they have been advanced in good faith.I also do not agree with the cabinet secretary. In the context of a public health measure, I am prepared to accept the Sheffield model as the best evidence that is available to us. I do that because other public health measures that have not previously been used or advanced in any other country may be brought before the Parliament, and the only possibility of our considering such measures would be by reference to econometric modelling. Therefore, I am cautious not to slight such models.Of course, we can take out of context the reference to the weather forecast. I observe only that the Finns get exactly the same weather forecast but manage not to be gridlocked. That might suggest that they do different things with weather forecasts than we do in Scotland.I am not even persuaded that the minimum unit pricing policy is illegal. I am not prepared to have the Scottish Parliament adopt a policy whereby the prospect of a European challenge emasculates the Parliament’s actions. Parliamentarians have to take the evidence that is presented to them and come to a judgment. We might say, “Good gracious! This might be challenged,” but of course it might be challenged in the Supreme Court or the European Court. Any decision of any Parliament in Europe can be challenged in court, so I do not base my legislative approach on that argument.Time marches on, so I will turn to the matters that have caused me some difficulties. The price that the Sheffield study projects for deployment, combined with the evidence that it produces for the impact of that price, has not withstood close and searching examination when set against the differential effects of lowering price and raising price that have arisen in Finland and elsewhere. It may be that there is further work to be done on that, as that would have an impact on what is done with taxation. However, there is no doubt that the bare evidence that was presented to us leaves us in some doubt about, and makes us question, the impact that was projected. The questioning on that particular evidence showed that it was not persuasive.I listened carefully to the evidence on the impact on the low-paid that was brought before the committee for the first time, although we had seen the report by Professor Anne Ludbrook and others at an earlier stage. Again, that evidence is not to be considered in isolation. The disproportionate impact on the low-paid is accentuated by the fact that minimum unit pricing of itself, on the evidence that has been put before us, appears to have the reverse effect on people on not even higher incomes but medium incomes, and, more critically, people in those income groups who are harmful or hazardous drinkers. I therefore found the argument to be much less persuasive. Indeed, that was the issue. As a health measure, the measure is not designed specifically to deal with those whose behaviour is antisocial. It is proper that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing has promoted it, as its main thrust is its medium and long-term health impacts. However, the lack of persuasive evidence that it will, as it is constructed, address hazardous drinkers is a serious problem that cannot be answered in the proposal that has finally been posited.Finally, there is genuine concern, which has certainly been expressed in my party, about the monetary benefits. Notwithstanding the corrections that the cabinet secretary made in her opening remarks on where those monetary benefits might arise, they nevertheless would arise for retailers, publicans and producers. There does not seem to be any particular social benefit from that, and there are no counter-measures. No amendments on that have been lodged, and in discussions that I have had with others, I have not been able to see a simple mechanism that would produce a way of recouping that money for the public purse for the benefit of dealing with alcohol problems.For those major reasons, I support Mary Scanlon’s amendment 1. However, I do not do so on the basis that I believe that the Government has been attempting to dupe or mislead. I think that it has been genuinely motivated by a desire to address a matter of public health, and I have no doubt that the issue of price will return for parliamentary consideration in a different form or when forms of taxation are discussed, because I believe that there is, at heart, a causal link between price and consumption. We have all found that the difficulty is finding a means of dealing with that which addresses the problem of harmful and hazardous drinkers in an equitable way across income groups.