Hansard

I am grateful to all members for their contributions to the debate today. Unsurprisingly, I do not agree with all of them; nevertheless, the debate has been detailed and of a quality that we have all come to associate with debates at this committee, and I am grateful for that. Unless we are going to be here until lunch time, I will not be able to respond to every point that has been made, but I will address some of the key themes that have emerged.Richard Simpson and Helen Eadie seemed to suggest that the Government has not consulted on minimum pricing. I counter that by saying that nothing could be further from the truth: the Government has been consulting on the measures since September 2007. Some may argue that there has been too much consultation and not enough hard action. There has definitely been no shortage of consultation.Some members have taken issue with my suggestion that there are party politics at play in the debate. It is not an assertion that I would make lightly. I agree with Ross Finnie in regretting that the issue has become as polarised as it has. Over the past few months, I have done my level best to avoid that by consistently saying that I am open minded about alternatives, by responding as openly and constructively as I possibly can to all the recommendations of the committee at stage 1—many of which have resulted in amendments that are before the committee today—by bringing forward the minimum price, and by suggesting a reasonable compromise in the form of a sunset clause. I have tried to avoid polarising the debate.My regret and deep frustration about the debate is that parties have reached the view that they oppose minimum pricing not after having listened to, interpreted and weighed up all the evidence; the Opposition parties reached that view before we had heard a shred of evidence. In Labour’s case, that view was reached on the day we introduced the bill to the Parliament, when Labour members said that they would not support minimum pricing. It was not that they were not persuaded and were sceptical but would listen to the evidence; they said categorically that they would not support minimum pricing. That has been very frustrating and leads me to believe that party politics are at play, at least on the part of some parties.Richard Simpson said at the outset of his remarks that, at the start of the process, he acknowledged the problems of alcohol misuse. I recall that, at the start of the process, before the bill was introduced, Richard Simpson was in favour of minimum unit pricing. It seems to me that his opposition and his determination to find grounds for opposing minimum pricing arose when it was the SNP Government that proposed the policy. That is the basis for my comments, and I stand by those comments.I have consistently said that I would be open to alternatives. The hard reality, though, is that here we are at stage 2, debating minimum pricing and no one has come forward with an alternative. Mary Scanlon points to the taxation and pricing review that is being carried out by the Treasury, but not to the fact that one of the first actions that the UK Government took was to reverse an increase in duty on cider, nor to the fact that the UK Government’s commitment to address below-cost sales in England and Wales in the proposed police reform and social responsibility bill seems to have fallen by the wayside. Those actions are not being taken forward, and that is before we consider Mary Scanlon’s apparent suggestion that as a Parliament, although we have the power to act, we should abdicate responsibility for the issue to Westminster.The Labour alcohol commission—which I was glad to hear Richard Simpson refer to as “the Labour alcohol commission”, as opposed to the pretence that it is in some way independent—came up with an alternative that, according to my reading of last week’s meeting, seems to have no evidence behind it. Of course, if Labour had thought that that was a credible alternative, it would have been open to Labour to lodge amendments to put that alternative into the bill. Labour has failed to do so, and is yet again in the position of opposing minimum pricing without offering any alternative.I shall deal, in no particular order, with some of the other key points that have been made. First, there is the argument that minimum pricing will put money into the hands of the supermarkets. As I said in my opening remarks, some of the comments that have been made completely misrepresent the scale of the profit—if I can use that term—and who the recipients of that profit would be. However, as others, such as Michael Matheson and the convener, have said, the opponents of minimum pricing seem to be happy to rely on modelling to support the argument about excess profits while refusing to accept modelling when it comes up with things that they do not accept.It is also the case that the issue of excess revenue for the industry arises with a ban on quantity discounts which, although we have not yet come to the relevant amendments, I understand all parties oppose. It is therefore not consistent to use that as a reason to oppose minimum pricing while ignoring it when it comes to policies that you support. Lastly, I have said repeatedly that there is the opportunity to use the social responsibility levy as a way to deal with the issue.The second substantive point to which I want to respond comes from one that Richard Simpson made—I am paraphrasing him here, before he suggests that I am misquoting him. He seemed to be saying that the problem of alcohol is somehow solving itself, so we do not need to take action. Yes, we have seen in some indicators and some short-term movements in the right direction, but it is far too soon, against the backdrop of the long-term trends, to say that those movements will be sustainable. It also ignores the facts that those are reductions from a very high base in Scotland, and that they are much smaller reductions than are being seen in other countries, even within the UK.Richard Simpson quoted mortality and death statistics. Yes—there has been a slight reduction in alcohol-related deaths among men in Scotland over the past two years and there has been a stabilisation in female deaths, but alcohol-related deaths in Scotland have doubled over the past 10 years. Scottish men are twice as likely to die an alcohol-related death as men in England. The next statistic appals me even more: Scottish women are more likely to die an alcohol-related death than English men. I utterly reject any suggestion that there is room for complacency.On the comments about the Sheffield report, this Government has never sought to overclaim what Sheffield does. I said in my evidence to the committee at stage 1 that it is not hard evidence, but modelling, and it is the kind of modelling that Governments throughout the world use on which to base policy changes. The former Labour Government in the UK based its national minimum wage policy on econometric modelling that was similar to the Sheffield modelling, so it is credible evidence. I think that some people have taken the reference to weather forecasting out of context and are using it unfairly to denigrate modelling and a methodology that are credible.10:45 A number of points have been made about the impact of minimum pricing. I will not go into them all in detail because I do not want to rehearse arguments and debates that we have already had, but some people have suggested that minimum pricing would not impact on harmful and hazardous drinkers, even though the Sheffield modelling suggests that those are precisely the categories on which it would have the biggest impact. Some have said that it would unfairly penalise low-income groups, but we have produced research for the committee that shows that the vast majority of people in low-income groups either do not drink at all or drink very little. My main comment about that group of comments echoes what Ross Finnie said. Some of the comments display confusion, because many of the comments that have been made to attack minimum pricing in relation to the impact on certain groups would apply to any increase in the price of alcohol regardless of how it was achieved. We have people who say, “Yes, we accept that price is an important part of tackling alcohol misuse” but then use an array of arguments that seem to suggest that any price increase would have that effect on certain groups. That is inconsistent.Some members have selectively quoted other interests. I have always accepted that not everybody supports minimum pricing. It would be extraordinary if every expert group and every stakeholder interest supported it, but many of them do. Richard Simpson quoted children’s charities as giving conditional support. He is right: they have said that they would like the impact on low-income groups to be monitored, but they also say that they want the policy of minimum pricing to go ahead. He quoted other opinion formers as preferring 60p to 45p, and in some respects that is true, but he did not say that almost all the opinion formers whom he mentioned prefer 45p to no minimum pricing at all. We should make sure that we quote those opinions fairly.I have two final points. First, on the issue of legality and the possibility of a European challenge, I say to Helen Eadie that the precedent that Jackie Baillie mentioned was never identified by Jackie Baillie, so I am not aware of a precedent such as the one that Helen Eadie mentioned. Members will be aware that I sent the committee a letter of several pages that went into some detail about the basis of our legal argument. It probably contained more information on legal issues than a minister has ever shared with a committee. The committee and all members have to recognise that every and any act of the Parliament is potentially challengeable in the courts, but that that is not a reason, if we are confident about our legal basis, not to proceed.Lastly, I guess that what I find most frustrating about the debate is the notion that we cannot do anything unless we can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that all the possible benefits will definitely be realised and all the possible unintended consequences will definitely be avoided. Sometimes, when we are faced with a problem of the magnitude that we face with alcohol misuse, we have to dare to take action. That is what the Parliament did with the ban on smoking in public places and I believe that it is what it should be prepared to do on minimum pricing. The sunset clause is a reasonable attempt to recognise the scepticism that some members have about the impact of the policy, and to allow us to test it in practice and gain the hard evidence that many people say is missing.Convener, I will stop there, but my very last comment is that I suspect, given the comments that have been made round the table, that the committee is about to vote against minimum pricing, as it has a right to do. I respect the views and the votes of the committee. However, I think it is right that the issue comes back to the Parliament at stage 3 to allow the whole Parliament to vote on it, and the Government intends to lodge an amendment at stage 3 to allow that to happen. I know that there are differences of opinion in all the Opposition parties about the issue and I think it would be right to allow the whole Parliament to take the final vote.