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Meeting of the Parliament 14 March 2012

14 Mar 2012 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Alcohol (Minimum Pricing) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Simpson, Dr Richard Lab Mid Scotland and Fife Watch on SPTV

I am sorry if I am getting under the cabinet secretary’s skin, but it is important that we lay things out. I quote specifically from the Sheffield report and ask her whether she thinks that it is a good reduction. For 18 to 24-year-olds, a minimum unit price of 45p would result in a reduction of 0.6 per cent. For every 100 pints that young adults drink, they are predicted to drink one pint less. I do not regard that as being significant. It may be statistically significant, but I cannot believe that it is clinically significant.

Even the harmful drinkers who, according to the Sheffield report, drink an average of 58 units a week—29 pints or two bottles of vodka a week—will reduce their drinking, on average, only by 5 units, or two and a half pints. It was Ross Finnie who pointed that out last session. They will still be harmful drinkers. I accept that those are averages—of course they are. However, when the Sheffield study states that the average consumption for moderate drinkers is only 5 units—two glasses of wine—a week, I wonder about the model.

My concerns have gone further, as those who have listened know. The number of hazardous drinkers increases with each decile of increasing income, and it is that pattern of hazardous drinking that we have simply got to change. The proportion of cheaper alcohol in the basket of alcohol purchased is less in the higher-income groups but it is still significant, and minimum unit pricing will barely touch the wealthier 70 per cent of the population—they can absorb with ease any proportionate price increase that the cabinet secretary cares to name. Minimum unit pricing will punish those who are less well-off if they are moderate drinkers at a higher level. For example, a man of modest means who drinks 20 units a week—a bottle of vodka a week—will now pay a minimum unit tax of £200 a year, which I do not regard as appropriate. The less well-off, who are drinking safely and moderately, will have to pay a price for those who are drinking irresponsibly.

The cabinet secretary has referred to other concerns such as internet sales, cross-border purchasing and increased black market or counterfeit sales. Those are concerns, but they are lesser concerns. Nigel Hawkes, writing in the British Medical Journal the other week, said:

“a deal which gives the retailers, who are part of the problem, over 100 million pounds and takes away millions from the taxpayer is a deal not worth doing.”

We urgently need measures to change the culture. We must confront those who get intoxicated on our streets. We need a return to a culture in which getting drunk is not acceptable. A general taxation approach is preferable, building on Alistair Darling’s alcohol duty escalator, which the coalition is continuing, along with new measures from the coalition, which include changing the definition of cider and encouraging lower-strength beer. Those measures will have an effect. A taxation or levy approach would be much more equitable and would generate revenue for the public purse, not for alcohol retailers.

It is ironic that, despite complaining that it does not control alcohol duty, the SNP is refusing to implement the social responsibility levy that the Parliament passed. Labour still believes that introducing minimum unit pricing with no adequate clawback mechanism risks doing more harm than good by generating windfalls in excess of £100 million.

However, we are responding to the cabinet secretary’s welcome and more measured tone both at committee and today—with her agreement to notify on the legality and to insert the sunset clause—in the hope that she will also refer the research measures to the new chief scientist, Professor Andrew Morris. Therefore, despite our continued real reservations about the unintendeds of the bill, we have lodged our reasoned amendment, which I hope that the cabinet secretary will accept, to allow us to move forward unanimously.

On that basis, I move amendment S4M-02305.1, to insert at end:

“but, in so doing, strongly believes that the Scottish Government should bring forward proposals to eliminate the windfall to large retailers arising from the minimum unit price by means of the proposed public health levy or other targeted levy.”

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Meeting of the Parliament 14 March 2012

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