Meeting of the Parliament 04 June 2015
I have pointed out before that Scotland’s very sharp deterioration in its relationship with alcohol in terms of hospital admissions and deaths can be traced back to the end of 1990 when, by coincidence, Margaret Thatcher left Downing Street. Whether that therefore led to rejoicing in the streets—a binge party from which Scots never recovered—or whether Scots were consumed by grief at her departure, it nonetheless is a fact that, from that point onwards, there is a measurable deterioration in our relationship with alcohol.
Before members of the Scottish National Party get too excited about drawing a conclusion one way or the other, I should say that it is also the case that the improvement in the numbers of alcohol-related hospital admissions and deaths began when Alex Salmond came to office. I do not know whether that was because people no longer felt like rejoicing on the streets and had given up on life. Although the small improvements that we have seen are to be celebrated, I do not know whether we can be complacent about what might have underpinned the change in trend, to which I will return.
I thank the cabinet secretary for bringing the debate to the chamber. I said in a question not so long ago that it was two years since we passed minimum unit pricing and since we last debated the subject in the chamber. The First Minister got a bit excited by that. I did not mean to criticise the on-going work that is being done, but the debate on minimum unit pricing was underpinned by a determination to understand and address Scotland’s relationship with alcohol. That needs a sustained and continuing debate in this chamber. The minimum unit pricing legislation was passed in what I might call the salad days of the Government, and we have a chance to consider the issue again today, for which I am grateful.
There have been improvements. Some are maybe not so obvious. In 2013, Scotland had double the vodka off-sales of any other part of the United Kingdom, so we still have trends that we might not wish to celebrate. Jenny Marra and the cabinet secretary referred to consumption and the 1980s. Consumption is still at twice the rate of France, Portugal and Spain—as well as another country that I have written down incorrectly, which is not very helpful—and the rate of hospital admissions is four times the rate that we saw in the 1980s.
I acknowledge the work that has been done and the measures that have been taken; the improvement that has resulted from the alcohol framework; the fact that there has been a 2.5 per cent reduction in off-trade sales; and the better investment in treatment and care and in alcohol brief interventions. However, it is also the case that the deterioration in our relationship with alcohol can be directly linked to the affordability of alcohol over the same period.
I was struck by a paragraph in the fourth annual “Monitoring and Evaluating Scotland’s Alcohol Strategy” report, which was published in December last year. It said:
“declining affordability of alcohol due to the economic downturn and associated policy context across Great Britain in recent years is responsible for a substantial proportion of these improvements. However, the ban on quantity discounting of alcohol and the increased number of ABIs delivered are likely to be contributing to the improvements seen in Scotland. Changing knowledge and attitudes around alcohol are unlikely to be responsible for the recent declines.”
We still have a huge job to do with regard to the identification of culture.