Meeting of the Parliament 04 February 2016
As I am not a member of the Health and Sport Committee, members may be surprised to see me speaking. I would like to put it on the record that the deputy convener, Bob Doris, could not make it because he has just had a son, who is called Cameron. Members will congratulate him on being a father and congratulate him and Janet on young Cameron. It is very important to think about that, because this debate is about future generations.
Some members will know how close this topic is to my heart. I would like to be in agreement with Dr Simpson about introducing the bill but, unfortunately, as others before me—including the Minister for Public Health—said, I found that it is a bit piecemeal. The bill will not work in the framework of the Scottish Government.
Let us be clear: the Scottish Government has done a lot and, as the minister said, its approach to tackling alcohol-related harm has been recognised globally. It is very important to realise that and to support the Government.
I had several meetings with Dr Simpson and I remember him challenging the Scottish Government’s view on the minimum unit pricing policy. I am delighted to see him embrace that policy today. It is a very important policy and, once it goes through the court, it will be an important tool for combating the problem in Scotland.
It is important to recognise that there is a problem in Scotland; it is one of the countries in which alcoholism is the biggest problem. As some members said, it is not enough that the existing strategy in Scotland has contributed to the number of deaths from alcohol in Scotland falling faster than in the rest of the UK; we have to realise that there is much more to do. We drink as much as twice more than 30 or 40 years ago. It is important to recognise where we are and how important the issue is.
One thing I particularly disagree with Dr Simpson about—perhaps the Government will follow my remarks—is blaming the individual and trying to prosecute or ban the individual who has a problem with alcohol. That is the last thing that we should do. We already have an armoury of legislation and we should use that.
I am delighted that Dr Simpson decided not to pursue the education part of the bill. Very good work is happening on education just now, which is one of the reasons why the number of deaths in Scotland in which alcohol is a contributory factor is falling fast, compared with the rest of the UK. We should be quite delighted about that, although we need to do much more.
As I have said already, we need to do more because we are in a very different situation to that in other countries. We need to do much more on advertising. In this day and age, it is not acceptable to have alcohol advertising in sports, such as football. There is so much alcohol advertising linked to sports and that needs to stop one way or another.
It is the same situation for broadcasting. Some people have the view that there should be a watershed, but I do not agree. We should not have alcohol advertising on television at all. Other countries have stopped it and those countries have far fewer alcohol-related deaths than we do. Why should Scotland not take that approach? We should not have such advertising.
In conclusion, the chief executive of the Scottish Licensed Trade Association said that we are a nation of take-home drinkers, but I think that we are a nation of drunks and we must accept that. We must all accept responsibility for whether we are drinking or not, and blaming our friends and family members—or worse, to further prosecute people or ban them, as the bill intends—is not the answer. The answer, which is very important, is for Parliament to change the alcohol regime. I trust the Scottish Government strategy to do just that.