Meeting of the Parliament 04 February 2016
The member will be aware that some health boards were not passing on the justice-related money to the ADPs. We know that health boards can make up that funding and ensure that there is no reduction in funding to ADPs.
We are not working alone on measures to tackle the misuse of alcohol in our society. In relation to advertising, I said in my opening speech that we will take forward work that is based on research that has been carried out, but we need to take an evidence-based approach. For example, when I spoke to the experts from France, I discovered that much of what was in the loi Evin, which Dr Simpson and I discussed during my appearance at committee, has been rolled back since that legislation was introduced. We have to ensure that the advertising controls that we put in place work and are based on evidence that they work.
Nanette Milne made a considered speech about many of the bill’s aspects, some of which I will go into in a bit more detail. For example, on the proposal for a minimum price for packages that contain more than one alcohol product, she is right that supermarkets and other sales outlets would try to get round any legislation that we put in place; we have seen that happen with multipacks. The effect could be that people would not be able to buy a single unit of alcohol; it would have to be part of a multipack. Minimum unit pricing would help in that area.
I see that Dr Rice and Eric Carlin from Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems are in the public gallery. SHAAP suggested that the evidence on caffeinated alcohol is highly variable and that the focus should be on overall consumption. The Government agrees with SHAAP that it is the increasing availability, affordability and excessive consumption of high-strength drinks that causes problems in Scotland and contributes, as Graeme Pearson said, to many of the problems that relate to people who are up in court for offences. Focusing on one product misses the real problem of excessive consumption.
In relation to age discrimination in off-sales, we believe that it is right that powers exist to apply restrictions that limit off-sales at outlets that have particular problems or which have been found guilty of an infraction of the law. That does not mean that a blanket condition should exist for an entire local authority area. I am glad that the Health and Sport Committee agreed with the Government on that point.
The bill proposes allowing the police to request that licensing boards make participation by off-sales premises in a container-marking scheme a licence condition.