Hansard

I represent the coalition against raising the drinking age in Scotland, which is a coalition of youth and student organisations, including the National Union of Students, the Scottish Youth Parliament and a number of student unions from across the country. We accept fully that alcohol misuse has a devastating effect on the health and wealth of Scotland. According to the Scottish Government's consultation document, it has costs to the NHS, the police and so on of about £2.25 billion a year. As a youth and student coalition, we believe fundamentally that something needs to be done about alcohol misuse. That is why in our response to the Government's consultation, which runs to 67 pages, we have outlined not just our opposition to the proposal to reduce the minimum purchase age for off-sales but how we believe alcohol misuse can be tackled in Scotland. I am sure that members will have questions for me on that issue.Fundamentally, our opposition to the proposal stems from the fact that we do not believe that it will address alcohol misuse. It will also have the negative side effect of infringing on the rights and responsibilities of young, responsible adults in our country. We do not agree with the creeping agenda of demonising young people that we have seen in the policy of Governments in the UK.In the consultation document, the Scottish Government suggests that raising the minimum purchase age would reduce alcohol-related harm, reduce excessive consumption of alcohol, reduce under-18s' access to alcohol, delay the onset of drinking and encourage drinking by 18 to 21-year-olds in more controlled settings. Those goals are laudable, but we do not accept the premise that raising the minimum purchase age will achieve them.We are not sure where the proposal to raise the minimum purchase age has come from. Our discussions with health organisations, alcohol charities and other bodies indicate that it has not come from health professionals. We can find no evidence that would lead anyone to think that raising the minimum purchase age will tackle the problem of Scotland's drinking culture and why alcohol misuse is deemed acceptable.I will put the proposal in context by looking at the situation abroad. Around the world, the minimum purchase age varies from zero to 21. The proposal would put us at the top of that range. According to a World Health Organization report, in 2004, 92.2 per cent of countries had a minimum purchase age of 18 or below; 63.2 per cent had a minimum purchase age of 18. Only 3.5 per cent of countries had a minimum purchase age of 21. In 90.4 per cent of countries, there was no difference between the on-sales and off-sales minimum purchase age. Interestingly, in 7.9 per cent of countries, the minimum purchase age was lower for off-sales than for on-sales. The proposal does not reflect an international trend, and it would place us in a small minority of countries, including the USA.Evidence from the USA shows that, in the 20 years since the minimum drinking age was raised, the measure has had no positive effect in tackling alcohol misuse. On underage drinking, the 2006 national survey on drug use and health showed that 10.8 million 12 to 20-year-olds reported drinking alcohol. A similar report showed that 90 per cent of the alcohol that was consumed by 12 to 20-year-olds was consumed in a manner that was considered to be binge drinking—excessive consumption. According to the surgeon general of the United States, 5,000 under-21-year-olds die of alcohol-related causes each year in the US.Underage drinking has not been eliminated; binge drinking and irresponsible alcohol use have certainly not been eliminated. In fact, some surveys and reports suggest that, instead of normalising responsible drinking, raising the minimum purchase age has created a forbidden-fruit effect—also known as a reactance effect—whereby taking alcohol away from someone makes alcohol consumption seem more exciting.As I have just shown you, people still get hold of alcohol when they are underage and consume it excessively. We do not see any trends around the world that show that raising the purchase age is an effective mechanism for tackling alcohol misuse. The consultation document argues that the apparent success of the trials of under-21 alcohol bans in Armadale—that was the first one—Cupar and Stenhousemuir is evidence in favour of raising the minimum purchase age in off-sales from 18 to 21. We have two criticisms of the use of those trials as evidence for raising the minimum purchase age. Having read the reports of the trials, not simply the press releases about them, we believe that the evidence shows that they were relatively unsuccessful and had insignificant and unattributable results. We started off by hearing that the proposal should be used as a mechanism to tackle the health effects of alcohol misuse. However, what we have heard recently has had nothing to do with alcohol misuse or its health implications; it has purely been about the effect on antisocial behaviour so, first of all, we need to clear up exactly what the Scottish Government is trying to do with the policy.When we examine the results of the trials, we see that they have had an insignificant effect. For example, during the trial in Armadale, minor assaults went up from 0.4 to 0.5 incidents a week on average. The biggest reduction in any antisocial behaviour in Armadale was in the incidence of vandalism—not specifically vandalism related to alcohol, but vandalism full stop—which reduced from 2.5 to 1.5 incidents per week. That is a reduction of one incident per week, which is hardly a stunning result, especially when we consider what Chief Inspector Jim Baird of Lothian and Borders Police concluded. Talking about the number of other schemes that ran at the same time and other variables that were involved in the trial, he said: "as they all ran in parallel it is not practicable, particularly with the low numbers of calls and reported crimes, to identify what operation had what effect."In each of the trials there was a range of variables, including numerous schemes that ran at the same time. That shows that, even ignoring how insignificant the results were, it is not possible to pinpoint raising the minimum purchase age as the factor that led to them. For example, the safer neighbourhood team had arrived in Armadale a few months before the trial. Since the team had been in place, there had been a constant reduction in reported antisocial behaviour, and that reduction would be expected to continue.We disagree with raising the minimum purchase age, because neither the international evidence nor the evidence from home shows that it is an effective means of tackling alcohol misuse. It does not affect underage drinking, binge drinking or excessive consumption, but sends out a mixed message to young, responsible adults between the ages of 18 and 21, despite the fact that alcohol misuse is not specific to their age group, as the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing has said. At 18, we trust people to go to war for their country and fight on the front line in Iraq and Afghanistan. They can get married, have children and even, under the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005, own and run a pub, although it is not necessarily clear whether they would be able to purchase stock for it if the minimum purchase age were raised.The proposal demonises young people. Rather than go forward with it—