Policing and Crime Bill

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for bringing forward the amendment. This is an important area and it is something that we need to think about. We as a Government are committed to tackling alcohol-related disorder and health harms. However, we also have to think about the impact on the majority of people in this country who drink alcohol responsibly, and we must ensure that they are not unfairly penalised. I specifically asked questions about this issue when I was being briefed by my team, and there is no doubt, as they pointed out to me, that the majority of adults in this country drink alcohol. Any intervention on price could have far-reaching consequences, depending on how exactly how it is targeted and how it is done, and that can be more difficult than one might think. I take the point, well hoisted in by the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, about the blue bottles of white cider. It is disgraceful that stuff like that is sold so cheaply—I share the noble Earl’s view. I would hope that part of what we achieve with this Bill will enable us to sort out those youths and stop them doing this and get them playing some sport or doing something a little bit better for them. I agree that this is a real issue that has to be dealt with, but we have to be very careful because it can have an impact that goes beyond what we would hope for on moderate and responsible drinkers. As the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, said, this country historically has people who drink—I have to say that I enjoy a nice drink. It has got to be done sensibly and we should not penalise those people. The evidence of the impact of minimum pricing is not as conclusive as one might think. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, was absolutely right that we paid for the fascinating Sheffield report, which suggests that minimum unit pricing may have a beneficial impact. It also suggests that the impact on crime and disorder would be only modest for a number of other reasons. However, I intuitively feel that a minimum unit price would help tackle the problem—a view which I was pushing with my officials—and would stop people preloading on large quantities of cheap alcohol and going on to cause trouble later. The price of some types of lager as well as cider is absolutely ludicrous. It is a loss leader and I cannot quite see what they are trying to achieve with it sometimes. However, the fact that there is a disparity between this view and the current evidence base—we do not have enough evidence—illustrates that further work needs to be done before we take any action on price. That is why we announced last December and again in May, when we published the consultation on the new code, that we had decided not to proceed at the moment with measures concerning minimum unit price, but we are not ruling anything out. I assure noble Lords that the Government take very seriously the effect of cheap alcohol, which is pernicious. That is why we commissioned the Sheffield report last year and why, in the consultation on the code, the Department of Health committed to undertaking further research, building on the Sheffield review and with a view to identifying concrete proposals for action. That research will look to fill the key evidence gaps, such as the impact of price interventions on the alcohol industry, how it may differ across regions, and how different social groups will be affected. These are all very important issues which it is right to explore before we take any action on price. Noble Lords will be aware that the Scottish Government have decided to introduce minimum unit pricing as part of their new health Bill, which has a long way to run. It is right that Scotland should consider a range of options to deal with its particularly acute problem. Up to 50 per cent of men and 30 per cent of women in Scotland exceed the recommended weekly guidelines. The data show that enough alcohol is sold in Scotland to allow everyone over 16 to drink considerably more per week than the guidelines recommend. Significant harm to health is done there: for example, there were 40,000 discharges due to alcohol-related illnesses last year. So Scotland has real problems, but the basis on which it has introduced the measures is not hard, complicated evidence such as the Sheffield study and further work. I believe that we need to do that kind of work. In practice, therefore, the amendment, by requiring that we introduce a minimum unit price before any other mandatory conditions, would simply result in an unnecessary delay to the rest of the code until that further research had been completed. Unfortunately, the levels of alcohol-related crime and disorder are unacceptable now and we have to take action now. Introducing the new code is vital. It cannot be right that we delay this action because we are not yet in a position to make a full and final judgment on minimum pricing. I hope that my response reassures the noble Baroness and the Committee that we recognise the problems arising from the availability of cheap alcohol. We need more precise evidence, because a lot of other factors are involved. If further research shows that price has a major impact and that it is necessary that we do something about it, that can be implemented, but we need to wait until that is done.