Alcohol Misuse
The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-00181, in the name of James Dornan, on battling Scotland’s drinking culture. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament welcomes the publication of the British Medical Association’s survey on the impact of alcohol on patients who had visited GP practices in Glasgow and across Scotland on one day in April 2011; is alarmed that GPs and practice nurses reported that there were more than 5,500 consultations in which it was considered that alcohol was a contributing factor to the visit; understands that this equates to an estimated more than two million consultations per year, costing the NHS in excess of £42 million; believes that further action must be taken to curb Scotland’s drinking culture and raise awareness of the long-term damage to health that might arise from regular heavy alcohol consumption, and would welcome the urgent development of a package of measures to address this problem.
17:04
I start by thanking the British Medical Association for putting together its “One Day” alcohol motion briefing, and much of what I am about to say comes from that briefing. As the motion says, on one day in April 2011, 5,500 consultations took place with a general practitioner or practice nurse in which alcohol was a factor. Over one fifth of those consultations, 1,200, took place in the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde area, which covers my constituency and home city.
Those statistics extrapolate to 1.4 million consultations a year in Scotland in which alcohol is a factor, which cost in excess of £28 million and account for around 6 per cent of all consultations in general practice. Hundreds of thousands of lives are affected by alcohol, countless families are destroyed and many communities are torn apart in a nation that I believe has struggled for far too long to face up to the demon in its midst that is our love affair with alcohol.
There is no silver bullet to kill off the disease that is alcohol abuse. To defeat it, we need to use all the weapons at our disposal, including education, early intervention and labelling of alcoholic products. However, we would be fighting with one hand tied behind our back without the introduction of minimum pricing; other measures just tinker around the edge of the problem. Without it, we will continue to have the fastest-growing liver cirrhosis rates in western Europe. In addition, conditions such as chronic pancreatitis—my mispronunciation of that shows that it affects language as well—diabetes and heart disease are made much worse by each sip of alcohol.
On any given day, alcohol will cost Scotland £97.5 million in terms of health, and crime and violence. It will kill five people and cause 98 people to be admitted to hospital with an alcohol-related condition and 23 people to commit a driving offence. It will lead to 450 victims of violent crime perceiving that their assailant is under the influence of alcohol. That does not include all the problems that low-level drinking can cause, such as breast cancer, colon cancer and so on.
We do not need to be a raging drunk to suffer from the effects of alcohol. Regular imbibing can do it for us just as well. Sometimes we are so caught up in the headline killers associated with alcohol that we forget that there are other dangers out there, such as the mental effects of drinking too much. I am sure that I am not alone in the chamber in having lost friends I grew up with to liver failure, heart disease and many other of Scotland’s killers that are all alcohol related. Many of those people were lost at a disturbingly young age. I have also seen childhood friends grow from being the life and soul of the party to being insecure loners because of their love affair with the bottle. We have all seen the changes that it can make to people’s personalities and we should keep that in mind during this debate.
Since the mid-1990s, the affordability of alcohol has increased in leaps and bounds to the ludicrous stage now where, in some circumstances, cheap, powerful cider can be bought for less than the price of water. How can that be right and how is that good for society? That is why I welcome the Government’s Alcohol etc (Scotland) Act 2010, which comes into force this week. There are a lot of useful measures in it, such as banning quantity discounts on off-sales purchases and banning the supply of an alcoholic drink free or at a reduced price when purchasing another drink. The measures will help to make alcohol more acceptably priced. However, for us to have maximum impact, we need minimum pricing.
Too often, the opponents of minimum pricing have claimed that they are against it because of a lack of international evidence to stand alongside the Sheffield study. Well, no longer can they use that shield. Let us take the experience in British Columbia, where Professor Tim Stockwell completed a study that shows categorically that a 10 per cent increase in the minimum price of alcohol resulted in a 3.4 per cent reduction in the consumption of alcohol. If we accept that world-renowned expert’s findings, surely we can accept that his research shows that a similar action will result in a similar drop in consumption here in Scotland. Just think of the gains that such a move could bring to Scotland: a drop in hospital admissions, a reduction in liver disease, a reduction in alcohol-related crime and huge social benefits for our hard-hit communities. Let us remember that, although alcohol abuse knows no boundaries and can affect anyone in any social class, most of its victims are from less well-off areas. We do them a huge disservice if we refuse to accept scientific evidence for some specious political reason.
Members may be interested to know that Professor Stockwell has been researching alcohol misuse problems for most of his academic career. He has seen and heard it all from all over the world. However, such is the extent of Scotland’s drink problem that even he was surprised and shocked not just by the volume of alcohol consumption but by the pattern of drinking that has become culturally acceptable here. I am sure that we all agree that the fact that we can shock a leading international academic in that way is not something that Scotland should be proud of.
Jack McConnell once said that he believed that his duty as First Minister was to leave Scotland better than he found it—and he was right. His willingness to change his position on a smoking bill was the act of a big man—I think he is big but, for most of you, he is probably not. He brought forward the best piece of legislation that the Parliament has passed to date. My proudest act in politics is to have played a small role in the passing of the Prohibition of Smoking in Regulated Areas (Scotland) Bill. I worked for Stewart Maxwell when he proposed his member’s bill on smoking, which the then Executive took and strengthened into the act that we now have. Jack McConnell should be rightly proud of what he did. I know that Stewart Maxwell is proud of what he did, and even I, who had such a minor role to play, am proud of what I did.
We now have another opportunity to be proud of ourselves in this chamber—let us be honest, we do not get many of those. I am extremely encouraged that there are strong signs that we may achieve cross-party consensus on the issue in this parliamentary session, although I suspect that Ken Macintosh’s figure of 75p per unit came as a shock to everyone.
Let us, as the old saying goes, seize the day and agree to support minimum pricing when it comes to the chamber, and let us make our country proud. Sláinte.
17:10
I congratulate James Dornan on securing the debate.
It is interesting that the BMA has repeated its statistic of 5,500 general practitioner consultations a day but says that that equates to 1.4 million consultations annually, at a cost of £28 million. It is not at all clear to me where James Dornan got his figures from.
When the BMA originally published the statistic, it acknowledged that it was based on 3 per cent of practices and should be treated with caution. I agree; a study that is based on 127 consultations across the whole country should be treated with considerable caution. However, the motion throws caution to the four winds. Nigel Hawkes, of Straight Statistics, who I think has e-mailed most members, accused the BMA of abusing statistics to create a moral panic to justify a minimum unit price. He went on to say that the trends are in the right direction, which confounds the Sheffield modelling.
There is no doubt that Scotland has a significant problem, which we all have a duty to try to tackle. The Government has a majority in the Parliament—plus the backing of the Liberals—so it will achieve minimum unit pricing. However, I strongly urge it to do two things. First, the University of Sheffield should be invited to remodel its data on the basis of the most recent statistics, to ascertain whether the model produces the results retrospectively. The evidence is that that is not the case, and it ill behoves us to introduce a measure that could be misleading if the figures do not prove that the outcomes are correct.
In the latest brief from Scottish health action on alcohol problems, discounting and its effects are compounded with the effect of a minimum price—albeit at only 40p. Given that the discounting ban will have a greater effect than a minimum unit price of 40p will have, it is important that evidence that we collect when minimum unit pricing comes in shows that the measure has been effective, before we herald it across the world.
Secondly, I hope that members agree that it will be important to have a prospective randomised controlled trial. That will be perfectly feasible, because Scotland will introduce the measure and England will not do so. It will be possible to examine harmful and hazardous drinkers in the two contexts, to determine whether minimum unit pricing is having an effect, given that most of the other variables will be common to both contexts.
Dr Simpson perhaps missed a fantastic briefing last night, which was hosted by Malcolm Chisholm and Willie Rennie, in which Professor Tim Stockwell showed us the evidence on minimum pricing over 20 years in Canada.
The Health and Sport Committee in the previous session of the Parliament took evidence from a number of people in Canada, where there is an absolute Government monopoly. I do not think that even this Government is proposing that there should be a Government monopoly on sales. In addition, social responsibility pricing, which is what happens in Canada, is not identical to minimum unit pricing.
I have always said that the arguments are balanced. There is not an absolute yes or an absolute no. However, the Government has failed to answer this point: minimum unit pricing affects only the lowest three income deciles; it does not affect the majority of hazardous drinkers—hazardous drinkers, not harmful drinkers—who are to be found in the top 30 per cent.
The argument is about culture—James Dornan’s motion is correct in that regard. We have not answered the question on why the clear and undisputed increase in consumption that followed reduction in price in Finland was not mirrored by a proportionate decrease in consumption when the price increased again. We do not know why there has been a decrease in consumption in France from a level that was equal to the current Scottish level to a level that is half the current Scottish level, although the price of alcohol in France has not gone up. There are issues to do with price that make the matter much more complicated than is suggested by the simplistic approach that has been adopted.
17:15
I thank James Dornan for lodging his motion and for bringing the debate to the chamber. I am glad that Dr Simpson agrees with us on one thing: that this is a health problem. We can talk about the issue in terms of politics and which party says what; in terms of culture, including why Scotland drinks through the long dark night; or in terms of economics, with regard to who can tax and who will make a profit. However, at the end of it all, we must admit that Scotland is drinking itself to death.
The evidence is irrefutable. We are grateful to Malcolm Chisholm and Willie Rennie for holding the briefing last night, which I mentioned in my intervention. Dr Peter Rice’s statistics were stark and terrifying. Between 1970 and 2006, deaths from cirrhosis of the liver in Scotland rose sevenfold, yet from 1971 to 2007, which is approximately the same period, all other deaths—including those from the big five, including heart disease, cancer and stroke—fell.
We must ask ourselves what we should do, and what the solution is. I urge members to turn to the evidence that minimum pricing is the answer. Professor Tim Stockwell made it clear last night from the work that he has done that, in the 20 years in which Canada has had minimum pricing, it has had a phenomenal result. Meta-analysis shows that those are the facts. A Gallup poll in 2007 found that if there was a 10 per cent rise in the price of alcohol, there would be a 5 per cent drop in consumption and in the harm caused by alcohol.
Does Fiona McLeod recognise, after attending the meeting last night, that the Canadian model is completely different? There is different unit pricing for different types of drinks, and even within drinks, so she is not comparing apples with apples.
As Ms Dugdale was there, she will remember that Professor Stockwell said very clearly that minimum pricing is the answer to reducing consumption and the harm caused by alcohol.
Dr Simpson might want to look at another piece of evidence that we were shown last night: the 2009 study by Meier et al, which said that young people and high-risk drinkers are most responsive to pricing strategies. Minimum pricing reduces the harm that alcohol causes.
My contribution is short, but I will finish with something that Professor Stockwell said last night. He said that we should never doubt for a moment the scientific evidence that raising the price of alcohol leads to a fall in consumption and harm. Let us stop the dialogue of death and the refusal to accept the evidence and, when we next meet to vote on minimum pricing in the Parliament, let us ensure that the vote is unanimous in order to tackle Scotland’s health problems.
17:18
I declare an interest as the patron of the Orkney Alcohol Counselling and Advisory Service, and as I am off to the Scottish Beer and Pub Association challenge 25 reception after the debate. That highlights the different contributions and extensive range of policy measures that we need to bring to bear on tackling what members have acknowledged today is a serious blight on this country.
I congratulate James Dornan not only on bringing this very welcome debate to the chamber but on the tone of much of what he said. He is right that minimum pricing, which was the focus of many of his remarks, is not the silver bullet, although I distance myself a little from the suggestion that everything else without minimum pricing is simply tinkering around the edges. I certainly echo the sentiment that he sought to convey in much of his speech.
During the scrutiny of the previous legislation, the Liberal Democrats were opposed to minimum pricing, and we have made clear the reasons behind our shift on that position. In building a consensus, there are still questions to be answered in relation to how we set a level and the impact that it will have. Although I disagree with quite a bit of what Richard Simpson said, he is right about the impact that removing supermarkets’ ability to discount alcohol can have on the prevalence and uptake of drinking. There is no doubt that price has a part to play, but availability is also a key determinant.
I read with interest the BMA report, which provides some staggering statistics. Although my constituency was not included in that snapshot, the figures in the report would not be out of step with what we are seeing in many rural parts of the country. Alcohol is a problem in relation to crime and the efficiency of our economy but, at root, it is a health problem. I am sorry that I was not able to follow the minister’s lead and spend the afternoon listening to the debate on mental health. There are particular issues relating alcohol abuse to mental ill health. Through the work that I have undertaken with OACAS, I know that the counselling service that it provides in schools in Orkney has demonstrated the extent of the problem that is faced with depression, bullying, stress and anger manifesting themselves in alcohol abuse.
As James Dornan rightly pointed out, alcohol abuse at an early stage, which is often a response to home circumstances, manifests itself later in life in a complete character shift. That is why, although much of the debate over the next few months will inevitably focus on price issues, we should not lose sight of the fact that the interventions that we can make through early detection of depression, stress, bullying, anger, relationship breakdown and so on need to be the focus of our attention. We cannot rein back on the efforts that we have made through the various counselling services throughout the country, which give us a better insight into the causes of alcohol abuse.
I welcome James Dornan’s motion and the debate, and I look forward to participating in future debates on this and related issues over the months ahead.
17:22
I congratulate James Dornan on securing the debate in a week in which there has been an amazing concentration of health debates and meetings, including the one last night to which members have referred, which I shall mention in a moment.
The reason why I have become increasingly concerned about the issue was shown on the graph to which Fiona McLeod referred, which Peter Rice used last night. It showed a 700 per cent increase in chronic liver disease in Scotland over the past 25 years and, in particular, a steep rise over the past six or seven years, demonstrating that alcohol is an even greater public health issue now than it was a decade or so ago.
We ought also to remember the association between violence and alcohol. I recently visited the Scottish violence reduction unit and asked the experts there, whom I greatly admire, what percentage of violent crimes were associated with alcohol. With a straight face, the wonderful Karyn McCluskey said, “All violent crimes.” I feel that must be a slight exaggeration, but the point stands.
We need a range—a jigsaw—of measures to deal with our serious problems with alcohol abuse, and I hope that the forthcoming alcohol bill will allow a range of actions to be taken. I believe that minimum pricing is the necessary glue to hold the pieces of the jigsaw together.
Some interesting additional evidence was provided by Professor Tim Stockwell at the meeting last night. I accept that the situation in Canada is different—Richard Simpson pointed to the fact that the Government has a monopoly of alcohol sales in Canada—but that does not alter the effect that minimum pricing has. I also accept that, as Kezia Dugdale said, there are differences in the detail, some of which are quite interesting. For example, in Canada there has been a much bigger increase in the minimum price of strong beers than in the minimum price of light beers, which has led to an astonishing 52 per cent reduction in the consumption of strong beers in Saskatchewan. That reinforces the general point rather than weakening it.
Professor Stockwell started with the general point that hundreds of studies link price, consumption and harm. As Fiona McLeod said, his final words were, “Never doubt that evidence.” I do not imagine that anyone in the chamber doubts the generality of that evidence, to which he added recent research that he has conducted in Canada on the effect of minimum pricing, particularly in British Columbia and Saskatchewan.
I should point out that the man is a world expert in his field. I had to stop reading his curriculum vitae before I got to the end, or I would still be reading it. He has worked for the World Health Organization and for various health bodies in Canada and Australia. He made it absolutely clear that the research that he has done in Canada not only substantiates the general point about the link between price, consumption and harm but shows that raising the minimum price has a direct effect on consumption. For example, raising the minimum price by 10 per cent in Saskatchewan produced a 5 per cent reduction in consumption.
A body of evidence shows that those who drink harmfully tend to gravitate towards cheaper forms of alcohol, so the effect is even greater among such groups. In the debate in June 2010, I referred to a study by Dr Jonathan Chick and others at the Royal Edinburgh hospital that showed that the lower the price a patient who was a harmful drinker paid per unit, the more units of alcohol they consumed.
Will the member take an intervention?
I do not know whether I have time.
Malcolm Chisholm is in his last minute.
I have only 10 seconds left.
My last point is about culture, to which the motion refers. I argue that price is a part of culture. Cheap alcohol affects the culture, as was said last night. To change the culture, we must do something about the price.
17:26
I add my congratulations to James Dornan on bringing the motion to the chamber. I am a member of the only Opposition party that backed minimum unit pricing in the previous session, and I look forward to it being brought back. Rather than simply that measure, I will address the wider issues to which the motion refers.
I welcome the general sentiments in the motion, but I did not sign it. That was not so much because of what is written in the motion—I do not disagree with much that is in it. My decision related to some of my discomfort with past alcohol debates in the chamber. Some debates about alcohol and alcohol policy have involved some hypocrisy. That relates partly to the economic impact—everyone wants to preserve the whisky industry and other industries for export, without necessarily taking account of the health impacts—and partly to our personal behaviour.
At stage 3 of the bill on alcohol in 2005, on the last day of the bill’s passage through the Parliament after years of consultation, back benchers from several parties lodged last-minute amendments and made what were, frankly, sanctimonious speeches about saving their communities from the demon drink. At about half past 6, after a delayed decision time, we all trooped down to the garden lobby, where huge trays of free booze awaited us at the evening reception. How we debate alcohol involves a degree of doublethink and hypocrisy.
I will set myself a wee personal rule about motions. I would like to support motions about alcohol that do not ignore the harm or the positive—what is or could be good about a healthier drinking culture. Our aspiration should be not to curb our drinking culture but to change it—to try to achieve a better, healthier and more positive drinking culture that is safer, calmer and worth celebrating.
What would such a culture look like? Over the past few decades and throughout my lifetime, the industry has changed slowly and gradually, largely because it is too often regulated as though it was just any other industry. Gradually, control of the industry has been handed over to smaller numbers of much more powerful organisations—multinationals and large multiples and chains. That applies to production, serving and selling—to on-sales and off-sales. It was irresponsible of our society to hand over control of this recreational drug to multinationals. Meanwhile, we must recognise that some companies out there—including many in Scotland—are proud to make their profits from quality and not from volume.
Something that was worth having and which we have destroyed are the links and the responsibility that local community pubs have to the people they serve. Locally owned, independent pubs have lower staff turnover and more connection with the people they serve. Some of the manufacturers that make their profits from quality instead of volume sales are struggling compared with the Diageos, the Wetherspoons and the vertical drinking establishments in our cities. Companies that should be worth celebrating are struggling—they have been marginalised.
I say yes to minimum pricing and to a range of other measures that I hope we will get consensus on. I also say that, fundamentally, we need a better drinking culture that we are willing to talk about in positive terms. We must not buy into the idea that alcohol must always and only be seen as a problem.
17:31
Like other members, I congratulate James Dornan on bringing this important debate to the chamber.
The World Health Organization’s European charter on alcohol proposes that each member state should
“Promote health by controlling the availability”
of alcohol
“for example for young people, and influencing the price of alcoholic beverages, for instance by taxation.”
That was signed up to by all the member states of the European Union, including the Westminster Government, so we should, I hope, be able to look for no short measure of support from it. [Laughter.] Thank you. At the moment, we do not have taxation powers as a means to control the availability of alcohol, so perhaps minimum pricing has a place.
Perhaps one measure that might address some of the problem is the social responsibility levy. We would be able to take money back and use it for a positive purpose rather than simply giving extra money to big supermarkets’ shareholders. Is it not unfortunate that the Scottish Government has completely failed to bring forward proposals to do any such thing?
I presume, of course, that the Labour Party will support the public health levy.
We should all try to be positive. We are the legislature, and we should be responsible and introduce what we are able to introduce. It would have been useful if we had been able to introduce minimum pricing during the previous session to find out whether it was a worthwhile measure. Richard Simpson mentioned that.
Politicians across the parties are coming round to the idea of trying minimum pricing, which would not be a silver bullet, but would be an extra weapon in the armoury against regular excessive alcohol consumption. Malcolm Chisholm’s support was thoughtful, and Liam McArthur was sensible and thoughtful in speaking about his support. Patrick Harvie was quite right to say that it is not about excessive alcohol consumption alone; rather, it is about how we encourage responsible drinking. Drink will not disappear from our society, so we have to think about how to encourage responsible drinking.
Every year in Scotland, there are 1,500 alcohol-related preventable deaths. It has been said that liver cirrhosis rates in Europe have steadily declined since the 1980s, but they have soared in Scotland. Indeed, since 1995-96, alcohol-related hospitalisations have increased. I used to work in admissions in Glasgow’s Western infirmary accident and emergency department, and I witnessed the regular carnage of drink-related damage. I witnessed bodies staggering or being carried into the waiting areas and innocent bystanders attending who had suffered violence at the hands, feet and knives of drunks.
Since the 1980s, alcohol has become more affordable, and there has been a noticeable and recorded shift from pub drinking to even cheaper private drinking at home. The domestic abuse figures shamefully mirror that. Supermarkets have moved into the mass alcohol sales market and made it their own. The supermarket chains have often used alcohol as a loss-leader, and they have driven many of the specialist off-sales and licensed grocers out of business through selling crates of booze so cheap that even bottled water fails to compete with them. That is an outrage that is an even worse face of capitalism than Tiny Rowland’s.
Why should we not use the powers of this Parliament to try to address this scurrilous state of affairs? Many studies on the issue, from Sheffield to Canada, have referred to a formula that demonstrates that an increase in price equates to a decrease in alcohol consumption.
Whether it is by education, taxation or pricing policy, we should get together and ensure that Scotland has a better future with an alcohol culture that is not the shame of Europe.
17:35
Like others, I congratulate James Dornan on securing the debate.
Before I get into the detail of what I have to say, I would like to pick up on what Bill Kidd just said about using the powers of this Parliament to tackle Scotland’s alcohol problems. That is exactly why Labour has been saying that the Government has to use the social responsibility levy that is in the 2010 act. However, yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon said in response to a parliamentary question that was lodged by Jackie Baillie that the Government has “no plans” to use the levy. Perhaps Bill Kidd would like to comment on whether he would like the existing law to be put into practice.
I would like us to use every possible opportunity to change the drinking habits of Scotland. I would welcome the Labour Party lodging amendments to the next alcohol bill, so that Parliament can judge its suggestions.
The member still misses my point. The power is in the 2010 act. The Government has the power; it is choosing not to use it. Mr Kidd should reflect on that.
No one here questions the fundamental fact that Scotland has an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. However, the fact is that the price of alcohol is the same in Scotland as it is in England, but consumption of alcohol is 25 per cent higher in Scotland. If price is such a major factor, why is that the case?
A few years ago, when I was a researcher in this building, I attended a briefing by the BMA on minimum unit pricing. I was very open-minded—indeed, I was instinctively for minimum unit pricing. However, the briefing changed my mind, as the evidence simply did not support the policy, and a level of 40p or 45p would not make much of a difference. I accept that such a level would change the nature of what people drink. It would change what people put in their mouths, but not necessarily how much alcohol they drank—or the desired effect, which is to get absolutely plastered.
On that basis, I utterly reject the concept that Labour’s position on minimum unit pricing is politically motivated. It simply is not. It is disingenuous for Scottish National Party members to assert that.
Will the member give way?
I would prefer to move on, if that is okay—another day.
I like to think of myself as open-minded. Last night, I went to the briefing that was mentioned earlier, to hear what we were promised would be new information around the minimum pricing model in Canada. However, I do not think that I was at the same meeting as James Dornan and others, because I still remain unconvinced after hearing that evidence. There is no doubt that price is a factor and that harmful drinkers are the most susceptible to price. At last night’s briefing, Professor Tim Stockwell told us about the situation in Canada. He said that people had asked what harmful drinkers who simply could not buy drink would do, and informed us that the answer was that they stopped, and that that decision to stop drinking gets them on to a pathway to recovery. That might be a success story, but to me it seems to be a particularly inhumane approach to helping harmful drinkers get out of their addictions. It is like starving a rabbit out of a hole.
I want to move on to the issue of problematic drinkers. That is the problem in Scotland: the people who hold down jobs, have families and live successful lives but drink far too much. The problem with minimum unit pricing is that the price of wine would not change one little bit. Under the SNP’s proposal, the minimum price for a bottle of wine would be around £4.50, which is still three times cheaper than a trip to the cinema, with popcorn included. That is not going to drive a major cultural change in Scotland’s attitude to alcohol.
I agree with one aspect of the motion, which is that we need a “package of measures” to deal with Scotland’s alcohol problems. That is why I look forward to some of the measures that are being brought in on 1 October as a result of the 2010 act, including the cutting down of major discounting, such as three-for-£10 offers on bottles of wine. That, not minimum unit pricing, is the way in which to change the price of alcohol.
The Labour Party is thoroughly committed to tackling and addressing Scotland’s attitude to drink, but the SNP must accept that minimum unit pricing alone is not going to deliver that change, and it is certainly not going to tackle problematic drinking in the way that we need it to be tackled.
17:40
I thank my colleague James Dornan for securing the debate.
The World Health Organization suggests that Scotland has the eighth-highest alcohol consumption in the world. We are behind Ireland, the Czech Republic and Germany in litres of pure alcohol consumed per head, but we drink more than Spain, France and Italy.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics indicate that alcohol is nearly 70 per cent more affordable now than it was in 1980 and that, in the period since then, alcohol consumption in the United Kingdom as a whole has risen by 21 per cent, and has doubled since 1960. One reason for the increase could be—as the Campaign for Real Ale’s national chairman, Colin Valentine, stated during last session’s discussions on minimum pricing—that supermarkets are
“peddling cheap booze at insanely low prices.”
A study called, “Drinking: adults’ behaviour and knowledge” examined how often people bought alcohol from various outlets in the years 1998 to 2009. It found that the percentage who were drinking in licensed bars at least once a week had fallen from 26 per cent in 1998 to 21 per cent in 2009. Over the same period, the percentage who were purchasing from supermarkets at least once a week had increased from 15 to 20 per cent. So, why the change?
Not that long ago, we had supermarkets offering multibuy deals on three cases of beer or cider for £18, which worked out at 40p for a can of cider. At the same time, that well-known loss leader, milk—bemoaned by farmers—was selling for 50p a pint. The change might be due to supermarkets offloading stock prior to the Alcohol etc (Scotland) Act 2010 coming into force on 1 October, which will make it illegal for shops to run multibuy offers that give customers discounts for buying in bulk, but will not remove the problem of discounted alcohol.
It was reported recently in the press that the chief executive of wine merchant Majestic has written to customers to say that the company has been forced to end multibuy price discounts, but it will now charge lower than the multibuy price for a single bottle. It can do that only because this Parliament did not introduce a minimum price for alcohol last session.
The Scottish Government wants to tackle the problem of supermarkets that sell alcohol purely as a loss leader in the hope that customers will purchase other goods when they are in the store. I welcome the reintroduction of a bill that will introduce a minimum price for alcohol to tackle excessive alcohol consumption, which costs Scottish taxpayers more than £3.5 billion per year through increased crime, healthcare costs and alcohol-related deaths.
I also welcome the fact that the Scottish Government will introduce a levy on supermarkets with a rateable value higher than £300,000, which is expected to help raise between £30 million and £40 million per annum to help deal with the problems of alcoholism.
Supermarkets can easily afford that levy, given that the top four reported combined pre-tax profits across the UK of £5.2 billion in 2009. Even in this recession, last year’s profits have not dipped: so far, three of the four large supermarkets have reported combined increasing pre-tax profits of in excess of £500 million in 2010.
I agree with Colin Valentine of CAMRA, who stated earlier this year:
“We need to level the playing field between pub prices and supermarket prices, in order to encourage people to drink alcohol in the sociable and regulated environment of the pub, rather than at home.”
We need to do what Parliament failed to do last session, and put in place a mechanism that stops retailers selling alcohol as a loss leader so that we can rebalance our relationship with alcohol.
17:44
I congratulate James Dornan on securing the debate on a very important issue. The BMA survey underlines Scotland’s level of alcohol misuse, which is a significant problem and one that is significantly worse than it is in the rest of the UK.
The figures are stark. At least 50 per cent of men and almost 40 per cent of women are regularly exceeding the sensible drinking guidelines. Scotland sees, on average, more than 100 hospital admissions every day due to alcohol misuse. The total cost is estimated at some £3.56 billion each year. That is equivalent to £900 for every single adult in Scotland.
Patrick Harvie is correct that we need to change Scotland’s relationship with alcohol to a much more positive one, so we must be prepared to implement the measures that will allow us to do that. The Government wants a fundamental change in Scotland’s relationship with alcohol, so we have adopted a range of measures to assist in bringing that about.
I acknowledge that point and welcome many of the measures. My question might go a wee bit beyond our existing powers, but does the Government agree in general that we need to relocalise the industry? Does it agree that ownership and control of the industry should be wrested from the multinationals and massive multiples and brought back into local communities?
From our point of view, it is important to deal with what we can at the moment through good evidence and do what we know can make a difference. That is why we have taken measures not only in legislation but under the alcohol framework. The framework has more than 40 different parts, which are about trying to change Scotland’s relationship with, and behaviour in relation to, alcohol. We have provided record funding for that: since 2008, £155 million has been put into it.
We have a responsibility to take effective measures to address the problems that alcohol causes our society. I will touch on some of those that we have taken that are having an impact. We have made significant investment in alcohol brief interventions, which are about changing people’s behaviour and improving individuals’ health at grass-roots level. They are a great example of a preventative approach that works effectively and has a robust evidence base. We have been able to deliver 150,000 of those brief interventions through the national health service since 2008. We are ahead of schedule on that programme, and we want to take it from being a new initiative to embed it in normal day-to-day practice, so that clinicians and other practitioners do not have to think about adding it on. We will continue to drive that forward.
A couple of members referred to the Alcohol (Scotland) Act 2010, which comes into force on 1 October. It will restrict promotions and off-sales, banning quantity discounts such as the three-for-two deals and offers such as taking 25 per cent off for those who buy six bottles.
I served as a member of the Health and Sport Committee in the previous session of the Parliament and was bitterly disappointed at the approach that was taken on minimum pricing when it was considered then. All the international research is clear that three key factors drive alcohol consumption. The first is availability. That is addressed partly through our licensing legislation. Improvements can be made on that, particularly on public health, and I am keen for us to make progress.
The second is advertising. Some progress has been made on that, and we continue to work with the industry to address the issues. The other factor that needs to be addressed is affordability. I have said time and again that until we are prepared to deal with affordability, all the other measures that are designed to change our relationship with alcohol are like trying to push water up a hill. Affordability is a key component in trying to change that relationship.
I will tell members what is really disappointing. Some may think that politics was not played out in the committee’s and Parliament’s consideration of minimum pricing in the previous session, but some parties issued press statements opposing minimum pricing even before the Health and Sport Committee had considered a shred of evidence. That does not strike me as considering the evidence objectively and coming to an informed position. Sadly, it is exactly what happened.
I take the minister back to his point about the role that advertising can play. The BMA briefing says:
“Mass media campaigns and public service messages aimed at countering the extensive promotion of alcoholic beverages have only been found to raise awareness and not encourage individuals to reduce their alcohol consumption or alter their drinking behaviour.”
That is quite a depressing message. Have he and his officials had a chance to consider their response to that?
Education is an element of that, but there is good research, which I think was carried out by the World Health Organization, that demonstrates that in order to fundamentally change the relationship that a country has with alcohol, education is just one small element and it is not an effective way in which to drive the necessary culture change. Education is important, but it will not deliver the degree of change that we need, given the nature of the problem in our society. However, education will continue to play a part.
I hope that all members recognise that the issue of affordability must be addressed, although there might be arguments about how we should go about the process. Labour’s alcohol commission did not want to consider minimum pricing and those who gave evidence to it were clearly told that, but when the Health and Sport Committee considered the mechanism that the commission came up with, that mechanism simply did not stand up.
Others have proposed that we tackle affordability through duty. Again, the experience on that proposal shows that it does not stand up. The first act of the Westminster Government was to reverse the increase in duty on cider, which is one of the cheapest drinks. To me, that does not demonstrate a commitment to implementing the measure effectively.
There might be different views about how we should tackle the issue, but I recognise that there seems to be a growing consensus that we need to do so. I did not expect minimum pricing to become such a big issue in the current leadership debates. Jackson Carlaw has now bought into the idea, and the person who it seems will be elected as Labour’s new leader in Scotland supports minimum pricing. His biggest criticism is that the Government does not want to set the minimum price high enough. It will be interesting to see how the Labour Party reacts on that issue.
The Government is determined to ensure that we change Scotland’s relationship with alcohol. It is a significant problem that affects all aspects of our society and one that we can ill afford to ignore. We are prepared to take the bold measures that are necessary to change that relationship. I hope that the Parliament, when it considers the minimum pricing bill, will be prepared to join us in supporting that bold measure.
Meeting closed at 17:51.