Chamber and committees

I would like to congratulate the trade, licensing boards and the police for the work they have undertaken to implement the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005. Based on information from 28 licensing boards as at 26 October 2009, 27,357 personal licences have been granted, and that number will have increased over the last two weeks. We do not have information on how many applications are presently outstanding however I wrote to all licensing boards on 29 October 2009 expressing the need for urgent action to deal with such applications.

The Scottish police forces, in common with all other police forces across the UK, contribute data to the National Public Order Intelligence Unit. The decision on what data is contributed is a matter for the individual police forces.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-28372, on 9 November 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

The relevant Directive which was considered in the opinion (not a ruling) of the Advocate-General to the European Court of Justice in respect of tobacco pricing is specifically about the excise duty on tobacco and the opinion was based on the precise wording of that Directive. It is therefore entirely inappropriate and irrelevant to translate the comments in this opinion about that specific Directive to the imposition of a minimum price for alcohol for public health reasons. The comments in the opinion on taxation of tobacco products being a better way of protecting health than minimum pricing of tobacco only relate to tobacco products. They do not mean that taxation would necessarily achieve our objective of protecting public health by reducing excessive alcohol consumption.

The European Commission has already confirmed in a written statement to Catherine Stihler MEP that EU legislation does not prohibit member states from setting minimum retail prices for alcoholic drinks on public health grounds. We consider that the proposal for minimum pricing is capable of complying with European law if it is a proportionate measure aimed at the protection of human health and there is not a less intrusive way of achieving the same objective. We have always maintained that we do not underestimate the challenge of introducing minimum pricing, and that position and our determination to rise to that challenge, has not changed.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-28372, on 9 November 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-28372 on 9 November 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Minimum pricing is one of the most effective ways of reducing alcohol misuse and harm. The Sheffield modelling shows that health, crime and employment harms will all benefit from this policy.

The estimated reduction in crime includes violent crime, criminal damage and acquisitive crimes. For illustrative purposes, a 40p minimum price combined with a discount ban is estimated to result in 3,200 fewer criminal offences per annum, of which around 850 are estimated to be violent crimes. The associated total financial value of harm reduction is £4.7 million.

The Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 sets out a range of irresponsible drinks promotions which mean certain promotions of alcohol are already banned in licensed premises. Some of these apply to both on-sales premises and off-sales premises, whereas some apply to on-sales premises only. Given there has been a move away from drinking in on-sales premises to purchasing alcohol from off-sales premises, the proposed Alcohol Bill will seek to bring off-sales into line with on-sales as far as the promotion of alcohol is concerned. The 2005 act enables ministers to add further descriptions of promotions to the mandatory conditions in the act.

We are working with the Violence Reduction Unit to develop innovative approaches to tackling violence. Through our Safer Streets programme we are investing £400,000 in initiatives to address alcohol-fuelled violence in city and town centres over the winter months. Through CashBack for Communities we will invest at least £13 million through to 2011 to help keep young people away from alcohol and out of trouble by providing youth diversionary activities. In line with commitments in Changing Scotland''s relationship with Alcohol a Framework for Action we are currently reviewing the identification and treatment of offenders with alcohol problems in criminal justice settings to address the issue of reoffending.

There is no evidence or modelling to suggest that banning the selling of alcohol at below the cost of excise duty and VAT would achieve our objective of protecting and improving public health.

Since taxes are not fixed by reference to their anticipated effects on health and because excise duties are not imposed uniformly, this approach may have a disproportionate effect on some products. We believe that if the minimum price of alcohol is set at a minimum of the excise duty and VAT, this price would be so low as to have little or no effect on public health. We therefore do not consider this approach would be effective or robust, nor do we consider we would be able to justify restricting the market in this way.