Government “too close to drinks industry”

MPs’ report calls for radical overhaul of alcohol policy – but Government rejects main recommendations

The drinks industry and supermarkets hold more power over government alcohol policies than do expert health professionals, according to the All Party House of Commons Health Select Committee.

In an eagerly awaited report published in January 2010 after a year’s investigation, the Committee concluded that the drinks industry is dependent on hazardous and harmful drinkers for three quarters of its sales and that if people drank ‘responsibly’, alcohol sales would plummet by 40%.

The Committee went on to make a series of recommendations including the introduction of minimum pricing, a rise in the duty on spirits and industrial white cider, tighter and totally independent regulation of alcohol promotion, vastly improved alcohol treatment services, better early detection and intervention, a mandatory labeling scheme for alcoholic drinks, and much better use of expert advice.

The report flatly rejected as a myth the suggestion that minimum pricing would unfairly affect moderate drinkers. It stated that at 40p per unit it would cost a moderate drinker (6 units per week) only 11p per week more than at present, and a woman drinking the maximum 15 units per week could buy her weekly total of alcohol for six pounds.

However, in its response to the Select Committee report, the Department of Health rejected some of its main recommendations, while insisting that other measures called for by the Committee were in fact already in place.

Don Shenker, Director of Alcohol Concern, condemned the Department’s response as complacent. He said:

“Whilst change cannot happen overnight – it certainly won’t happen if the government does nothing. Action on pricing, advertising and irresponsible promotions are the first step to reversing a drinking culture which has brought us to a point where average levels of teenage drinking is the equivalent of twelve and a half shots of vodka a week. The drinks industry will be delighted that Government are not planning any further action to independently monitor or regulate their practice.

“Health professionals, police officers and youth workers up and down the country will be very disappointed that another chance to take further action on reducing alcohol harms has gone missing, leaving them to clean up a mess the government is unwilling to tackle.”

Select Committee Report

Launching the Select Committee report, Kevin Barron MP, the Chairman of the Committee, said:

“I agree with the Chief Medical Officer that introducing unit pricing will reduce binge drinking. As the report points out, it will also help traditional pubs in their battle against cut price supermarket offers.

“The facts about alcohol misuse are shocking. Successive governments have failed to tackle the problem and it is now time for bold government.

“Even small reductions in the number of people misusing alcohol could save the NHS millions. What is required is fundamental cultural change brought about by evidencebased policies; only this way are we likely to reduce the dangerous numbers of young people drinking their lives away.”

The report urged the duty on spirits to be returned in stages to the same percentage of average earnings as in the 1980s (11%) and a lower duty on weak beer.

Early detection and intervention, the Committee concluded, are important in both health and financial terms and the report recommended these could easily be built into existing initiatives, but first of all the current dire state of alcohol treatment services had to be addressed.

Health information, the Committee agreed, was important but did not change actual behaviour, and the government spend of £17.6m on alcohol awareness for 2009/10 was far outweighed by the £600-800m spent by the drinks industry promoting alcohol.

The report also calls for the ‘feeble’ licensing and enforcement regime to be strengthened.

Not surprisingly, spokesmen for the alcohol control and public health organizations expressed strong support for the Select Committee’s recommendations.

For the British Medical Association, Dr Vivienne Nathanson said:

“We are pleased that the Committee agrees that the drinks industry and supermarkets exert too much power over government alcohol policies. This cosy relationship needs to end and we need radical action to tackle alcohol misuse including minimum pricing, higher taxation, reduced availability, improved regulation and better treatment for patients who have alcohol addiction problems.

“At a time when the NHS is facing cuts, it is shocking that every year millions of pounds are spent treating patients for the illness and violence that goes hand in hand with alcohol misuse. A reduction in alcohol misuse would free these valuable resources for other life-prolonging treatments.

“The government needs to wake up and realise that society has an unhealthy relationship with alcohol and that this will not change while politicians refrain from bringing in tough new legislation but prefer to keep the drinks industry happy.

” Equally predictably, spokesmen for the alcohol industry disagreed. Seymour Fortescue, Chairman of the industry’s Portman Group said:

“We agree that alcohol-related harm is increasing, despite the fact that there has been a drop in total consumption over the past five years. This suggests that measures must be targeted at the minority of drinkers who abuse alcohol rather than the responsible drinking majority.

“We acknowledge the views of the medical profession and some politicians that there should be a minimum price for alcohol. However, there are real concerns as to whether this will work. The responsible majority of drinkers will pay more and hard core drinkers may not be deterred. It would also take money from poorer people and transfer it to the supermarkets – a curious piece of social justice.

“A fairer and more effective approach focuses on dependent and binge drinkers. We can influence the irresponsible minority through better education and effective law enforcement.

” Simon Litherland, managing director of Diageo GB, was more combative. He described the Select Committee’s recommendations as “draconian”, and said that they lacked a credible evidence base and were likely to have serious repercussions for the media and advertising industries.

Litherland claimed the MPs’ report represented “yet another attempt by aggressive sections of the health lobby to hijack alcohol policy-making”, adding “It seeks to marginalise the role of industry in helping to tackle the problem of alcohol misuse.

” In its statement, the Advertising Standards Authority commented: “The UK’s advertising regulatory regime for alcohol is one of the strictest in the world. The ASA regularly upholds complaints against major companies, demonstrating that the mandatory Codes are strictly applied.”

The Government’s Response

The Department of Health rejected the call for a further crackdown on alcohol advertising and promotion, saying that the policy of self– and co-regulation and education was working well. It also said that, contrary to the Committee’s recommendations, sponsorship and the majority of new digital media are already covered by the existing codes. However, the Department added that the Government will continue to monitor the effectiveness of the UK’s regulatory regime, especially in relation to new media, and it promised to commission, jointly with other Departments, a review of current evidence on harm to children and young people from alcohol advertising, promotion and sponsorship.

On a minimum price for alcohol, the Department left the decision open until more research on the strategy’s effect on crime and disorder has been collected.

In regard to alcohol licensing, the Department rejected the Committee’s recommendation – one supported by most of the public health and alcohol misuse lobbies – that the Licensing Act governing England and Wales should be amended to include a public health objective, as is included in the equivalent Scottish legislation. While the Department agreed that the Government should monitor the impact of the Scottish legislation, it pointed out that the English and Welsh Licensing Act covers all licensable activities, not just the provision of alcohol, and it was not clear that it was reasonable to impose an overriding objective on late night takeaways, restaurants, live music events, cinemas and such like to promote the health of their patrons, nor clear how they would be able to give effect to such an objective.