UK to introduce Minimum Unit Pricing of alcohol

UK Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that a central plank of his government’s new alcohol harm reduction strategy will be the introduction of minimum unit pricing of alcohol (MUP). A law will be passed making it illegal to sell any alcoholic beverage below a fixed price per standard unit. This is the principal alcohol policy measure for which the public health community in the UK have been campaigning, and one to which the Scottish government was already committed.

MUP is designed to reduce alcohol consumption and harm by making alcohol less affordable, and, in particular, to tackle the problem of cheap off-sales of alcohol from supermarkets. In the UK, the long-term trend has been for the traditional British pub to lose out against competition from the supermarkets selling cheap alcohol for home consumption. A particular issue to emerge has been the practice of supermarkets attracting customers by using alcohol as a ‘loss leader’, retailing alcohol at below cost price. It is believed that cheap alcohol from the supermarkets is one of the main drivers of increased alcohol consumption and in the growth of modern ‘binge drinking’.

Announcing the move, Mr Cameron said:

“Binge drinking isn’t some fringe issue, it accounts for half of all alcohol consumed in this country. The crime and violence it causes drains resources in our hospitals, generates mayhem on our streets and spreads fear in our communities. My message is simple. We can’t go on like this. We have to tackle the scourge of violence caused by binge drinking. And we have to do it now.

“So we’re going to attack it from every angle …… and that means coming down hard on cheap alcohol. When beer is cheaper than water, it’s just too easy for people to get drunk on cheap alcohol at home before they even set foot in the pub.

So we are going to introduce a new minimum unit price - so for the first time it will be illegal for shops to sell alcohol for less than this set price per unit. We’re consulting on the actual price, but if it is 40 pence that could mean 50,000 fewer crimes each year and 900 fewer alcohol related deaths per year by the end of the decade.”

So far as is known, no other country has introduced a fully fledged system of MUP, so there is no direct experience to judge how successful the policy is likely to be. However, in the debate on the issue in the UK, the experience of Canada with a similar though not identical system was frequently cited. Professor

Tim Stockwell gave evidence to the Scottish Health and Sport Committee on the issue, and the findings of a paper published in the scientific journal ‘Addiction’ are summarised on page 17.