The minimum unit price (MUP) for alcohol in Wales has increased from 50p to 65p per unit, helping to maintain the policy’s effectiveness in the face of inflation since its introduction in March 2020.
Wales now matches Scotland’s 65p minimum unit price, which was introduced in 2024.
Nerys Evans, Deputy Minister for Public and Preventative Health at the Welsh Government, said:
Evidence shows that the introduction of the minimum unit price for alcohol has made an important contribution in tackling the health risks associated with excessive alcohol consumption.
But we also know that that the 50p minimum price has been made less effective by inflation, so raising it to 65p is not about punishing people who drink responsibly, it’s about closing that gap and making sure the MUP keeps doing its job by keeping high strength low-cost alcohol off the shelves.
The Welsh Government noted that inflation had reduced the real-terms value of the original 50p threshold to around 39p in 2020 prices. Independent evaluation suggested that the uprating to 65p could prevent more than 900 alcohol-related deaths in Wales over the next 20 years.