Putting a price on drinking

When I was at University in Edinburgh, no-one could compete with the student union for cheap drink. Now supermarkets sell booze at below the cost the breweries sell it to them, and no-one can compete with that.

Let me start with a myth – the myth that young Brits are drinking more than people in their 20s, 30s and 40s, and that more young teenagers are drinking then ever before. They are not. The proportion of young people under 16 who are drinking is at a 16-year low. And crime figures indicate that alcohol consumption and binge drinking have both dipped recently.

Edinburgh used to enforce a 10pm closing time for all pubs so a common sight was drunks pouring out into the street at 10:15pm. Extending closing times helped to reduce the problems associated with people falling out of the pubs at the same time. But alcohol sales in public houses have been falling. In the 1970s and 1980s people often kept drinks in the house for special occasions; it is now far more common for people to drink at home than in a pub or wine bar. Increasing numbers are tanking up on cheap booze at home before they go out on the town, driving beer sales in pubs down to their lowest level since the great depression of the 1930s. Ten per cent of brewery jobs have gone in the past two years.

With Edinburgh’s great university medical centre, we’re in an excellent position to look closely at the effects of alcohol on our health. One of the best measures of alcoholic abuse is liver disease. 30 years ago the UK was near the bottom of the international league of liver disease. But the incidence in the UK has been steadily rising, while abroad it has been falling. France has the worst record, and we’re in danger of overtaking her. Cases of cirrhosis of the liver have doubled in the past seven years – up by more than a third in the past two years.

The impact on our National Health Service is drastic, as more and more resources are sucked into treating bodies damaged by alcohol. A local doctor told me last month that she has seen an explosion in the number of women in their 20s showing liver problems and other diseases caused by over-drinking. As well as long-term liver damage, health effects include burst bladders, strokes, mental health problems, injury as a result of alcohol-fuelled violence and liver cancers which cause 5,000 deaths a year. Serious damage can be inflicted on the foetus of pregnant women who drink. And being very high in calories, alcohol is also fuelling obesity problems.

Meanwhile, brewers complain that supermarkets are selling cases of beer below cost price – and lower than the cost of bottled water. France has a law to stop this and, crucially, we need similar measures here. The Government is conducting an independent review of the evidence of the relationship between harm and the pricing and promotion of alcohol. Parliament will consider this report later in the year.

How much is it safe to drink? There’s a lot of confusion about the "unit" system. One unit is half a pint of 3.5 per cent beer or cider or a small glass of nine per cent wine. But a lot of beer and cider is five or six per cent, and wine is 11-12 per cent and sold in large glasses, so the danger is that you fool yourself into thinking a couple of glasses is two units, when in fact it is three units. Moreover, super-market super-strength lagers are on sale for £1 and contain 4.5 units in a single can – already above the Government’s recommended daily limit.

A minority of irresponsible shopkeepers are selling drink to under-age children. Of the 2,683 premises targeted by trading standards officers with 16-year-old test-buyer, 40 per cent sold to at least one underage person. And it is not just corner shops: some Tesco stores were banned from selling alcohol for three months following the sale of alcohol to 16-year-old test purchasers.The Advertising Standards Authority is charged with preventing the booze companies from peddling alcohol to young people. It tries to stop drinks adverts being cool or promoting irresponsible or antisocial behaviour. They impose a watershed for alcohol advertising on TV. But I fear more drastic action will have to be taken – action which hits the problem drinkers hard, but leaves the majority of responsible drinks free to enjoy their tipple.