UK follows Scotland’s lead in push for minimum pricing of alcohol

An influential cross party group of Westminster MPs has recommended that the UK Government should follow the Scottish Government’s lead in proposing a minimum unit price for alcohol.

As Argyll’s MSP, Jim Mather, points out, Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon’s proposals have won support on this matter from:

• all four UK Chief Medical Officers
• the British Medical Association
• the Royal Colleges of Nursing
• Physicians
• Surgeons
• GPs
• the Faculty of Public Health
• the British Liver Trust
• the Scottish Licensed Trade Association
• the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland
• and from two former Labour Scottish Health Ministers, one being the admirable Malcolm Chisholm.

Mr Mather reminds us that: ‘When the proposals to introduce a minimum unit price for alcohol were introduced by the Scottish Government at Holyrood, they attracted vociferous and almost universal opposition from the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties.

‘Even those who recognise the extent of the massive social problems faced in Scotland from the availability and the misuse of cheap booze – and have no constructive alternative action to counter the destructive trends of this within our society, queued up to oppose the principle of action through minimum pricing’.

Noting this, Mr Mather goes on to contrast this with the all-party concern on the issue at Westminster and nails the heart of the matter: ‘It is encouraging that the UK Health Select Committee has adopted a much more constructive view to this blight than their colleagues in Scotland. Their report effectively demolishes the clichés and myths perpetrated by the opposition here.

‘They find that minimum pricing – which is but one part, albeit a vital one, of the Scottish Government’s campaign against alcohol misuse – will tackle some of the worst aspects of problem drinking without penalising the majority of responsible drinkers.

‘The suspicion persists that opposition here is more strongly influenced by “oppositionism” than by the application of any principle’.

With many existing precedents – such as the pantomime of the initial rejection of the Scottish Government budget in 2008 -it is clear that here is an instinctive but unintelligent oppositionism in play, which persistently fails to put country before party.

With the cost of Scotland’s problems over alcohol misuse now calculated at £900 per head of population per annum, Mr Mather  hopes that MSPs from all parties will now reconsider their attitude to this legislation. They have before them the lead so clearly given in Scotland  by the current government – which has led nationally on the strategy and the example now set them by their colleagues at Westminster.

It is also worth noting that, in dragging its own heels in the introduction of minimum pricing if alcohol, the UK Government has been accused of being too close to the drinks industry.

For Argyll has been almost a sole voice in pointing to the pernicious lobbying power of the wealth of Diageo, the biggest drinks conglomerate in the world.

In orchestrating opposition to the minimum pricing strategy in Scotland, Diageo – aka the Scotch Whisky Association (its CEO, Paul Walsh, is Chair of SWA) – has been instrumental in disguising its real concern.

The cry has centred on an entirely fictional negative impact of the proposed legislation on the Scotch whisky industry – whose quality products are already beyond the limit of minimum pricing, so will not be affected by it.

The real concern of the drinks giant is the impact such legislation would have on sales of its cheap vodka and alcopops, source of huge revenues and the wipe-outs of choice of much of the binge drinking population.