Scottish Government to Raise Alcohol Prices, Minimum Price Per UNIT

[Pyroka]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/sep/02/scotland-alcohol-abuse-price-rise


The dispute over the need for controls on the cost of alcohol intensified today after the Scottish government unveiled formal plans to fix a minimum price for all alcoholic drinks at 45p per unit.

That would double or treble the cost of the cheapest super-strength ciders sold by major supermarkets, and raise the cost of cheap supermarket vodka by nearly £4 a bottle. Some own-brand whiskies would cost £3.40 more.

Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish health secretary, said a minimum price was essential to help tackle the high death toll and health burden from alcohol abuse in Scotland, which drinks 25% more per head of population than the rest of the UK.

Raising the cost to 45p a unit would immediately save about 50 lives a year, cut hospital admissions by 1,200 a year and mean nearly 23,000 fewer days lost from work in the first year. Within a decade, nearly 225 lives a year would be saved.

"For too long, too many Scots have been drinking themselves into an early grave," she said. "It is no coincidence that as the affordability of alcohol has plummeted in recent decades, alcohol-related deaths, disease, crime and disorder have spiralled. It cannot be right that a man can exceed his weekly recommended alcohol limit for less than £3.50."

The proposal will be added to an alcohol bill going through Holyrood this month and was immediately supported by Dr Harry Burns, Scotland's chief medical officer, and the British Medical Association in Scotland and at UK level. It was lambasted by the drinks industry and opposition politicians at Holyrood.

The Scotch Whisky Association, which represents the producers of Scotland's most valuable single export, said the measure was probably illegal, because it breached competition law, would penalise responsible drinkers and cut whisky sales by nearly 13%.

It would only cut total alcohol consumption by 4.3%, and simply banning supermarkets from selling below cost price would have a similar effect. "The Scottish government's scheme fails to meet the basic tests of EU law and will do little to address alcohol misuse," said Gavin Hewitt, the SWA's chief executive.

Sturgeon has not won cross-party support for minimum pricing in Scotland, but has been heartened by supportive comments from health ministers in successive UK governments, including Andy Burnham and the current UK health secretary, Andrew Lansley.

Last month, David Cameron said the government would look "very sympathetically" at proposals from 12 councils in the Manchester area for minimum pricing, to combat the binge drinking that led many town centres to look like the "wild west" at weekends.

Liam Donaldson, England's chief medical officer, has repeatedly endorsed the proposal and has been pressing for a 50p minimum price. But the Department of Health in London quashed hopes that it would be adopted across England too.

A spokeswoman said ministers were committed to "tough action" on problem drinking. The Home Office was consulting on proposals to ban shops from selling alcohol below cost price, and ministers were reviewing taxation. But more work was needed to understand binge drinkers. "No legislation or initiative will work unless we have a better understanding of what drives people's decisions. It is not clear that national minimum unit pricing is the best way to reduce harm, so we need to look at other options in England."

Jackie Baillie, Labour's shadow health secretary at Holyrood, said the proposal was a "tax on the poor" which would increase revenue for supermarkets by £140m. "The SNP have got this one badly wrong. A minimum price of 45p per unit will make no difference to problem drinks, like Buckfast, but it will punish pensioners and people on low incomes," she said.

Burns, a long-term advocate of price controls on alcohol, said since Scotland had "lead the way" on banning smoking public places, it could now show leadership on pricing.

"Scotland has an unenviable reputation when it comes to alcohol. We are, sadly, world-class when it comes to damaging our health through heavy drinking," he said.

The BMA in London said it too supported the measure across the UK.

"There is strong scientific evidence that increasing price reduces rates of alcohol-related problems, particularly among young people," a BMA spokesman said.

"We have consistently called for a minimum price per unit as part of a raft of measures to tackle alcohol abuse and would urge the other UK governments to follow the example set by Scotland."

I could actually cry right now, I'm moving up in 2 days and well yeah... I hate life. But wait, I think I'm becoming pro-EU: http://www.harpers.co.uk/news/news-headlines/9453-minimum-price-on-alcohol-would-qbreach-eu-rulesq-says-swa.html

[-:Undertaker:-]

Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish health secretary, said a minimum price was essential to help tackle the high death toll and health burden from alcohol abuse in Scotland, which drinks 25% more per head of population than the rest of the UK.Absolute and utter nonsense from yet another scare-mongering politician.

..and here are some more examples of the emotional blackmail we are continuously fed time after time, day in day out;

We are all going to die on the roads if speed cameras aren't put up..
thus funded by higher taxes and benefits only government.

We are all going to die if we don't pay our green taxes..
thus we pay more in regulation and direct taxation to tackle a non-problem.

We are all going to die if we don't invade other countries to stop them firing non-existent WMD at us..
thus government and big business profits well.

We are all going to die if our government doesn't spend billions on vaccines for a near-harmless flu..
thus benefitting large pharmaceutical companies.

We are all going to loose our jobs if we don't secure our sovereign independence back from the European Union..
thus goverment benefits along with big business and shady unelected politicians.

It is the same with all these issues including smaller issues such as this, its "well if you don't accept more regulations, taxes and general control over your lives by nanny-knows-best state - then you are all going to die/suffer the consquences" - and anyone who disagrees or challenges them who says "wait a minute, perhaps there aren't actually the disasterous consquences you [the political elite] threaten" is labelled as crazy, mad and bad. The truth is that this has nothing to do with health or crime and is all about money via taxation and often always an element of more control for government. The same accounts for smoking and a whole range of things, if smoking was as bad as its made out to be (with the over the top nanny-knows-best ban in public places) then it would have been banned by now but why won't they ban it? The answer is money and power.

Whilst on the topic of smoking/alcohol pricing, I believe from what I have read in the past that when the smoking ban was implemented - the bars in parliament (of which drinks are subsidised by the taxpayer there as I have read in the past) were exempt from the ban - more evidence if ever be needed that we serve the politicians, they don't serve us. As for the EU law point - the EU I suspect would approve of something along the lines of this (provided it is also getting a slice of the pie) and will no doubt let this pass in time. The EU does like to keep big business on board (it doesn't give a damn about small business) so the alcohol industry, tobacco industry, airline industry, steel/energy industry and all other industries along them lines are often given rather good treatment when it comes to issues such as this - because if you think they are laying down the laws for our benefit and not the benefits of themselves then you have another thing coming.

It is all about big business and how to make mince meat of the little guy at the bottom.

A good example of EU-big business links can be seen here under the page of José Barroso, unelected head of the unelected EU commission;


In 2005 Die Welt reported that Barroso had spent a week on the yacht of the Greek shipping billionaire Spiro Latsis. It emerged soon afterwards that this had occurred only a month before the Commission approved 10 million euros of Greek state aid for Latsis's shipping company - though the state aid decision had been taken by the previous European Commission before Barroso took up his post.

[Pyroka]

Absolute and utter nonsense from yet another scare-mongering politician.

..and here are some more examples of the emotional blackmail we are continuously fed time after time, day in day out;

We are all going to die on the roads if speed cameras aren't put up..
thus funded by higher taxes and benefits only government.

We are all going to die if we don't pay our green taxes..
thus we pay more in regulation and direct taxation to tackle a non-problem.

We are all going to die if we don't invade other countries to stop them firing non-existent WMD at us..
thus government and big business profits well.

We are all going to die if our government doesn't spend billions on vaccines for a near-harmless flu..
thus benefitting large pharmaceutical companies.

We are all going to loose our jobs if we don't secure our sovereign independence back from the European Union..
thus goverment benefits along with big business and shady unelected politicians.

It is the same with all these issues including smaller issues such as this, its "well if you don't accept more regulations, taxes and general control over your lives by nanny-knows-best state - then you are all going to die/suffer the consquences" - and anyone who disagrees with them is labelled as crazy, mad and bad. The truth is that this has nothing to do with health or crime and is all about money via taxation and often always an element of more control for government. The same accounts for smoking and a whole range of things, if smoking was as bad as its made out to be (with the over the top nanny-knows-best ban in public places) then it would have been banned by now but why won't they ban it? The answer is money and power.

Whilst on the topic of smoking/alcohol pricing, I believe from what I have read in the past that when the smoking ban was implemented - the bars in parliament (of which drinks are subsidised by the taxpayer there as I have read in the past) were exempt from the ban - more evidence if ever be needed that we serve the politicians, they don't serve us. As for the EU law point - the EU I suspect would approve of something along the lines of this (provided it is also getting a slice of the pie) and will no doubt let this pass in time.

My opinions are I like alcohol, I am a student, gimme alcohol and if you don't gimme cheap alcohol I will be poor and ruin your economy.

But yeah, totally agree with ya, just sounds like they want more money from a drinking problem which everyone knows wont phase the Scottish population. If they wanted to sort it out, they could've educated people in schools about the dangers of alcohol but they'd rather cash in on it. I'm sure the rest of the UK government will be on this before long, I mean smoking ban was good because everyone benefited, but who benefits from this? As you said, the governments & big corporations do.

[Alkaz]

They say it's to stop the deaths of at least 50 people a year. I like to have a drink now and again (yeh I know I don't live in Scotland but yeh) I highly doubt I am going to be one of those 50 people who will drop dead because I drink alcohol. The people who die from alcohol abuse are not going to be deterred by a price increase in alcohol ... all it will mean is they will probably get better quality alcohol for the same price of their old and probably cheaper alcohol. The only real people who it is going to effect is your average me. I agree with what you said Dan, just money making schemes scheming us.


Yup I completely Agree. But I think it will get a lot of back stand off the public and I don't see the point in it if I'm honest.

[Jordy]

Haha I can't say I feel sorry for you Ryan or the Scots, you get better health-care in Scotland plus you get University free or much cheaper. So the amount of money you're saving going to Uni in Edinburgh, you can spend on increased alcohol prices ;)

Hey I can go off on tangents about devolution too :P

[Apple]

Well this is just silly, do they think it will actually stop binge drinkers and alcoholics from drinking? Of course it will not!

[alexxxxx]

im sure the supermarkets will challenge this at an EU court. This is deliberate price-fixing.

the reason i don't buy your big business claim is because when you are out and about, these minimum prices are already surpassed in most places. what it will do is drive people from the supermarkets and into pubs etc. most people when given the chance prefer to drink out because it's more sociable. supermarkets sell alcohol at a loss in order to get people in to buy other, more profitable items. i don't agree that price fixing is a suitable method to combat 'binge' drinking but might combat 'problem' drinking.

[cocaine]

why dont they just educate people about the health implications instead of taxing us to generate yet more income to the government which gets spent on 5 bedroomed houses and roomy cars for all the ******* immigrants that do jack **** for our country.

[alexxxxx]

why dont they just educate people about the health implications instead of taxing us to generate yet more income to the government which gets spent on 5 bedroomed houses and roomy cars for all the ******* immigrants that do jack **** for our country.

they are not increasing tax on it - they are setting a minimum price. no extra money will go to the government.

[Special]

as long as my 1.5ltr lambrini doesn't go sky high in england i'll be happy!

[Pyroka]

why dont they just educate people about the health implications instead of taxing us to generate yet more income to the government which gets spent on 5 bedroomed houses and roomy cars for all the ******* immigrants that do jack **** for our country.

That would be the smart thing to do, I mean they have sex education so why not alcohol education? The two are closely related and the ages of both audiences are pretty similar too. Alex, I have a real feeling that the government will be getting some money in one form or another, whether that be through us or indirectly through the supermarkets, they will.

[alexxxxx]

That would be the smart thing to do, I mean they have sex education so why not alcohol education? The two are closely related and the ages of both audiences are pretty similar too. Alex, I have a real feeling that the government will be getting some money in one form or another, whether that be through us or indirectly through the supermarkets, they will.

this 'feeling' is false. it's just a minimum price. and i remember at school having drug/alcohol lessons, what it does to you, how much is safe to drink etc.

[GommeInc]

Something tells me those numbers are made up from people who just so happened to of had a drink within a year of dying. Health services across the globe are notorious for adding "causes of death" which probably weren't at all involved, but have a slight possibility. Never say a relative used to drink "socially" or "occasionally", it'll stop the numbers from increasing.


they are not increasing tax on it - they are setting a minimum price. no extra money will go to the government.
So where is the extra money going? It cannot be going to the distributors or the production companies. Government increases like this do not go towards the company(s) involvef, it's against so many regulations as it's effectively saying the alcohol companies are government run :P

[Pyroka]

this 'feeling' is false. it's just a minimum price. and i remember at school having drug/alcohol lessons, what it does to you, how much is safe to drink etc.

I had a brief drugs lesson, but never an alcohol one. If I did, it was one 1-hour lesson & that was that. I mean fair dos to the government, the Scottish are renowned for their drinking but to think they'll knock drinking on the head with this? It's total crap innit. Bah bloody governments with their bloody scaremongering.

[Pyroka]

It's funny how a day after, if not the same day the news was announced on the alcohol prices raising, this article is posted by Sky News:

http://goo.gl/7tvi


People in the UK are drinking less for the first time in 60 years, according to new figures.

Last year saw the sharpest drop in alcohol consumption since 1948, the British Beer and Pub Association said
Its survey comes from figures from HM Revenue and Customs data on alcohol sold by producers and importers into the UK.

The BBPA, representing the brewing and pub sector, said the data showed a 6% fall in the amount of alcohol drunk in 2009, the fourth annual drop in five years.

It means UK drinkers are now consuming 13% less alcohol than in 2004, with UK drinking remaining below the EU average.
The pub goer's favourite drink is still beer which makes up 60% of all alcohol sales in pubs, hotels and restaurants with wine coming in second at 14% of sales.

The survey is surprising because it comes after recent figures from the Office For National Statistics that found 39% of men and 31% of women regularly drink more than experts say are good for them.

BBPA chief executive Brigid Simmonds said: "These figures will confound many pundits as, yet again, they confirm that as a nation we are not drinking more.
"Those who suggest otherwise need to focus on the hard facts."

Liver specialist Professor Roger Williams says that, while the news is welcome, nearly 40% of men and more than 30% of women are still drinking above the safe limit.

"The number of admissions to hospitals and the number of deaths from liver disease - connected with alcohol abuse - are going up about 8% to 10% a year so really it's a drop in the ocean," he told Sky News.

UK taxes on beer are among the highest in the world and have the second highest duty rate in EU - 10 times higher than in Germany and seven times higher than in France, the BBPA said.

(Sorry for the double post, but the time on editing ran out as I wanted to post this)

[dbgtz]

so more tax money has nothing to do with the situation?
*****, wont be long until they will raise chocolate bars in order to "prevent 20 deaths a year", to like £5.

owell sux2bin scotland.

[Pyroka]

so more tax money has nothing to do with the situation?
*****, wont be long until they will raise chocolate bars in order to "prevent 20 deaths a year", to like £5.

owell sux2bin scotland.

I bet they will tax confectionery before long, just to make so the children of today aren't gorging themselves with sweets. Then they'll put more tax on energy drinks... Oh that'll be one step too far, you make me pay more for Monster I'll rip ya freakin eyebrows off.