Counting the cost: Alison Mather on alcohol pricing

‘The report’s findings are more complex than these headlines suggest’

Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) for alcohol is designed to target the cost of high-strength, cheap products such as white cider. These are the choice of the most vulnerable drinkers, so MUP is a preventative measure.

In 2018, Scotland became the first country to introduce MUP (at fifty pence), followed by Wales in 2020 and Ireland earlier this year. Jersey, Australia’s Northern Territory, some Canadian provinces, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and the Russian Federation have also introduced it.

Public Health Scotland has just published its latest evaluation of the impact of MUP on the country’s heaviest and most dependent drinkers. The evaluation appears to contradict previous data, which had showed significant falls in consumption and harm, leading to media headlines claiming that MUP is a failure, and that some people cut back on food and utilities because drink had become more expensive. Yet the report’s findings are more complex than these headlines suggest. The study’s leader, John Holmes (from Sheffield Alcohol Research Group), stressed that dependent drinkers responded in different ways: reducing spending on other things, switching to lower-strength drinks, or simply buying less alcohol. There was a 3.5 per cent reduction in purchases by heavy but non-dependent drinkers, with no clear rise either in crime, a shift to other drugs, or increase in acute withdrawals (which can prove fatal). Opponents of MUP had anticipated all of these. Increased drinking during lockdown is also likely to have impacted results.

Alcohol misuse is the biggest risk factor for death, ill-health and disability among fifteen- to forty-nine year-olds in the UK, and the fifth biggest risk factor across all ages. The coalition government’s alcohol strategy for England and Wales (2012) pledged to ‘take firm and fast action… [and] we will introduce a minimum unit price for alcohol’. The current government appears reluctant to fulfill this commitment, although the chancellor did announce alcohol duty reforms in his autumn 2021 budget. Ian Gilmore (of Alcohol Health Alliance) cautioned: ‘Revenue generated from alcohol tax doesn’t even begin to cover the costs to society of alcohol harm.’
Laura Mahon (Alcohol Focus Scotland) called for investment in treatment services, saying: ‘MUP appears to be having positive benefits. We’ve seen a sustained decrease in how much we are drinking overall… there have been encouraging reductions in hospital admissions… and an initial 10% fewer alcohol-related deaths.’

Campaigners have called for MUP to be increased to sixty-five pence due to inflation. MSPs will scrutinise all evidence about its effectiveness before voting on its future next year. We hope Friends will have their say.

Alison is from Quaker Action on Alcohol and Drugs.

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