Booze blues

I rarely get on my high horse about an issue.

Even as a student in the 80s, I’d sit with my mates in the pub as they got passionate about the miners’ strike or yuppies or something, while I’d be more concerned about whether my Snakebite was better with or without the Black. (For anyone lucky enough to be unaware of what a Snakebite & Black is, pour half a pint of cider in a glass, then half a pint of lager, and add a bit of blackcurrant cordial. Enjoy).

But lately I have been getting bothered about an issue - that of minimum alcohol pricing and how it might be fundamentally misguided.

I first felt this way last summer, after writing an article about the decline in off-trade volume sales of 59 of Britain’s top 100 booze brands. Given such widespread decline, I mused, why on earth would we need a blanket approach to the issue of alcohol abuse when we are buying less drink anyway?

And it’s a concern that has returned to me on two occasions in the past few days.

The first was while reading coverage of calls by a coalition of health groups and campaigners for a 50p minimum unit price, among other things. What struck me was not so much their demands, but the illustration the BBC had run with its article: a line graph that showed a general increase in alcohol consumption since the 70s, until the middle of the last decade when it plunged downwards. There in black and white, I thought, was a very strong reason to think again about minimum pricing.

And this was hammered home today (with all the subtlety of a Snakebite & Black) by new research from the British Beer & Pub Association based on HMRC alcohol tax returns. Echoing the BBC’s graph, the BBPA reports a 16% fall in alcohol consumption per head since 2004, with a drop of 3.3% between 2011 and 2012 alone.

This was the same decrease that minimum pricing was predicted to achieve in its first year - a fact the Wine & Spirit Trade Association was delighted to point out while calling on the government to scrap minimum pricing plans.

And, for my part, I agree with the WSTA.

I’m not for a moment suggesting this should be the end of the argument - alcohol misuse is an incredibly complex issue that must be addressed and I’m sure many supporters of minimum pricing can put forward a strong case.

But, speaking purely for myself, it is because of this complexity that I don’t believe minimum pricing - which will impact almost every supplier, retailer and consumer in the country at a time when we are already buying and drinking less - can possibly be the right approach.