Ever since the PM railroaded a policy commitment to introduce a minimum unit price for alcohol through Cabinet last March, we as an alcohol trade have been preoccupied with the debate about alcohol responsibility and the role of price. It has certainly dominated the debate about the Alcohol Strategy - which is currently out for consultation and closing next week.

The major success of the minimum unit price lobby has been to shift the terms of the debate, so that even though the evidence to support their argument is mixed, the idea that cheap alcohol is driving alcohol-related harm is the predominant assumption. But I fear another one is taking hold - that alcohol is too available, that there are too many off-licences and that this is another driver of alcohol-related harm.

The evidence does not support this. We are led to believe, for example, that the advent of the 2003 Licensing Act opened the floodgates for a dramatic increase in the number of off-licences. It didn’t. Home Office figures show that the number of off-licences has increased, but only in line with the population. In fact, there were fewer off-licences per head of population in 2010 than 1992.

The proposed solution to this non-problem is to encourage councils to prevent new stores from getting alcohol licences. The argument runs that in a community where there is evidence of increased alcohol-related health harms, there should be no new alcohol licences granted.

Yet of the 19 studies looked at in the review the Home Office references, only five could be interpreted as suggesting that the number of premises correlates with alcohol consumption and none prove the link is causal. The fact is 10 small off-licences will sell less alcohol than one supermarket and it is illogical to assume that limiting their numbers will cut the volume of alcohol consumed in the community.

We must not allow our preoccupation with the price debate make us lose sight of a more fundamental threat. The ‘access’ debate, left unchallenged, perpetuates an assumption that the mere existence of an off-licence is the cause of harm. It is vital that we speak out.

James Lowman is CEO of the ACS

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