Search: Alcohol Misuse MPs Report
Minimum pricing for alcoholic drinks, mandatory health warnings on labels and a rise in tax on spirits should be introduced to stem a "shocking" rise in alcohol misuse in England, an MPs' report has claimed.
The report from the House of Commons Health Committee accused the Government of a "failure of will and competence" over alcohol policy and said ministers are too close to drinks companies and supermarkets.
The alcohol industry - which depends for three-quarters of its sales on people drinking at levels deemed hazardous or harmful, and could lose 40% of its market if they drank responsibly - holds more power over Government policy than expert health professionals, said the cross-party committee.
A rise in the price of drinks through minimum pricing per unit of alcohol would be the most effective way of bringing down consumption and reducing the annual toll of 30,000 to 40,000 deaths, said the report. A minimum price of 50p a unit could save an estimated 3,000 lives each year, and a 40p minimum could save 1,100.
The report rejected as "a myth" the claim that minimum pricing would hit moderate drinkers. At 40p a unit, someone drinking six units a week would pay 11p a week more than at present while women consuming the recommended maximum of 15 units would pay a total of £6.
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About 31% of men and 21% of women are now thought to be drinking "hazardously", consuming more than 21 units a week for men and 14 for women, and 9% of men and 6% of women "harmfully", drinking more than 50 units for men and 35 for women.
The report called for year-on-year increases in alcohol duties, with particularly sharp rises for spirits and white cider. Spirit duty has fallen from 60% of average male manual weekly earnings in 1947 to 11% in 1983 and 5% in 2002, and should be returned to the levels of the 1980s, said the MPs.
Compulsory health messages, including recommended weekly limits, should be included on the label of every alcoholic drink, along with information about the number of units it contains.
Committee chairman Kevin Barron said: "The facts about alcohol misuse are shocking. Successive governments have failed to tackle the problem and it is now time for bold government."
Public health minister Gillian Merron said the Department for Health would use the report "to strengthen and further develop the action we already have under way".
