Alcohol Strategy

Speech delivered on Thu 26th Mar 2009

This is an important debate in terms of its merits and the Parliamentary issues that lie behind it.

The Scottish National Party Government has rightly identified the problem of alcohol-Scotland's shame, one might say-as a key challenge. It is interesting that we now have "bold" policies in the health realm and "tough" policies in the justice realm. One sometimes wonders

whether the words and the presentation are more important than the substance. The reality is that the SNP Government has made a right hash of putting in place the policies to tackle the problem of alcohol. It is rightly inspired by what happened with the smoking ban, but its search for a totemic idea first led it to suggest that young people were the heart of the problem and that all would be well if the age for the purchase of alcohol from off-sales premises was increased to 21. At that point, everyone in sight rounded on the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, including the trade, the public and even the youth wing of his party. The policy was clearly a dead-parrot policy.

Attention then switched to his other big idea, which was minimum pricing. Unfortunately, he had the clever wheeze of trying to slip the measure through the Parliament in subordinate legislation rather than exposing it to public and parliamentary scrutiny. That was a constitutional outrage that undermined the whole point of having a Scottish Parliament. The policy had other problems, too. No details were produced of how it would work.

Nicola Sturgeon: Now that we have got the process argument out of the way, I wonder whether the Liberal Democrats will tell us where they stand on minimum pricing. Does Robert Brown believe that Nick Clegg, Chris Huhne and the Liberal Democrat health spokesman at Westminster are wrong to support minimum pricing?

Robert Brown: I was going to give some of the background to the matter. We are talking about the problems with the SNP Government's policy.

We do not have the details of the minimum pricing policy, but the examples suggest that it would hit the Scottish whisky industry at home and abroad. It seems that the general public would pay for the policy, yet one study predicts that it would change the drinking levels of hardened drinkers by only 2.3 per cent. That is hardly the totemic answer. The SNP Government has managed to produce not bold and clear leadership, as the cabinet secretary suggested, but a mix of policies that will cause the maximum controversy and hit the average citizen and many businesses hard with both higher costs at a time of great economic crisis and greatly increased bureaucracy. The policies seem likely to have the least beneficial effect.

However, I am sure that the Parliament will want to give credit to the SNP Government for bowing, if belatedly, to the criticism that has been levied at the process and announcing that it will proceed by way of a health bill in the autumn, thus meeting the demand that I made of it in my motion on 9 March. Why it did not do that in the first place is, frankly, beyond my comprehension. The result is that, for the second week in a row, an Opposition motion has been pre-empted by an SNP Government strike. Last week, that involved Labour and police numbers-again, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice was involved-and this week it is the Tories and alcohol. That is clever politics but poor statesmanship. The manoeuvres reveal growing problems at the heart of the SNP Government.

Let us examine the position further. The Cabinet Secretary for Justice's position on police numbers has been all over the place. He is the grand old Duke of York of police numbers, marching his troops up and down various hills to no good effect. The cabinet secretary got his fingers burned on a legislative consent motion on data sharing under the Coroners and Justice Bill. He appeared not to have read the documents and was ready to surrender wide-ranging powers to Westminster. At best, he had not recognised the obvious scorpions that were lurking in the grass. He has now been relieved of control over a key policy that he had made his own but which has mutated seamlessly, without change of substance, from being under the control of the justice department to suddenly being included in a health bill that will apparently be taken forward by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing. One wonders what sin Nicola Sturgeon has committed to be handed this poisoned chalice.

Brian Adam (Aberdeen North) (SNP): Will the member take an intervention?

Robert Brown: No. I need to make some progress.

In short, we have an SNP Government that has demoted its justice secretary and stripped him of key functions. The Government has lost its way on one of its few remaining flagship policies. It has delayed the whole process by six months and it still lacks the coherent policies that are needed to tackle Scotland's alcohol challenges. It is a Government without clear direction or the strength of purpose to act in Scotland's interests.

Nevertheless, there is good will in the chamber to come to the aid of a drifting Government on this key issue. Today's debate can help to give a bit of direction and focus to the necessary policies. The motion and the amendments contain elements that we can all agree with. The motion focuses on the parliamentary process, the need to consult various relevant interests and the absolutely necessary requirement to enforce the existing laws more rigorously. The Liberal Democrats have loudly led calls on such matters and have been supported by all parties. However, I take slight issue with the thrust of the rest of the motion. It properly targets binge and underage drinking and the rights of moderate drinkers, but it fails to identify the fact that problem drinking exists as part of a more widespread culture in all age groups in Scotland. I

agree with some of the cabinet secretary's comments in that regard. That culture is different from and more deep-seated than the culture in the rest of the United Kingdom or across Europe, and it is at the heart of the issue. Changing our culture requires to be at the heart of our approach.

Earlier, I said that the mix of policies has to be right and that the SNP minority Government is still not fully listening. If, as appears to be the case, its health bill includes its watered-down version of the under-21 ban, its arbitrary social responsibility fee or the bureaucratic minimum pricing proposal, it will be difficult for the bill to obtain parliamentary support. Lots of time and public money could be wasted on developing proposals that might have to be dropped at the end of the day. The sensible way forward is to dump them now and concentrate on things that can obtain parliamentary support, such as the highly innovative idea of the youth commission on alcohol, on which work is proceeding. That work will have enthusiastic Liberal Democrat support. The proposals to limit irresponsible alcohol promotions and the initiative on wine glass sizes can also obtain parliamentary support.

In conclusion, the Liberal Democrats stand ready to work positively with the Government and to contribute our ideas to tackle the challenges of excessive alcohol consumption and problem drinking-which have evil effects on violent crime rates and result in burdens on the national health service-and the central need for cultural change.

The Government has had a false start, but it now has a chance to do things properly. The Conservative motion as amended by the Liberal Democrat amendment would identify the right target and strike the right balance. I hope that our amendment will attract support.

I move amendment S3M-3778.1, to leave out from "any changes" to end and insert:

"tackling Scotland's complex relationship with alcohol will require significant and long-term cultural change, and believes that any proposals for reform of the law should be targeted and evidence-based, introduced on the basis of strong public support and following meaningful consultation with all relevant interests and stakeholders to ensure that measures to address problematic alcohol consumption do not unfairly penalise the majority of individuals who enjoy alcohol responsibly."

To read the debate in full please click on the link below:

Related Link:

Alcohol Strategy.