Alcohol Policy UK

MUP two year anniversary; IAS briefing & impact of families MESAS report

The 1st of the month marked two years since the introduction of Scotland's Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) after a long-running legal battle led by sections of the alcohol industry.

The Institute of Alcohol Studies (IAS) released a briefing Minimum Unit Pricing in Scotland: What we know so far about its effects on consumption and health harms [pdf]. The executive summary states "media reports have been mixed, with some claiming the policy has been a success and others claiming it has been a failure. This briefing attempts to summarise this evidence to draw conclusions about the impact of MUP based on what we know so far."

AHA launch Commission for Alcohol Harm evidence call

The Alcohol Health Alliance UK (AHA) is supporting a Commission on Alcohol Harm, chaired by Baroness Finlay of Llandaff and made up of a panel of expert practitioners, cross-party parliamentarians and health leaders.

The Commission on Alcohol Harm has been established to examine the current evidence on alcohol harm, recent trends in alcohol harm and the changes needed to reduce the harm caused by alcohol. The Commission will also examine the need for a new comprehensive UK-wide alcohol strategy, highlighting there has been no national alcohol strategy for England and Wales since 2012.

Alcohol duty cuts responsible for 2,000 deaths says SARG report

A new report explores the impact of cuts to alcohol duties made in recent years, estimating it may have led to as many as 2,000 deaths in England.

Download Modelling the impact of alcohol duty policies since 2012 in England and Scotland [pdf] or see SARG and IAS summary here.

Conducted by the Sheffield Alcohol Research Group (SARG) on behalf of the Institute of Alcohol Studies (IAS), the report estimates the scrapping the alcohol duty escalator has resulted in £341 million in additional costs to the NHS, and other costs such as half a million additional lost days of work at a cost to the economy of £62 million.

Further minimum pricing evidence: positive effects as predicted?

Two further pieces of evidence have been released indicating the early stage effects of minimum pricing in Scotland, including an analysis on consumer purchasing data and an NHS Health Scotland evaluation of the impact on alcohol retailers and purchasers. 

Published in the BMJ, an analysis of the immediate impact on alcohol purchases in Scotland utilised samples of household purchasing data including England as a control group. Amongst the findings, a fall in the purchasing of alcohol in Scotland was found such that it concluded MUP led to a 7.6% reduction in off-trade purchases in Scotland, equivalent to drop of 328 g (41 UK units) per adult per household per year. This may be seen as broadly in line with early MUP market research sales data released earlier this year by NHS Scotland showing a fall in consumption against a rise in England.

Minimum pricing at home and away: where next?

In this guest post, Jane Hughes, a researcher at the Sheffield Alcohol Research Group (SARG), explores the current position of MUP across the UK and elsewhere, and the key issues for policy debates.

A bit like Brexit, implementation of the minimum unit pricing (MUP) policy in Scotland has had its share of twists, turns, legal challenges and divided public opinion. In Scotland, the Scottish Parliament passed legislation to introduce the policy in 2012 and, after a five-year legal challenge led by the Scotch Whisky Association, it was eventually implemented on 1^st May 2018.

The alcohol tax system: politics & reform after Brexit?

A new report has set out detailed proposals on how alcohol duty could be reformed after Brexit to deliver a 'fit-for purpose' duty system.

See here for the Social Market Foundation's (SMF) report 'Pour Decisions? The case for reforming alcohol duty' [pdf], and summaries from the SMF and the report's sponsors the Institute of Alcohol Studies (IAS).

The current duty system has been a long-running issue of contention in UK policy debates, and whilst the Treasury has the ability to adjust rates, duty systems vary significantly by product. For example, spirits and beer duty is based on alcohol content, whilst wine and cider duties are based on the final product volume, creating 'mixed incentives' in terms of product strength.

'Encouraging signs' as consumption falls one year after Scotland's MUP

The first official data on alcohol sales has been released since the introduction of minimum unit pricing (MUP) in Scotland on 1st May 2018, indicating a fall in consumption to 'the lowest level seen' in Scotland since 1994 when data collection began.

The news was welcomed by supporters of the policy as an early indication that MUP may be starting to have the desired effect of reducing consumption by removing the cheapest alcoholic drinks from the off-trade market.

MUP one year on: speculation, spin & evidence?

EDIT: Consumption data has since been released - see report and analysis here.

The 1st of May 2019 marked one year since the introduction of minimum unit pricing (MUP) in Scotland, prompting mainstream media coverage and inevitable attempts to declare its impact, despite limited data as yet available.

Media speculation had also followed recent Nielsen data indicating volume sales of alcohol had increased in the first 46 weeks after MUP came into effect. Various stories claimed 'Scots are drinking more despite minimum pricing', even though the data provides no indication of how actual alcohol consumption in units (or pure litres) has changed. As others sought to clarify, the Nielsen figures only reflects 'natural' volume sales; the volume of alcoholic drinks regardless of its strength.

Minimum pricing six months on: too soon to tell?

NHS Scotland have published a briefing paper addressing what can be deduced about the impact of minimum unit pricing (MUP) since its introduction in May 2018.

Download 'Six months on from the implementation of MUP, what can we say about changes in alcohol sales in Scotland?' [pdf]

The short summary follows a number of recent media reports speculating on the impact of MUP in Scotland, though lead researchers have stated it is "too early to draw conclusions" after just six months. The briefing echoes this point and highlights complete findings will be reported in 2023, but NHS Scotland will continue to present trends in per-adult alcohol consumption in Scotland and England & Wales in annual monitoring reports as part of its evaluation framework. Details on a specific evaluation component of the impact of MUP on harmful drinkers has also been released this month.

Wales and Ireland step closer to minimum pricing

The Welsh Government has proposed a 50 pence per unit minimum unit price (MUP) expected to be introduced in the summer of 2019 following a further consultation.

Wales passed MUP legislation via the The Public Health (Minimum Price for Alcohol) (Wales) Act in June 2018 following an open consultation and Scotland's green light after a long running legal challenge. Scotland introduced a 50p MUP in May 2018 and is currently undertaking a range of evaluation methods to review its impact.