Prime minister tells Commons he wants to curb amount of cheap booze but will not explicitly promise unit price change
David Cameron has pledged to stop cheap alcohol being sold in supermarkets but has failed to commit to a minimum unit pricing policy.
The prime minister had been urged to end speculation that the government was poised to abandon plans for a minimum unit price for alcohol.
Cameron told MPs at prime minister's questions in the House of Commons that the government was still examining the results of a consultation on the policy amid mounting speculation that the move he personally championed would be abandoned.
A base price of 45p per unit in England and Wales has been suggested but a number of cabinet ministers, including the home secretary, Theresa May, have made clear they harbour doubts.
Medical chiefs urged Cameron to be courageous and take a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to save lives, save the country money". But Tory critics said minimum pricing was a "blunderbuss" policy that would penalise responsible low-income drinkers while doing nothing to tackle problem drinking.
Cameron's stance was ridiculed by the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, who joked: "Could the prime minister tell us, is there anything he could organise in a brewery?"
Cameron was confronted in the Commons by the Tory MP Sarah Wollaston – a former GP – who said abandoning minimum pricing would "critically undermine future efforts".
He told her: "There is a problem with deeply discounted alcohol in supermarkets and other stores and I am absolutely determined that we will deal with this.
"We published proposals, we are looking at the consultation and the results to those proposals, but be in no doubt, we've got to deal with the problem of having 20p or 25p cans of lager available in supermarkets. It's got to change."
Earlier Wollaston told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I feel devastated. We know that whenever alcohol's too cheap, people die. If the chancellor wants a message from me, it's that we are already paying a huge amount to clean up the costs of this … This policy is about getting rid of the alcohol that's being retailed around 22p a unit, that's the alcohol that's killing people and causing carnage."
Fellow Conservative Tracey Crouch also expressed anger at the retreat and their concerns were echoed by the British Medical Association (BMA).
Asked what the BMA's message would be to the prime minister, Dr Vivienne Nathanson, the body's director of professional activities, told the Today programme: "Be courageous: this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to save lives, to save the country money. Both of those are very good deals for him.
"And it will get him the thanks of an awful lot of people. Not just doctors and nurses but also the families of problem drinkers who desperately want the government to do something to help them help the people they love to kick the habit and to save their lives."
She said that having previously expressed his enthusiasm for the policy, for David Cameron to backtrack now would be "bizarre".
The government has argued that introducing a minimum unit price would help reduce the levels of ill-health and crime related to alcohol and prevent practices such as "pre-loading", where people binge-drink before going out.
Research has suggested a 45p minimum price could reduce drinking by 4.3%, potentially saving 2,000 lives within a decade. This was why the idea had such strong backing from the medical profession.
May, the former health secretary Andrew Lansley, and the education secretary, Michael Gove, have opposed the proposals on grounds that the impact on living standards would be unacceptable.
Former shadow home secretary David Davis claimed that evidence in Europe, where alcohol was cheaper but consumption lower, showed that culture was more important than price.
He described minimum pricing as a "blunderbuss" of a policy that would punish people indiscriminately. "There's a drinking divide in Britain, a culture divide and you won't solve it by this rather heavy handed mass effect," he told the Today programme.
Welcoming the news, Miles Beale, chief executive of the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, made the same arguments. "Minimum unit pricing would penalise responsible drinkers and treat everyone who is looking for value in their shopping as a binge-drinker," he said. "Evidence has also shown it will do little to tackle problem drinking."
The shadow home office minister, Diana Johnson, accused the government of "weak leadership and weak government".
She said: "The home secretary and the prime minister said this measure would cut crime and prevent alcohol abuse. What's changed?
"Both times the government announced this measure we made clear there needs to be a package around alcohol abuse, a minimum price is not a magic bullet.
"And there needs to be a clear plan to prevent a windfall for supermarkets. Both times the government insisted a minimum price was the only way forward. Theresa May has taken her eye off the ball recently. On a flagship policy this is a humiliating climbdown."
via The Guardian World News http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/mar/13/minimum-alcohol-price-cameron-fudge
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