Dixon: 16-year-olds should get served

Sixteen-year-olds should be allowed to drink freely in pubs, according to a leading trade figure.

Industry consultant and MA columnist Phil Dixon believes allowing 16-year-olds to drink in a supervised environment is the only way to educate them, curb binge drinking and get them off street corners and parks.

"It's a stark choice of reality - you either have them in a controlled, supervised environment or you send them up alleyways and into parks and round the back of bike sheds, where according to teachers, they are drinking neat vodka," he said on BBC Radio 2's The Jeremy Vine Show.

"Now, which is best for society? The Government needs to look at more difficult solutions." He added: "What about 16 and 17-year-olds who work or serve in the army? They don't think they are children and they want to be able to have a drink."

The debate came as the Home Secretary launched a new confiscation campaign of alcohol from youths to stop them drinking in public.

During a stormy debate, former police officer and author Graham Taylor launched a savage attack on the industry. "Pubs are not well managed," he said. "My daughter is 16 and often goes to pubs and clubs and drinks.

"You can't tell me these people are going to be very vigilant because they are not."

Taylor refused to accept that the Challenge-21 ID scheme had been a success. "You are saying this because you are selling the stuff and you want kids in the pubs so you can sell more alcohol to them and get them drunk.

"There are thousands of people who live in fear every Friday and Saturday night of gangs of youths popped up to the eyeballs on cheap cider." Taylor believes the drinking age should be raised to 21.

Professor John Ashton, director of public health in Cumbria, pointed the finger squarely at the supermarkets. "It is clear to me the real problem is the sourcing of cheap alcohol in supermarkets."