Tim Martin: Education is way to combat binge-drinking

The boss of JD Wetherspoon, Tim Martin, has said the way to persuade people not to binge drink is through education.

Appearing on BBC's Newsnight last night, Martin said the changes to the licensing regime had not helped in addressing binge-drinking.

"People need to be re-educated about their drinking habits. [Education's] worked really well with drink driving, but you have to persuade people it's a bad idea to get paralytic," he said.

A government review of the first year of the Licensing Act, previously leaked to thepublican.com​, is due to be released today and will show an overall fall in crime. It will however show a slight rise in problems between 3am and 6am.

The review is expected to be given a mark of "seven out of 10 - good, but could do better."

A new red and yellow card system is also expected to be introduce for on-trade and off-trade premises that repeatedly breach the terms of their licence. Instead of a straight revocation of a licence, authorities will be encouraged to take earlier action by issuing a yellow card.

Gordon Brown has already confirmed a "two strikes and you're out" rule for off-licences caught selling to under-18s.

Meanwhile, this morning licensing minister Gerry Sutcliffe told the BBC the new licensing laws presented a "mixed situation, where in certain areas police and local authorities are working well, in others [they are] not".

He added: "We are not complacent - we know we need to rebalance the Act in favour of better enforcement.

"Consumption is down and over-all crime is down, but there is a problem between 3am and 6am. We need to identify why that's a problem."