And that does seem to characterise successive government’s attempts to regulate our sector. So, what changes might we expect from a majority Tory Government?
The most significant changes that we’ve seen to alcohol policy have been the abolition of the alcohol duty escalator and the cuts to beer duty three years running. Dare we hope for a fourth next year?
But there is also what the Government hasn’t done. Minimum unit pricing was a flagship measure in the Government’s Alcohol Policy in 2012, but then it changed its minds.
This happened partly because the Government could see how minimum pricing could be characterised as a kind of pasty tax – something that affects the poor man’s pint but not the price of a bottle of wine for a Notting Hill dinner party.
In September we should get a ruling from Europe on minimum pricing. If it is declared lawful, then it will be very difficult for Prime Minister Cameron not to follow the Scots and the Welsh Assembly government and introduce it. But if, as I suspect, the European Court of Justic rules against it, then I think that the Tories will introduce ‘promoting and protecting public health’ as a fifth licensing objective in order to buy off the outrage of the health lobby.
But if price recedes as an issue you can be sure that the Ayatollah’s of public health will be demanding action to ban alcohol advertising and sponsorship and to reduce alcohol’s availability by making new licence applications more difficult. For the Lifestyle Police, Utopia is always just one more ban away.
What may also influence government to meddle less is the fact that so many of the numbers on excessive alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harms have, since 2005, been moving decisively in the right direction: young adults drinking frequently down 66%; per-capita alcohol consumption down 18%; 25-44 year-olds binge drinking down 24%; and amongst 16-24 year-olds down 38%. And as for alcohol-related crime: criminal damage down 48%; murder down 44%; violent crime down 35%; domestic violence down 28% and public order offences down 9%.
You might almost conclude that the Licensing Act 2003 was one of the best measures enacted by the last Labour Government!
The new government has some really big issues on its agenda. It is possible that noises-off from the health lobby may be drowned out as it struggles with EU membership and deficit reduction. Less meddling may deliver some much-needed stability – for now.
Paul Chase is a director of CPL Training and a leading commentator on alcohol policy and public health