Alcohol pricing proposals anger the trade

The thorny debate of alcohol legislation reached another climax as the UK government called for minimum pricing on alcohol. The Home Affairs select committee produced a report this week in which the availability of cheap alcohol was said to be the main cause for the level of violence, a conclusion that has angered the trade.

In the report on policing, the committee blamed the availability of cheap alcohol for the level of violence on British streets. In order to rectify this, it said: “We recommend the government establishes a legal basis for banning the use of loss-leading by supermarkets and setting a minimum price for the sale of alcohol."

Alcohol pricing in supermarkets has been highlighted as a specific problem, particularly with regards to to selling wines below cost. Committee chairman Keith Vaz, told BBC radio that the main responsibility rests with the supermarkets who compete with each other to sell the cheapest alcohol.

The British Retail Consortium produced an angry response to the announcement which stated minimum pricing "would penalise the overwhelming majority of customers who consume alcohol perfectly responsibly, while doing nothing to tackle the minority who do not.”

BRC’s director Stephen Robertson added: “There is a lot of nonsense talked about below-cost selling. No business could survive if it routinely sold products for less then it paid the manufacturers for them.”

Meanwhile, Jeremy Beadles, chief executive of the Wine & Spirit Trade Association, released a statement saying: "As this review found, where current laws to tackle alcohol related harm are used, they are effective.  There are more than enough laws to deal with alcohol related disorder but the police do not have the resources they need to enforce them."

The Top Story in November’s db analysed the government’s alcohol legislation proposals and their potential impact on the industry and the consumer. Click here to see our story.

Jane Parkinson 12/11/08