The SNP’s war on booze is bound to fail
Alcoholic drinks purchased in Scotland will rise by 30 per cent in September, after ministers decided to increase the minimum unit price (MUP) of alcohol from 50p to 65p.
This is a consequence of the outstanding success of the policy aimed at reducing Scotland’s drinks-related deaths and which, according to ministers, is “world-leading”. Except, it hasn’t been. The celebrations better remain on hold and the non-alcoholic prosecco stay in the fridge.
MUP has become one of those policies into which Scotland’s civic society, including most of the political establishment, has bought so enthusiastically that it is now virtually impossible for it to withdraw its support, even if the facts support such an action.
It was proposed by the SNP in its 2011 manifesto as part of the solution to the chronic levels of alcohol-related deaths north of the border. In the proud league table of “Scotland’s Shames”, the tragic issue of people drinking themselves to death ranks even higher than its competitors – drug deaths and religious sectarianism.
The legislation imposing MUP on alcohol was, wisely, subject to a sunset clause of five years, to allow a subsequent change of policy if the expectations of the policy were confounded by the empirical evidence.
The verdict seems to be in. Alcohol-related deaths in Scotland have reached their highest level since 2008, a decade before minimum pricing was introduced.
Fair enough. It was an imaginative and brave attempt to tackle a serious problem, and the SNP should be applauded for giving it a go, and supported as they search for new, alternative solutions.
But what’s this? Deputy first minister Shona Robison, announcing the increase in unit pricing, said: “Research commended by internationally-renowned public health experts estimated that our world-leading MUP policy has saved hundreds of lives, likely averted hundreds of alcohol-attributable hospital admissions and contributed to reducing health inequalities.”
It’s a strange policy indeed that fails to prevent a 14-year high death toll and yet at the same time can be said to have saved “hundreds of lives”.
In fact, an analysis of the policy carried out by Public Health Scotland concludes that: “There is no clear evidence that [minimum unit pricing of alcohol] led to reduced alcohol consumption or changes in the severity of alcohol dependence among people drinking at harmful levels.”
And yet problem drinkers – those whose consumption places themselves and others at risk of physical, emotional, psychological or financial harm – provided the overwhelming justification for the policy in the first place. Moderate drinkers – the vast majority of the population – were never the problem.
When MUP was being debated back in 2011, concerns were raised that the dependents of heavy drinkers might become even more financially vulnerable because alcoholics tend to prioritise their own consumption over the needs of their families. This has been borne out by Public Health Scotland: “There is some evidence it increased financial strain among some economically vulnerable groups.”
MUP did not lead to fewer attendances at Accident and Emergency units, or to fewer ambulance call outs. And it did not lead to less alcohol-related crime.
So where does Robison’s justification for this year’s increase in MUP – that it has saved “hundreds of lives” – come from?
Simply put, it is based on hypothetical assumptions about the levels of deaths that might have occurred (but which did not) had the policy not been introduced. In other words, thanks to MUP, Scotland has a better health record than that of a hypothetical, imaginary, parallel universe – perhaps the one where Andrew Garfield rather than Tom Holland plays Spider Man, for example.
It’s a tenuous argument on which to base a policy aimed at reducing actual deaths, not imagined ones.
Yet, even the main opposition party in Scotland, Scottish Labour, has been convinced by this policy sleight-of-hand to welcome a cost increase that will make life more difficult for ordinary, safe drinkers and for the dependants of alcoholics, and which has been proven to have no impact whatever on the group of drinkers the policy was aimed at.
Had MUP worked, there would be few arguments made in favour of its abolition. Indeed, other governments, including the UK one, would have come under pressure to replicate the Scottish experiment.
But it has failed. And that’s okay. Sometimes policies don’t achieve what we hoped they would, and other things have to be tried. The danger lies in pretending that a failed policy is a successful one, that hardship inflicted on consumers can be justified when the facts say otherwise, and when politicians indulge in the pretence that, despite the evidence of their own eyes, the emperor’s new clothes really are pretty impressive.
