Alcohol has been unusually high on the political and media agenda in the UK for some time and there are signs that attitudes and opinion have started to shift among policy makers and opinion formers.

This apparent change in opinion is mainly a reaction to the increase in consumption and harm of recent years and the liberalising measures that have been part cause, part consequence of that increase.

Recent years have seen the introduction (in England) of the Licensing Act 2003 which introduced what was usually referred to as `24 hour drinking’. This became increasingly controversial as it went through Parliament and its results appear to have been mixed.

In 2004 the Government introduced an alcohol harm reduction strategy for England. This was criticised for being too preoccupied with alcohol-related crime and disorder and paying too little attention to health issues, and for being non-evidence based and probably ineffective, being mainly based on coming to voluntary agreements with the alcohol industry. There was however the threat that if the alcohol industry did not cooperate voluntarily legislation would be enacted.

Following the Licensing Act and the harm reduction strategy pressure on the Government to do more thus increased. The Royal College of Physicians began to prepare for a new initiative to press the case for more effective action. The Conservative Party, the main opposition party set up a special commission to investigate alcohol problems among a range of other issues and its recommendations to the Party include increasing alcohol taxation, lowering drink drive limits and reviewing the Licensing Act 2003.

In 2007 the Government launched a revised alcohol harm reduction strategy which was generally regarded as being an improvement on the first version though still avoiding some of the main policy options favoured by public health practitioners. Even so, the new strategy clearly signals a shift in the present Government’s response to the alcohol issue. The new strategy includes the commissioning of special, independent investigations of heavy price discounting on consumption and harm (though it avoids examining directly the influence of alcohol taxes) and of the effectiveness of alcohol industry social responsibility standards. There is also a review of the school alcohol education curriculum with a view to orientating it more explicitly to reducing and delaying drinking by children and adolescents, and the government has now said that it looks favourably on the idea of lowering the drink drive limit.

Andrew McNeill
Institute of Alcohol Studies
September 2007