Chamber and committees

It will know, based on the alcohol duty.

We will keep the scheme under continuous review. Whether we do a full review in five years will probably be for other people to decide, but my commitment is to keep the scheme under continuous review to ensure that we can be fleet of foot with any changes. For example, we might well see some of the pandemic’s impacts playing out over the next couple of years, and we will need to respond to that.

A policy such as this will always benefit from being reviewed. No doubt academics and others out there will be continuously reviewing it anyway, but the Government is committed to reviewing all of this work and will continue to do so.

Last week, I met the industry partnership group to discuss further proposals and how we might work together on the issue, which is something that I am very committed to doing. According to some of the analysis, particularly that carried out by academics and Public Health Scotland, there has been a definitive drop in the use of some of those more highly-potent and very cheap ciders and similar types of alcohol.

That has been particularly the case among young people—that is, those under the age of 25. According to the health and wellbeing survey done in schools, the numbers of young people who would access that type of cheap high-alcohol product are declining quite quickly. At the time of the original debates on minimum unit pricing, it was called “pocket-money alcohol”; it is not that now. If there has been any impact on the industry at all, it has been on cider producers in Scotland, who are experiencing a real decline in the sale of that type of alcohol.

According to our analysis, there seems to have been no impact on that type of alcohol, because its unit price in the off-trade was already well in excess of 65p, while the unit price in the on-trade sits at about an average of £2.04. We have not seen any impact on the off-trade. In any case, the policy was targeted not at that sort of product, but at the high-alcohol, low-price products that were available. We have not seen an impact on those other products at all.

I do not agree with that characterisation of the evaluation. The Scottish Government tasked Public Health Scotland with undertaking an independent evaluation of minimum unit pricing. There were two overarching evaluation questions. The first was:

“To what extent has implementing MUP in Scotland contributed to reducing alcohol-related health and social harms?”

and the second was:

“Are some people and businesses more affected (positively or negatively) than others?”

The evaluation plan for minimum unit pricing contains a portfolio of studies that were either undertaken by Public Health Scotland or which PHS commissioned external research bodies to undertake and which, through open procurement processes, were separately funded and led by academic partners. A slew of information was taken into account and Public Health Scotland took a theory-based approach to the evaluation of minimum unit pricing, its implementation, compliance, the alcohol market, alcohol consumption and alcohol harms.

The outcome of the Public Health Scotland evaluation is that minimum unit pricing is estimated to have cut alcohol consumption and deaths attributable to alcohol and that it is likely to have reduced hospital admissions that were wholly attributable to alcohol. The evaluation of minimum unit pricing also told us that it reduced health inequalities, the biggest reduction being seen in the impacts on men and on people living in the 40 per cent most deprived areas.

I would argue that Public Health Scotland took a robust approach. There are people out there who do not agree with the policy and who will have a different opinion, which is absolutely fine. My opinion is based on the work that Public Health Scotland and the University of Sheffield have done for us and on the work of organisations working on the front line—including those made up of people with lived and living experience—who have seen the benefit of minimum unit pricing in the past few years.

The BRIA has additional details about the impact on the industry. You have hit the nail on the head on the reason for taking this approach. Minimum unit pricing is only one tool. People are experiencing an impact not just because of minimum unit pricing; the cost of living crisis is having an impact on everyone. Additional support is being given to ADPs. This year, record funding of £112 million is being provided, and we have made a commitment to provide £250 million over the whole parliamentary session—in other words, for the next two years. All those supports are contained within that.

One way in which we approach the matter is through a whole-family approach. That involves looking at some of the challenges that people have in their lives—homelessness, debt and all of that. All that advice is factored into the supports, and that approach has proven to be incredibly supportive and helpful for people who are in the categories that Paul Sweeney has mentioned.

I refer members to the managed alcohol programme that has been undertaken in Glasgow with the Simon Community Scotland, particularly with people who are homeless. I can make available to the committee a wonderful case study that involves a particular individual who has taken part in the Simon Community’s pilot project. That individual is now in a supported tenancy. They have had income maximisation work done because they were not claiming anything and they did not know that they were entitled to anything, and they have had all the other social supports that they need. That includes the ability to access other types of therapy and support that they need. That person has now become a peer mentor.

Members can see the real benefit of taking a whole-family or person-centred approach. We are really interested in the outcome of the Simon Community’s pilot, particularly for a very vulnerable cohort of our population who are involved in harmful use of alcohol, who are unemployed and homeless, and who have very little family support. That is the person-centred aspect. The other aspect is the whole-family approach, which involves looking at what the family as a whole is entitled to and where we can engage with families to ensure that they get holistic support.

We all understand that approaching one issue with one response will never work in these circumstances, so it has to be a whole-family approach. That is where the third sector, the charity sector, our ADPs and all the professionals who are working in this field become incredibly important, as they enable us to take a multi-agency approach with such individuals.

I would define problematic drinking as hazardous drinking, and that is the focus of this work. MUP impacts on dependent drinkers as well, but there has always been a clear understanding that that group of people, who are more vulnerable and more stigmatised, need a nuanced and more detailed support structure around them. That is the work that we are doing.

I said in my opening remarks that MUP is not a silver bullet; it is not the answer for everyone. However, it gives some of the answers for most people, and we have developed other answers for some of those other people as well.

In the court’s findings?

Yes.

I am absolutely clear that the budget that we have provided for ADPs—which has gone up this year to a record amount—should be spent on ADPs. If I have to go as far as to give a direction, it will be that that money should be spent on ADPs and the work that they have to do, including the detailed work that they do with dependent drinkers. That ties into Mr Sweeney’s question about my contact with IJBs and boards with regard to the work that they are doing, because this is a shared responsibility across health and social care. However, my direction is that that money is to be spent on ADPs and the work that they do on the front line.