For those deluded souls out there who still believe that a minimum unit price for alcohol will solve all of the problems pubs face today, Government Minister Oliver Letwin has said this:
“We want to make it unpleasantly expensive for people to buy large amounts of [alcohol] and go home and get blind drunk,” the minister for government policy said.
A floor price for drinks must be tried as part of efforts to change consumer behaviour, Oliver Letwin told guests at the Alcohol in Moderation 21st anniversary conference in London recently.
Just how will bringing in a minimum unit price for alcohol actually save any pubs?
"What we really need to have is a population that, of its own free will, chooses to behave in a sensible fashion”.
Millions of us already do, why penalise us just so the Government can raise extra taxes to spend on MPs extra homes?
Beer consumption is already falling, there is no need for more legislation.
A Scottish Minister recently announced that the minimum price was being brought in to reduce consumption, not for any other reasons.
A Home Office spokesperson confirmed that a “full public consultation” on minimum pricing is still planned for autumn 2012 but declined to give a start date.
A year ago, public health minister Anne Milton told a Parliamentary committee in autumn 2011 that government advisers believed minimum pricing “contravenes European free trade legislation”.
Source: Harpers
1 comment:
But Letwin and his well-heeled chums will still be able to get out of their skulls on claret. What a bunch of utter hypocrites!
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