NEW MEASURES restricting the sale of cut-price alcohol in the UK will not be effective, warned campaigners.
Supermarkets and off-licences will be banned from selling alcohol below the price of VAT and excise duties levied on drinks. This means cans of lager should not be sold for less than 38p each; a bottle of vodka for less than £10.71; a litre of cider below 40p; 700ml of whiskey for less than £8, or a bottle of wine for less than £2.03.
Home Office minister James Brokenshire said the changes would stop “the worst instances of deep discounting”, in which supermarkets and off-licences use cut-price deals as loss-leaders to boost other sales.
However, the new price tariffs are below those offered yesterday by the major supermarkets, with Sainsbury’s selling a litre of vodka for £12.23 and German supermarket Aldi charging £2.99 for its cheapest bottle of wine.
The new rules will not affect pubs and hotels, who all charge much more for their drinks, but the British Beer and Pub Association said the British government had “played safe”, adding the measures will not have “a significant impact” on supermarkets.
Ministers, meanwhile, will continue negotiations with drinks companies on “a responsibility deal”, under which the companies would do more on labelling and marketing to warn drinkers about the dangers of excessive drinking.
Dismissing the impact of the changes, Alcohol Concern chief executive Don Shenker said: “The price of the vast majority of drinks won’t be affected by this and the threshold is not high enough to deter those who use cheap drinks to get drunk.”
Even Conservative MPs were unimpressed. MP Andrew Griffiths, who leads the House of Commons all-party group on the misuse of drugs and alcohol, said the new minimum prices were a pointless exercise.
“I support the Government’s intention to stop the supermarkets’ dangerous pricing policies but this proposal will simply fail to do that,” he said. “This will still allow them to slash prices and sell cans of strong lager cheaper than cans of Coca Cola,” he said.
Efforts by the Scottish Executive to set a much higher minimum price failed last year. In Northern Ireland, social development minister Alex Attwood and health minister Michael McGimpsey are to launch a joint consultation about minimum price levels in the coming weeks.
