An ONS survey found this year that almost 14 per cent of adults in Wales admitted to drinking the same amount of alcohol in a day as experts advise you shouldn’t exceed in a week. So, strategies to deal with substance misuse are to be welcomed. The Government has gone to great lengths to control or make unlawful all sorts of substances, including tobacco. However, the last Labour Government in Westminster saw fit to do the opposite with alcohol, one of the most potentially damaging and addictive substances, and liberalise licensing laws to such an extent that alcohol is now available on practically every corner. Walk down the high street into the supermarket, corner shops and even petrol stations and it’s there, available 24/7. The police didn’t want the liberalisation, communities didn’t want it and responsible pub landlords didn’t want it. The only people who did were the drinks companies, the chain pubs and of course Gordon Brown at the Exchequer. So, for the sake of the tax take, a Labour Government, the fellow travellers of many of the people currently sitting in the Welsh Government now, created a twenty-first century version of Gin Lane, forgetting that the parts of the community likely to suffer the most were the children of alcohol-dependent parents. We should remember this when the Welsh Government are patting themselves on the back over how they are dealing with the symptoms of that insane liberalisation.

We can’t put the egg back in its shell for the people who are damaged by their own or others’ alcohol abuse, but we can find ways to make alcohol much less accessible. So, what is the Welsh Government doing in Wales and at Westminster about this? Thank you.