Well, unlike previous speakers to this statement, as the Minister will have anticipated from my question to the First Minister earlier on, my party will not be supporting this measure. That’s not to say that we don’t support the aim, which is to cut the problems that flow from excessive drinking. But we do not think that this measure is likely to achieve that, and even to the extent that it does, it will do so with the effect of imposing unacceptable costs upon the overwhelming majority of people who drink, like myself, who are not regarded as problem drinkers. Well, others may regard me as a problem, but that would be for different reasons than drink.

Will she confirm the figures that are quoted on the BBC website about the impact of this measure—that it is, under a 50p formula, likely to increase the price of a typical can of cider to £1, a bottle of wine to at least £4.69, and a typical litre of vodka to more than £20? Because I think it is vitally important that the public at large realise now, before we even begin debating this measure properly, what the likely impact of it is likely to be. The Minister says that it’s aimed at problem drinkers, not at the general population at large, but these are the people who are least likely to be affected by a minimum price for alcohol, not the people who are most likely to be affected. We know from research that has been done that what we might call problem drinkers are price sensitive between brands, so that if you increase the price of one, they’ll switch to another, but there’s no real evidence whatsoever for showing that they will reduce their consumption of alcohol overall, still less become teetotallers. The price elasticity demand for a real problem drinker is almost by definition zero. It will have no impact upon his or her drinking.

One of the issues that is important, of course, is the public order implications of excessive drinking, especially in city centres. We all know the problems of the war zones in city centres on Friday and Saturday nights. So, what matters is not so much the overall consumption of alcohol—you can be a non-drinker for five days of the week and a binge drinker at the weekend. You can have a drink after work and a pleasant conversation and then go home for five days a week and then decide to get hammered at the weekend. This measure is not likely to have the slightest impact I think upon binge drinkers, who are there for that specific purpose. They want to get hammered, and the difference of a few pounds is very unlikely to make any difference to their social behaviour.

The Minister has mentioned international evidence for the claims that she’s made. I am actually not aware of any evidence internationally and academically on this specific problem of the impact of minimum prices upon problem drinkers. It is very important not to make the logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc and look at the health statistics on the one hand and then ascribe them to legislative measures that might have taken place as though there are no other factors that might have influenced them. We know that in recent years there has been significant reduction in the problems created by alcohol. This is certainly the case in Scotland. Nobody can prove—and indeed I think it isn’t even logical—that the minimum price legislation that the Scottish Government would like to see has been responsible for that.

As regards the Canadian example, which is specifically mentioned in this statement, Canada is a very, very different market from Britain because virtually all liquor that is sold in Canada is state controlled or state regulated in a way it certainly isn’t in this country. They don’t have a minimum price system such as the one that is being proposed anyway. They have a reference price system that is different for different drinks, and different in different provinces of Canada. So, it’s very, very difficult, from the Canadian evidence, insofar as it’s undisputed, to draw any conclusions for the type of legislation that is now being proposed for here in Wales.

There is another aspect that nobody else has mentioned so far this afternoon: Wales has a long border and a lot of people live quite close to it. Particularly in north-east Wales, Chester and Liverpool are right on the doorstep, what is the impact that this is going to have upon sellers of alcohol in areas like that? It would be very easy, especially now we can order online, to order from, say, Sainsbury’s across the border in England and have it delivered in Wales. The minimum price legislation that is proposed here isn’t going to apply to that.

So, for a variety of reasons, which we’ll follow up in more detail when this Bill comes to be debated in due course, there are flaws in the logic behind it that undermine its very purpose. What we should be looking at is how to take measures to combat the ill-effects upon society, and indeed upon individuals, of excessive alcohol consumption, but not to penalise the many in order to try and fail to help the few.