The following amendments have been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Paul Davies, amendment 2 in the name of Julie James, and amendment 3 in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2 and 3 will be deselected. If amendment 2 is agreed, amendment 3 will be deselected.

That brings us to the next item, with is the United Kingdom Independence Party debate on a minimum price for alcohol, and I call on Neil Hamilton to move the motion.

Motion NDM6718 Neil Hamilton

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Notes the problems caused by the harmful consumption of alcohol and the damaging impact that substance misuse has on families and communities.

2. Believes that:

a) the Welsh Government proposal for minimum unit pricing of alcohol will have a detrimental financial impact on the poorest people in society; and 

b) the suggested value of around 50 pence per alcoholic unit will fail to make any substantial change to the quantity of alcohol consumed by those who habitually drink alcohol in large quantities.

3. Calls on the Welsh Government to abandon the Public Health (Minimum Price for Alcohol) (Wales) Bill and do more to tackle alcohol misuse without resorting to minimum unit pricing.

Motion moved.

Thank you, Llywydd, and I beg to move the motion standing in my name on the agenda. We move from a tax to something that is akin to a tax: the Government's proposal to impose a minimum price for alcohol. Our motion makes two basic points, that a minimum price will have a disproportionate effect upon those at the lower end of the income scale—the poorest people in society—and that it won't actually achieve its stated objective, because the people with the biggest problem with alcohol, of course, are the ones who are least likely to be affected by changes in price. They are addicted to alcohol, and people with an addiction are driven by demons inside, which are not generally susceptible to alteration by changing the price of whatever it is that they consume. Indeed, in the case of controlled drugs, of course, they're not available for sale at all. They're banned and it's a criminal offence to use them, but we have massive drug problems in this country, and in the 1920s, when the United States did the same for alcohol—attempted to prohibit it by law—that created a massive series of social problems and the growth of crime but without actually dealing with the problems of alcoholism itself.

I'd like to start by asking how big a problem we actually have with alcohol in Wales. I was interested to read a report by Alcohol Concern that said that, since 2005, the overall amount of alcohol consumed in the UK—unfortunately, I couldn't find figures for Wales—and the proportion of people reporting drinking, and the amount that drinkers report consuming, have all fallen, and this trend is especially pronounced amongst younger drinkers. On the other hand, 77 per cent of the highest earners report drinking in the previous week, compared to 45 per cent of the lowest earners and, of course, the highest earners are the ones who are least likely to respond to changes in price at the lower end of the alcohol market, whereas the 45 per cent of lowest earners are the ones who are going to be targeted by the proposed changes. 

So, this proposal is introduced at a time when drinking is being moderated by the overwhelming majority of people, and the number of people who actually have a real problem, and create other problems for us in society, is either remaining static or diminishing as well. What's proposed here is going to be a general imposition upon the population at large to try to deal with the problems created by a very small number. So, it's the very opposite of targeted intervention, which is what would be required in order to solve the social problems, which the Government wishes to do.

Now, international comparisons are always dangerous, because different societies are very, very different in their history and social composition, and human behaviour differs between countries as well. When the health Secretary came to the Finance Committee to give evidence to us, I asked him if he had any statistics that produce the evidence for any correlation between the price of alcohol and the number of health-related diseases or other medical conditions that were found in those countries, and he said that he wasn't interested in statistics; they were of no value. Well, I think that there is some value in looking at the experience of other countries. You, in the usual arrogant way, dismissed a point that I was trying to make seriously. But I think there is some value in looking at international comparisons to see whether there is any relationship between the price of alcohol and the effects upon health. I've again found it very difficult to discover the statistics that I wanted, but I have found statistics for alcohol-related deaths as a percentage of total mortality. For England and Wales in the period 2006 to 2009, alcohol-related deaths as a percentage of total mortality amounted to 2.3 per cent. Now, that compares with 9.8 per cent in Finland, 3.2 per cent in Sweden, 6.5 per cent in Denmark, all of whom have much, much higher prices for alcohol than we have in the United Kingdom. Countries like Spain and Italy have much, much lower prices of alcohol and there isn’t a great deal of difference between their rates of alcohol-related mortality and ours.

Will the Member give way?

Yes.

You said at the beginning of this speech that this was akin to a tax. Isn’t the big difference with Scandinavia that, there, it is a tax, and at least the revenues can be used to support high-quality public services? Here, the money raised would just go as higher profits to the private companies who produce them and sell them.

The Member is absolutely correct. That's another deficiency of the proposal. There is no direct connection between the sums of money that will be raised and what the Government can spend on trying to target help to those who really need it. Even those who have an occasional drink problem, they're not going to be affected by this very much. The hospital admissions, which always rise at the weekends, where they're related to alcohol as a result of binge drinking on a Friday or a Saturday, those are very unlikely to be altered by the imposition of a minimum price for alcohol. What we should be doing here is looking at where the problem exists and a microsolution to that difficulty.

So, this is a very badly designed proposal, and it is a sledgehammer to miss a nut, actually. That's what is proposed here. At 50p per minimum unit, if that’s what eventually emerges, it’s very unlikely to have any impact upon more than a small number of people. Of course, demand for alcohol is not price inelastic any more than cigarette smoking was not affected by increases in the taxation on tobacco. In order to make any significant inroad upon the problem that the Government adduces as the justification for this proposal, it would have to be a very, very much higher increase than the one that has been suggested. It would be a brave Government indeed that sought to impose a minimum price of, say, £1 per unit on alcohol. I think that would receive a resounding raspberry from the voters.

But I object to this proposal because it is particularly targeted at those on lower incomes. Like many of these proposals—like the sugar tax in England is going to affect those at the lower end of the income scale as well—these are all impositions upon people who are having a struggle anyway to make ends meet in life, and it's going to make it very much more difficult for very little, if any, improvement in public health or a diminution of the other social problems that excessive consumption of alcohol brings about, which we all know about.

So, it’s actually, in many ways, an irrational tax that’s proposed—if I can call it a tax for these purposes. Like many of the taxes that we’ve got in this country, it's very, very badly designed. We’ve just had a debate about property taxes, which are very badly designed. Here we're deliberately creating another one, rather than inheriting it from our predecessors, as a mass of confusion and counter-productive activity.

So, this is not the time when we should be trying to make these impositions upon people who can least afford to deal with them. If we are going to introduce new taxes, they ought to conform to the general canons of taxation, which is that they be well designed, properly targeted and raise reasonable amounts of revenue, or design to achieve in practice the social objectives that they're supposed to, and this proposal will achieve none of those.

As Mark Reckless pointed out, the principal beneficiaries of this will be the supermarkets and the shareholders of supermarkets, to the extent that, at the borders, there will be leakage across the border into England. It's not going to be a big problem, generally speaking, but it might well be in north-east Wales, or indeed in south-east Wales as well. Then that's going to be a problem for local traders in those areas. This is something that has been, I think, very badly thought out, and it cannot be administered in a way that will produce the answer to what is accepted as a significant social and health problem. So, I'm afraid it will fail at all levels.

I have selected the three amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2 and 3 will be deselected. If amendment 2 is agreed, amendment 3 will be deselected. I call on Suzy Davies to move amendment 1 tabled in the name of Paul Davies.

Amendment 1. Paul Davies

Delete all after point 1 and replace with:

Supports the general principles of the Public Health (Minimum Price for Alcohol) (Wales) Bill.

Regrets the adverse impact that the Bill may have on the budgets of households on low incomes and that it may lead to the substitution of alcohol for illicit substances.

Supports amending the Bill, as recommended by the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, in order to produce an evaluation report that makes reference to the impacts of minimum pricing by reference to age group, gender and socio-economic status, substitution behaviour, domestic violence, impact on support services and the impact on alcohol retailers.

Amendment 1 moved.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. I have to say that I’m a little bit baffled by this debate, because I'm not entirely sure what we'll hear today that the Cabinet Secretary hasn't heard before, including some of those issues where actually we have some sympathy with UKIP. The general principles of the legislation have already been debated in this Assembly. Evidence has been taken by the health committee, on which the UKIP spokesperson sits, of course, and where some of the points put out in the motion were rehearsed and reflected in the Stage 1 report. At Stage 2, our own amendment for a 50p starting point was voted down, and it's highly unlikely to rise again, I suspect. So, I think that point (c) of the motion is actually meaningless. The place to have made a meaningful contribution to this particular point would have been at Stage 2, whereas UKIP’s blanket abstention meant a failure to engage with an important step of primary legislation, which, after all, is a privilege that is only afforded to 60 of us in the whole of Wales.

Our amendment, which I now move, reflects our shared concern about the possible impact on low-income households, but our amendment also sets out a separate concern about the likelihood of substitution by individuals who are dependent on, or at risk of dependency on, alcohol. As I said at Stage 2, I don't think this Bill is fully cooked either, insofar as the full suite of evidence is not there yet, and too much is being deferred to regulation. But, the way to deal with that, with a Bill that clearly has numbers supporting it, is to try and amend the Bill, which is what we will be doing at Stage 3. That's why, in this debate, I will give due notice to the Cabinet Secretary that we will be revisiting the issue of the evaluation report. As I say, I think Stage 3 is the best place to rehearse that. It arises from a Stage 1 recommendation, which was signed up to by Labour members of the committee and only defeated at Stage 2 by the imposition of the Government whip and the abstention of UKIP.

Once this Act is passed, it becomes a creature of the Assembly, not the Government, and so it is right that the Assembly decides what information it needs to decide whether this Act survives the sunset date. The information we think we will need on behalf of our constituents, and indeed the Assembly, in order to assess the success or failure of minimum unit pricing in five or so years, is listed here in the amendment. The Government is not restricted to that list, but it is these criteria that must be included in the evaluation report. Otherwise, it will be no evaluation at all. In short, just let’s avoid a row in five years' time if we get an evaluation report that doesn’t refer to these impacts. Thank you.

I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services to formally move amendment 2, tabled in the name of Julie James. 

Amendment 2. Julie James

Delete all after point 1 and replace with:

Notes the Public Health (Minimum Price for Alcohol) (Wales) Bill which is currently being scrutinised by the National Assembly.

Notes a proposed minimum unit price for alcohol is only one of the Welsh Government’s measures to tackle the harms associated with harmful and hazardous alcohol use in Wales.

Notes the £50m package of support for people with alcohol and substance use problems in Wales every year.

Amendment 2 moved.

Formally, Llywydd.

I call on Rhun ap Iorwerth to move amendment 3 tabled in his name.

Amendment 3. Rhun ap Iorwerth

Delete all after point 1 and replace with:

Notes that public health measures require the support of the public to be successful and that, to achieve this, the minimum price needs to be a set a level that is underpinned by robust research that can demonstrate the public health impacts, and recognises the need to avoid disproportionately affecting moderate drinkers on lower incomes.

Calls on the Welsh Government to accompany the legislation with an extensive communications campaign that explains the aims and purpose of the legislation, including steps moderate drinkers can take to minimise the financial impact on themselves, for example through reducing consumption overall or choosing drinks with lower alcohol content; both of which would bring health benefits.

Recognises the potential benefits of minimum unit alcohol pricing for pubs.

Amendment 3 moved.

Thank you, Llywydd, and I formally move the amendment. I’m pleased to participate in this debate, because I do think it’s an opportunity for us to explain some of the principles at the heart of what we are discussing. I was reading an interesting article earlier today on the relationship between the price of tobacco in the US and smoking habits and on the population there. It takes us back to the 1880s, when production methods for the American Tobacco Company enabled them to corner the market. It then takes us through to the 1960s and the first medical reports on the dangers of smoking and the increasing taxation that came as a result of that. The conclusion of the report is no surprise at all:

'Pricing and price related promotions are among the most important marketing tools employed by tobacco companies. Future tobacco control efforts that aim to raise prices and limit price related marketing efforts are likely to be important in achieving reductions in tobacco use'.

The reason that conclusion doesn’t surprise us is that we know instinctively now that smoking tobacco is bad for your health and that an increase in the price is clearly a useful tool in the challenge of encouraging more people to give up tobacco. What we have here, if truth be told, is the beginning of a real debate on how we can use price and financial incentives to influence how much alcohol people drink. There are differences between alcohol and tobacco. I’m not aware that there is such a thing as moderate smoking that can be acceptable in terms of the level of risk to health. We do accept that someone can drink moderately and carefully, and we need to keep that in mind, but the fundamental point here is that drinking too much alcohol is bad for your health. Not only is it bad for your health personally, it’s also damaging to society. It can have serious impacts on children, it’s a strain on public services, and it can have an impact on poverty. And I have to say that I was surprised to hear Neil Hamilton rejecting this idea that alcohol is damaging to our society, because it is, and what we have here is an attempt to tackle that.

Now, each and every one of us should believe that trying to encourage people to drink less is a positive thing. And following on from that, I agree, as with the case with tobacco, with the principle of trying to use financial incentives in order to encourage people to consider drinking less, and also to think about alcohol in a different way, to think about alcohol as something that can be harmful. Now, I do agree with Neil Hamilton and Mark Reckless in as much as I do believe that it’s through taxation that that should happen. That would allow the funds that would be generated to be gathered by our own Treasury here in Wales and spent on tackling the abuse of alcohol and its impacts. But we can’t do that, because we don’t have the powers here in Wales to do so. So, the concept of a minimum alcohol price per unit is another approach—an imperfect approach, perhaps, but a possible tool—to try and vary prices of various kinds of alcoholic drinks in order to encourage moderate drinking and less harmful drinking.

We have a Bill, and there are many elements of that Bill that I want to see strengthened before I can be comfortable that we are going about this in the right way. I agree with the motion, which raises the risk that low-income households could be hit by this. I am asking for assurances through amendments about the way in which the minimum alcohol price will be set—50p is the figure that’s been discussed most. I’m no expert, but I feel that that possibly isn’t quite right; it’s a little high perhaps. So, I am introducing amendments to insist on more data, more modelling, and I think there’s also an opportunity to see how this works in Scotland, as the price is set there. So, we need the best possible evidence. I also want to see better communication around the Bill and a commitment to educate people on how to avoid paying more for alcohol, for example by drinking alcohol that has a lower alcohol content, and I think that that would be a positive side-effect. With any public health issue, we need to persuade people as to why these steps are being taken, and this is no different in that sense.

So, we are focusing many of our amendments on the elements of evidence and communication, and on the evaluation elements, in order to bring people with us. That’s where I stand on this. What the motion in the name of Neil Hamilton attempts to do is to shut down the debate as we are still going through the legislative process. There are major gains if we get this right. Getting it wrong would hold public health efforts back in future, perhaps. So, let’s focus on trying to see whether we can achieve a Bill and then an Act that is stronger by working constructively.

I think it's important to state that we in UKIP do acknowledge that there are individuals who do abuse alcohol, and alcohol abuse can—[Interruption.] Alcohol abuse can have a devastating effect both on individuals and on their families. It is not that we aren't concerned by this issue. We are. We are simply questioning whether minimum unit pricing, or MUP, will work as a means of effectively combatting alcohol abuse. Our considered conclusion is that is won't.

Now, we know that the Welsh Government doesn't simply do things without research. Yes, they have their research. They have sourced research from the University of Sheffield, for instance, which estimates that a minimum unit price of 50p a unit would save the Welsh economy £882 million over a 20-year period. That works out at about £40 million a year, which sounds like an appreciable saving. This is due to reductions in the fields of crime, illness and workplace absence. The problem is that the methodology behind this report has been criticised by other academics and think tanks. 

For instance, the Centre for Economics and Business Research have come up with an alternative appraisal of the MUP plan, which includes a critique of Sheffield university's work, particularly focusing on alcohol demand elasticity—that is, the willingness of problem drinkers to pay more money to get their fix of alcohol. The CEBR felt that the Sheffield study didn't properly distinguish between different types of drinker and different types of drinking behaviours. In other words, it didn't take enough account of the readiness of problem drinkers to pay more money to get their fix, or that problem drinkers tend to exhibit behaviours that are different to average behaviour.

We have to accept that we are dealing here with people who have an addiction, people who have an illness, so they will not always act in rational ways. Addicts will often tend to carry on getting hold of the substance that they are addicted to, even if the price goes up.

Will you take an intervention?

Yes.

Do you understand that this piece of legislation isn't really aimed at getting alcoholics to stop drinking? Alcoholics will, you're quite right, seek alcohol out in any way they can. Efforts need to be made—more efforts—from Government to help alcoholics come off alcohol, but we are talking here about hazardous drinkers, who can be persuaded through price incentives to perhaps behave in a different way.

Yes, I appreciate that you're making a distinction between alcoholics and hazardous drinkers, and such a distinction does exist, but all the same we don't believe that this legislation will even effectively tackle the problem of hazardous drinkers. 

To go back to what I was saying, an alcoholic may simply spend more of his or her money on alcohol after MUP and spend less on basic essentials, such as heating, food, utility bills and rent. Raising the price of alcohol could therefore be the tipping point that ends up tipping an alcoholic over into homelessness. In the case of an alcoholic who also has a family, it could plausibly lead to the entire family being evicted. 

Richard Edwards, chief executive of the Cardiff-based homeless charity the Huggard centre, is one of those who has major concerns over the MUP plan. I quote:

'Raising pricing alone, for legal drugs such as alcohol, may simply change one addiction for another and condemn people to a more entrenched and desperate life on the streets'.

End quote. There is the very real threat that hardened alcoholics will turn away from alcohol and get involved with much worse substances such as spice, which is already prevalent on the streets of Wales's major towns and cities. There is also the prospect that alcoholics could turn to crime to raise funds for their habits. Crime levels could actually go up, rather than down as the Welsh Government's evidence has asserted.

There has been an argument that pubs will actually benefit from the introduction of MUP. Well, let's have a look at that. Pubs have, it's true, complained for some years that they are unfairly treated by the tax system compared to supermarkets, which are able to undercut them on alcohol products. This is due to different rates of VAT being charged. Unfortunately, this tax disparity won't be addressed by the introduction of MUP. CAMRA, which has previously supported MUP, have since 2013 opposed it and recently their head of communications said:

'CAMRA does not support minimum unit pricing because we believe it penalises moderate and responsible drinkers while doing little to support those who have issues with alcohol abuse.'

Another who opposes the scheme is Tim Martin the boss of Wetherspoon, who has called MUP a red herring and says that what is really needed is a cut in VAT on beer sold in pubs. So, if the Welsh Government really wanted to improve the position of pubs, which wasn't actually their objective in any case with this Bill, they should instead lobby the UK Government for a reduction on VAT on alcohol sold in pubs. 

Another body that has performed a u-turn of sorts is the UK Government. Having previously been in favour of introducing MUP, the Westminster Government has now decided that they will carefully monitor what happens in Scotland first, before they implement any similar scheme in England. But the Welsh Government has decided to do it differently and plough on with its own plans regardless. I think that they now need to take a step back and think again about this legislation. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

I very much support the Welsh Government's policy of introducing a minimum unit price for alcohol, and thankfully I'm not alone in that, given that so many organisations with expertise in the field in terms of how you reduce harm from alcohol also support this policy. Many health organisations, for, I guess, fairly obvious reasons—obvious to most of us, anyway—also support this policy, and indeed the consultation on the draft Bill a couple of years back showed very strong public support as well. So, I think we start from a pretty secure base in terms of an understanding of the need for this policy as part of an overall strategy and package of measures to reduce harm from alcohol abuse here in Wales. Of course, it is just that—it's one part of an overall policy and strategy, and I do believe that it would play a significant role within that overall suite of measures. 

I think all of us would be familiar with the harm that alcohol does cause, or alcohol abuse causes. It's very clear in terms of its toll of ill health, the effect that that has on the economy in terms of days lost from work, the problems in terms of crime and violent crime, some of that around binge drinking, which is a terrible blight still on many of our town and city centres, and also, of course, harm to families and marital breakdown. So, the harm is very, very significant indeed, and we do need to bring a wide range of measures forward to deal with that harm and, as I've said, minimum unit pricing for alcohol, I believe, is significant within that overall package. 

Cancer Research UK, Llywydd, are one of the organisations supporting this proposed policy, and they're clear that alcohol is the third-biggest preventable risk factor in terms of cancer incidence, and that this particular policy would be a very effective tool in reducing that toll of ill health and harm in terms of cancer. We have the research from the University of Sheffield commissioned by Welsh Government, which others have referred to. Personally, I find that research strong and convincing. It talks about a policy of 50p as the minimum price leading to some 1,300 fewer hospital admissions in Wales and over 65 fewer deaths on an annual basis. Importantly, I think, in terms of some of the criticism that's levelled at the policy, the greatest benefit would be to people living in poverty. We know that 37 per cent of alcohol sold in Wales is sold at less than that 50p unit price, and that heavier drinkers are more likely to pay less than 50p. I think when you look at those sorts of factors it does suggest that, first of all, it will have a significant impact, and, secondly, that it will have a proportionately greater health benefit to people in the poorer communities—

Will the Member give way?

—certainly—given the drink patterns that we're familiar with. 

I give way to Simon Thomas. 

Thank you. He'll be aware that I broadly support this Bill and what the Government is trying to achieve, but I think it is important to put on the record that what he's just quoted to us is modelling, not evidence. We can't use evidence because we haven't got anything like this. Scotland's just begun its journey, but we haven't got that.

The modelling he has set out is important, but what really needs to happen, does he not agree, is that when we do come to decide the eventual price, that modelling and all the evidence are also debated thoroughly and fully here in this Chamber—that we don't just pass a framework Bill and then let the Government get on with it? We need to be part of this all the way through.

I very much accept that there needs to be a continuing debate about all aspects of the proposed legislation, including the minimum unit price. But I do very much believe that, given the scale of the harm that alcohol causes, and indeed the health inequalities that are involved, there is a real responsibility here on Welsh Government to act. This is, in some respects, a fairly courageous policy, but it is a matter of Welsh Government understanding the scale of the harm, the responsibility that it gives to Government in Wales, and then taking forward a policy on that basis. And I very much commend Welsh Government for having the courage to propose this policy and to act in this way.

Alcohol is a major risk factor for cancer, as we've just heard. In fact, it's a class 1 carcinogen, and it's the third biggest preventable risk factor for cancer and is linked to causing at least seven types of cancer from its corrosive effects: mouth and lip cancer; tongue, pharynx and laryngeal cancer; oesophageal cancer, all the way down; as well as being associated with liver cancer and bowel cancer; as well as breast cancer.

Now, the minimum price for alcohol legislation targets the heaviest drinkers at risk of the biggest harm. It targets heavy drinkers. Harmful and hazardous drinkers, that is, who are not alcoholic. The alcoholic is not being targeted here, and cannot be targeted. As we've heard, the alcoholic carries on drinking. But the harmful and hazardous drinker who is not addicted will stop when the price gets too much. Because a major review of the evidence for minimum alcohol pricing, which looked at over 100 systematic reviews and meta-analyses—meta-analyses are reviews of reviews—shows that increasing the price of alcohol is associated with falls in both alcohol consumption and in alcohol-related harm. Alcohol-related harm is the huge increase in liver transplantation for alcohol disease that we've seen in recent years. Alcohol-related harm is domestic violence and abuse, especially at times of 6 Nations rugby matches and international football matches—anything that's associated with heavy drinking. Alcohol-related harm is assaults and falls, is crime, is attendances at accident and emergency departments. On some nights of the week in Wales, over 90 per cent of the patients in an A&E department have drunk too much alcohol—over 90 per cent of attendances, any night of the week, usually on weekends—contributing to packed accident and emergency departments, and the abuse, assault and vilification of medical, nursing and portering staff in those A&E departments.

So, the minimum price for alcohol in this legislation is computed from a formula, as has been ascertained: the volume of alcohol x the strength of the alcohol x the minimum unit price for alcohol. So, it's not just all about the minimum unit price. A Saskatchewan study from Canada showed that increasing the minimum unit price by 10 per cent there led to an 8.43 per cent fall in alcohol consumption. The Swiss Government wrote to the health committee making similar points. Countless medical reviews over decades have concluded that if you make alcohol more expensive and more difficult to get hold of, then people drink less. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, alcohol was relatively more expensive than it is today, and also more difficult to get hold of, due to restricted opening times and sales. The night-time economy of liberalised opening hours and cheap, loss-leading booze had not been invented back then.

In the medical world, this issue, I've got to say, is an absolute no-brainer. Doctors overwhelmingly support legislation that targets cheap booze and makes alcohol more expensive. Minimum alcohol pricing targets hazardous and harmful drinking of alcohol that falls foul of that formula, in that it's high-volume big bottles, high-strength, and cheap—as little as 18p per unit. Strong, white cider forms 25 per cent of the alcohol intake for harmful and hazardous drinkers in all except the most affluent socioeconomic groups—25 per cent of the alcohol intake is the very cheap, strong, high-volume stuff that will be affected by this legislation, putting up the price of a bottle of white cider from around £3 up to about £11. Therefore, minimum alcohol pricing has the potential to do the greatest amount of good in health terms, and also to the poorer sections of society who already have other adverse health indicators. And, as John Griffiths said, it reduces health inequalities.

Now, I know we'll have accusations of the nanny state—doctors always face that: 'This is the nanny state. What do the experts know?' 'There's no enjoyment left', some of my patients tell me when we were debating the smoking ban. 'There's no enjoyment left, doc. You'll ban sex next.' Well, no, we're talking about alcohol today. But we have been here before with the smoking ban. Big tobacco didn't want the smoking ban. Big alcohol doesn't want minimum unit alcohol pricing. There is a corollary. And I'm not saying, in closing, that minimum alcohol pricing will cure the problem of alcohol misuse, but it's part of a raft of measures that we must engage in to decrease the toll that alcohol exacts of Welsh society today. Diolch.

As we've heard, minimum pricing won't cut the intake of alcohol amongst problem drinkers. I think if—listening to what Dr Dai said then—basically, people will just choose shorts, which may even cause further problems.

I'm going to support the motion, and the reason I'm supporting it more than anything else—it's more of a cultural thing, which we find in this Assembly, because I find that we have a Labour Government whose AMs genuinely feel they know best for everyone, and as a result we see a restriction in choice across the board. You seek to restrict just who people can vote for at council elections. You seem to think that you have the ability to tell people how to bring their children up. And now you want to control how people drink. I feel there's a certain arrogance in that, and I simply—. [Interruption.] Well, I'll throw the question open here. I've been around the bars in Cardiff Bay, so come on, is there anyone here who doesn't drink too much on occasion? The issue here is, it's another—. I'll give way, Rhun, if you wish to interrupt. I'll give way.

I'm just making the point that I don't drink when I'm down in the Assembly, so, you know—.

Okay, thank you very much. But the point I'm making is, outside of working hours, I think we all know that people in this Chamber do drink too much. [Interruption.] It's a fact—with respect, it's a fact of life. It's a cultural thing. Is anyone here seriously saying that, on occasion, they don't drink too much? Be honest. Really? Okay. I'll remember that next Christmas.

I'll move on because what I see this as, more than anything else, is a tax on those with the lower incomes. Minister, chatting away there—I'm saying, if you want to listen, the Cabinet Secretary for health, what this is is a tax on the low paid. It's another Labour tax, and I certainly won't be supporting it.

I call on the Secretary for Health and Social Services, Vaughan Gething.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. I welcome the opportunity to respond to the issues raised in today's debate. We will be voting against the motion tabled by UKIP. We believe that this Bill will help to make a real difference in reducing hazardous and harmful levels of alcohol and drinking, and the harms this causes to communities across Wales.

The Public Health (Minimum Price for Alcohol) (Wales) Bill was introduced into this National Assembly on 23 October last year. It is already, as Suzy Davies has noted, the subject of a detailed and rigorous scrutiny process, as is the case with all legislation. Scrutiny will continue as the Bill progresses through Stage 3. I do not believe that today's grandstanding from UKIP and their fellow travellers should be allowed to torpedo this Assembly's scrutiny of this important piece of public health legislation.

There is a strong policy rationale for introducing a minimum price for alcohol in Wales. A commitment to legislate in this area has featured in the last two Plaid Cymru manifestos—that not just the Plaid Cymru group stood on, of course—and I'm grateful to both Rhun ap Iorwerth and Dai Lloyd for their sensible and constructive speeches, in particular the case made by Dai Lloyd for the harm caused by alcohol on the imperative to act. It is also, of course, a long-standing commitment of this Government. It is backed by international evidence that confirms that the price of alcohol does matter. And as we heard the Chair of the health committee refer to evidence submitted, the Federal Office of Public Health in Switzerland, who did respond to the Stage 1 evidence, highlighted the impacts of a decrease in the cost of spirits led to a direct and almost immediate increase in consumption. There is an undeniable relationship between the price of alcohol and the amount that we drink, and there is also, of course, as we heard from Dai Lloyd and John Griffiths, a strong relationship between the amount that someone drinks and the harm that they experience. This Bill is a part of helping to reduce those harms. And I do accept that the evidence base for introducing this legislation is based on the modelled impacts, but the evidence is as comprehensive and persuasive as it can be, and I do have confidence in the analysis undertaken by the University of Sheffield. It is the same evidence base that the Scottish Parliament acted on to introduce their legislation on a minimum unit price.

We have, of course, consulted twice on the introduction of a minimum unit price for alcohol—once in 2014, as part of a public health White Paper, and once in 2015, as part of a draft Bill, when I was the then Deputy Minister for health—and both times the Welsh Government’s intention to bring forward this public health measure has been well received. That was also the case at the end of last year with the evidence provided during Stage 1 scrutiny of this Bill. As I have said on a number of occasions during the scrutiny of the Bill, we will also consult again on the proposed level of a minimum unit price, should this Assembly pass the Bill.

The health committee heard powerful evidence from both service providers and from experts within the field of public health. There has been considerable support from stakeholders in England, not just doctors but a range of other stakeholders, and they hope, as do I, that the UK Government will finally follow the example being set here in Wales and in Scotland. This legislation takes a sensible and targeted approach to a very real and evident problem in Wales today.

Like so many other western countries, here in Wales we have a problem with cheap, strong, readily available alcohol. We see the effects of harmful drinking every day in our NHS, in our workplaces, in communities, and in families. Published research this year shows that hazardous and harmful drinkers in Wales make up 28 per cent of the drinking population, but they consumed three quarters of all alcohol. In 2015-16 alone, there were 54,000 hospital admissions in Wales attributed to alcohol. Direct healthcare costs attributed to alcohol amount to an estimated £159 million a year. When Neil Hamilton read out figures and statistics about the harm caused, I'll repeat again what I said from my seat: over 500 people die every year because of alcohol. There is a powerful reason to act, and every one—every one—of those deaths was preventable. I have never said, though, that this legislation will be a panacea—far from it—but it will be one more way to help us to tackle and prevent alcohol-related harm. We already invest almost £50 million a year to support people with substance misuse issues. Almost half of this funding goes directly to the seven area planning boards, who commission substance misuse services for their region, and a further £18 million is ring-fenced for substance misuse services within health boards.

During Stage 1 and Stage 2 of the passage of this Bill, a number of issues have been raised and debated, particularly in relation to the impacts of this legislation on particular groups within society, on the importance of providing services to those who need help and support, and the importance of considering the impacts of a minimum unit price on moderate drinkers and low-income households. The evidence that we do have from the modelling undertaken by the University of Sheffield shows that moderate drinkers will be largely unaffected by the introduction of a minimum unit price. Moderate drinkers typically do not drink large amounts of alcohol, and are less likely to drink cheap, high-strength alcohol.

We do expect there will be an impact on people in low-income households who drink at hazardous and harmful levels. This is, of course, the area where we expect the largest health gains to be made. People with the least resources who drink at harmful levels are much more likely to experience alcohol-related illness, requiring long-term and significant healthcare. They are also much more likely to die from their drinking. The most recent figures show that people in our least well-off communities are nearly three times as likely to die from alcohol as people in our most advantaged communities.

Will the Minister give way?

Yes.

I'm grateful. He will be aware that, if we are able through this Bill and other measures to reduce the amount of strong alcohol that people are taking and move people into more—if I can put it in a roundabout way—healthy ways of drinking, we will have succeeded in reducing the harm that comes from alcohol. The Bill is one way of doing that. Another way, of course, is to have more low-alcohol drinks being sold, lower alcohol drinks, particularly beers and ciders and so forth. That takes us into the UK Government's and particularly the Advertising Standards Authority's rules, which, at the moment, stop us promoting, if you like, better ways of drinking or alternative ways at least for people to be more aware of that. Is that something that he is encouraging the UK Government to have a discussion on, to go hand in hand with this legislation?

Yes. We've already written to the Advertising Standards Authority about a range of matters, and officials do continue to have a dialogue, not just about this Bill but about a wider suite of measures to try and change individual behaviour, but also within the alcohol industry itself, because it's actually not that long ago that most beers, lagers and ciders sold in pubs were significantly less strong than they are now. They're about 20 per cent stronger on a regular basis now in every pub that we drink in. And referring to the figures on health inequalities, we should not simply stand by and ignore that level of health inequality that already exists.

Last Thursday, we completed Stage 2 proceedings on this Bill, and I have listened carefully to the debates that we have had so far, and I do plan to work with Members in other parties over the coming weeks to see where we can work together to address some of the issues raised, particularly around the need to promote awareness of the legislation and post-legislative scrutiny. Members will, of course, have a further opportunity to debate the Bill at Stage 3 and a final vote at Stage 4.

Minimum pricing for alcohol is not a silver bullet. It is part of our wider approach to reduce alcohol consumption and to promote a healthier relationship with alcohol. We should use all levers available to us to support people in Wales to develop that healthier relationship with alcohol and end the sad reality that far too many people die from drink.

Minimum pricing is both novel and groundbreaking, and it can, of course, divide opinion. That is exactly why we have included sunset and review provisions in the Bill, and they have been widely endorsed and I'm sure, as Suzy Davies indicated, we'll continue to debate them throughout Stage 3. I look forward to Stage 3, Llywydd, and hopefully Stage 4, and the continued scrutiny of this significant piece of public health legislation.

I call Neil Hamilton to reply to the debate. 

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Well, it's been an interesting debate and I'm grateful to everybody who took part, especially the two Members who supported the motion—my colleague Gareth Bennett and Neil McEvoy on the other side of the Chamber. I think that Neil McEvoy did make an important point that we in this house are legislating for others, and there is a general attitude, I think, that we know best and we know what's best for the masses. That's true of all what we might call 'nanny state' innovations of this kind. We can apply the same logic, of course, to other unhealthy practices, like eating too much fatty food or fast food. We could apply the same argument to participation in dangerous sports and all sorts of other activities as well that could produce harm to individuals and a cost to society, but in a free society I think we should be very slow to use legislative powers in order to do that.

I do have a great deal of sympathy with the Plaid amendments. Apart from 'delete all', we can support them. Of course it's sensible that we should have proper evaluation of the effects of this legislation and have the best possible data that is available before it is finally put on the statute book—a point that was made by Rhun ap Iorwerth and Simon Thomas, and very sensible points they are. Modelling will only take you so far, because it's a case of garbage in and garbage out. And in the case of studies mentioned by Dai Lloyd like the Saskatchewan study, the situation in Canada is very different because they have a state alcohol monopoly and the state has powers of control over the access to alcohol in a way that it doesn't have here. So, these international comparisons do have to be treated with a certain degree of circumspection.

Rhun ap Iorwerth hinted in his contribution that, as far as Plaid Cymru is concerned, this 50p minimum unit price that has been suggested is too low and we need to think about having a much higher figure than that—

Will you take an intervention? I said the complete opposite, actually.

I misunderstood in that case, but that was what I thought was the gravamen of your remarks.

Nobody's arguing that demand can't be influenced by price, and therefore the higher the tax, at certain levels, there's bound to be an impact on demand. But the key question is: who is going to be most affected by the increase in the price? Is it going to be people who are moderate drinkers or only occasional drinkers or those who have a greater dependence on alcohol? I'm not talking just about alcoholics here, I'm talking about people for whom alcohol matters more in their daily lives as a form of amusement, entertainment, enjoyment—call it what you will—than others. It seems to be vanishingly implausible that, at a level of 50p per unit price minimum, there's going to be any substantial inroad to the number of people who are described as hazardous drinkers.

The official definition of 'binge drinking', let me say, is somebody who is a male and drinks eight units per day, which is the equivalent of five glasses of wine. So, if you have five glasses of wine in one session, I'm afraid you are a binge drinker according to the official statisticians, and these are the figures that the Government relies on. So, when we're talking about hazardous drinking, we have to recognise that this is a very subjective term. I don't, personally, believe that drinking five glasses of wine exposes me, in reality, to any hazards at all. I probably drink that most days, actually—I'll happily admit—and it doesn't make me any less coherent or worth listening to. Perhaps, in fact, it makes me more worth listening to.

John Griffiths described, in the course of his speech, some of the ill effects of alcohol, the same as Dai Lloyd, who spoke eloquently about the medical aspects of excessive alcohol consumption, but that really isn't the issue here. The issue is whether this legislation is well enough targeted and going to be effective to produce the results that they would like to see. I think, what we're dealing with here are cultural problems more than economic problems, and attitudes towards alcohol and the speed at which you consume it are very important in the mix of argument here. I see no reason why the general public, for whom alcohol is not a problem—they don't create problems for society generally—should have to pay more for their enjoyment in order to have a very, very moderate or minor impact upon the statistics.

Rhun ap Iorwerth rose—

Do I have time to give way, Llywydd? I'm happy to. I think not. I would like to have given way, but I'm afraid I can't.

Suzy Davies asked me why we're having this debate again, when we've already had a general debate on the Bill. But, there is a need, I think, to continue to argue the general case for this Bill, even though there will be other opportunities in the passage of the legislation. This is our motion. It expresses what we think are the main points and if it were to pass, then it would, of course, kibosh the Bill. It isn't going to pass, I recognise that, but nevertheless, the arguments that I've made today, I think, are worth repeating. And with that, I encourage as many Members as possible to join us.

The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] I will defer voting under this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.