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.