“I don’t necessarily disagree with minimum pricing, but I think minimum pricing needs to be looked at not necessarily in the pubs and the clubs,” he said.
“Pricing on Guernsey in the pubs and the clubs is already massively expensive. We’re on a par with places like London, Manchester, it’s just as expensive to drink here, if not more expensive than it is in these high end places in London and Manchester.
“I think the issue we’re having is the availability of really cheap alcohol from supermarkets, and we’re seeing a culture at the moment, well not just at the moment but from even when I was 18, we’d all drink at home first because we could get cheap alcohol from supermarkets. But even then I don’t think there is a massive drinking problem on the island. People enjoy socially drinking, and if we look at the comments from the States meeting of those 514 people (arrests made during 2018) that were intoxicated, if you break that down then that’s nine people per week taken into custody. And not all of those nine people would have been drinking in town. Compared to most places all over the world, I think that figure is pretty low.”
Mr Lock said he can’t remember the last time he saw multiple people being arrested in the Pollet area for drink related offences.
“I just don’t see these people in town,” he said. “There are issues in town, there is no denying that, but there are going to be issues in towns all over the world where there are pubs and clubs, it’s just a given.”
Mr Lock said a culture known as ‘pre-drinking’ has developed into a much bigger social occasion over recent years.
“As the years have gone by, and alcohol has become more expensive, people are just going out later and later and later.
“They’re spending more time in an uncontrolled environment, drinking as much as they want, and we see people earlier on in the night now, around 10 or 11 o’clock, being dropped off in the Pollet, and they’re already to the point looking at them going ‘I don’t think this person should come in tonight’ because they’ve already had enough and they’ve only just got to town.”
Pictured: Luna Bar is in the Pollet.
The idea of a minimum pricing increase for alcohol sales was mooted in the States last week, by the President of Home Affairs, Deputy Mary Lowe. She was commenting on the Law Enforcement annual report which had included statistics on the number of arrests made while the person was under the influence of alcohol.
While law enforcement comes under Home Affairs, any changes to the way alcohol sales are managed would come from the Committee for Health and Social Care as it is responsible for the Drug & Alcohol Strategy.
The Drug & Alcohol Strategy Action Plan covers the years 2015 to 2020, and includes the aim of ‘reducing the availability of cheap, heavily-discounted alcohol and irresponsible promotions through increases in duty on alcohol products’. While there is not, currently, a specific direction on the setting of excise duty on alcohol, since 2014 the Policy & Resources Committee has recommended an increase of 5% per annum. This has similarly been proposed within the 2020 Budget.
In a statement, HSC said while it is ‘recognised that excise duties can go some way in discouraging excessive consumption and changing individual choices, it can be somewhat of a blunt instrument, notwithstanding steps over recent years to introduce higher excise duty rates on very high strength alcohols, when compared to more targeted policies such as Minimum Unit Pricing (“MUP”).’
Comparisons have been drawn between Guernsey and Scotland where MUP is already in place. It was implemented at 50 pence per unit in May 2018 and is due to come into force in Wales in March 2020.
Early modelling suggested a reduction in alcohol consumption in Scotland following the introduction of 50 pence per unit MUP would be around 3.5% for each drinker annually.
Pictured: The States of Guernsey already add duty on to both cigarettes and alcohol each year through the Budget. However, there could be moves made to increase the minimum price charged for alcohol units taking it above the current duty levels.
The Committee for Health & Social Care says that since assuming responsibility for the Drug & Alcohol Strategy in 2017, it has sought to ‘best understand the steps that government, and the wider community can take to reduce the harms associated with alcohol misuse’.
This has included consideration of the current approach towards excise duty and the impact of a MUP. Research conducted earlier this year illustrated that, given the relatively high baseline prices locally, were a MUP set locally at 50 pence per unit, it would affect 49% of products. Notably, it would increase the cost of the cheapest products, typically cheap ciders, by around 20%. It would only be by increasing the MUP to 70 pence per unit that the majority of the products sampled in the research would be affected.
Pictured: Deputy Heidi Soulsby, President of HSC.
HSC says other approaches to reducing the availability of low cost alcohol should also be considered, including a similar move made in Scotland prior to MUP which saw multi-buys and special offers banned.
HSC says that is an approach it could consider locally. ‘However such a decision should be made in a structured way to ensure the right policies are being adopted in the right way, for the right reasons’.
Deputy Soulsby, President of the Committee for Health & Social Care said:
“Through the Partnership of Purpose, the States of Guernsey unanimously approved a “health in all policies” approach and it is vital that Committees work together to create an environment which best supports health and wellbeing. It is premature at this stage to determine whether this includes the introduction of a MUP but careful consideration will be paid to this, and other options, as part of the development of a Substance Misuse Strategy.