Eddie Barnes: Yet another policy hits the buffers

Published on Wednesday 22 September 2010 19:26

AND so another one bites the dust. The SNP government will plough on to the bitter end with its plan to set a minimum price on alcohol. But the decision by the health committee to vote down Nicola Sturgeon's compromise "sunset clause" shows there is no appetite among opposition MSPs for it in any form. It is going to be voted down.

This is yet another blow to Alex Salmond, which will further help the SNP's opponents to characterise his administration as ineffectual and unproductive.

Get ready over the coming months to hear a roll-call of the SNP policies which have hit the buffers: the independence referendum, the Local Income Tax, the abolition of student debt, the commitment to class sizes of 18, and now minimum pricing.

Mr Salmond has successfully navigated his way as a minority government for four years. The question that will be asked of him, however, is to what end?

Critics argue that the SNP's attempt to push minimum pricing into law showed up numerous flaws in their approach to government. The policy emerged from nowhere only after the party got into power, when justice secretary Kenny MacAskill announced that a crackdown was required. He proceeded to charge ahead with a range of measures - including the plan to raise the age limit to 21 - in a move which quickly created a stand-off with the drinks trade. Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon was then asked to take over as the government sought to make it an issue about public health.

Sturgeon's approach was more subtle, and her offer of a six-year trial period was wise. But in the end it wasn't enough to win the day.

The only prize left for Sturgeon is to claim a moral victory as the party which had the guts to raise the issue of problem drinking in Scotland for the first time. The SNP will also try to make the case that Labour has come up with little by way of a Scottish specific alternative.

All this to-ing and fro-ing may soon be ancient history, however, if at Westminster, coalition ministers press ahead with a UK-wide scheme to create a new "floor price" for alcohol, whereby drink cannot be sold for less than its duty, VAT and production costs.