SNP tries to avoid alcohol crackdown U-turn

Published on Sunday 22 February 2009 22:25

HAVING seen the Scottish Government drop its plans for a local income tax, opposition MSPs are watching closely to find out what is going to happen with the next most contentious piece of government business – the crackdown on alcohol sales.

Justice secretary Kenny MacAskill was due to publish the legislation on alcohol at the beginning of February, but that announcement has been put back and put back, and is now due at the start of March.

Mr MacAskill originally proposed a blanket ban on anybody under the age of 21 buying alcohol from a shop, minimum pricing for drink and separate alcohol checkouts in every shop.

Those plans initiated a storm of criticism during the consultation process, with students in particular mobilising strongly against the proposals.

There has been much speculation about the reasons for the delay in bringing forward the detailed plans, with many opposition MSPs now convinced that Mr MacAskill is trying to amend his plans sufficiently to get enough support for them, while still retaining the elements of the crackdown he is desperate to bring forward.

It has been suggested by some sources that Mr MacAskill may still try to bring forward the under-21 ban, but that he will make local licensing boards responsible for deciding whether it should be enforced in each area. This would allow him to say he has stuck by his principle by handing the difficult part over to others.

However, there are significant problems with other parts of the proposals – not least the plan to charge businesses for the social problems associated with alcohol.

There are now indications that this could be dropped, as well as the plan for separate checkouts for alcohol. Mr MacAskill apparently still wants to pursue minimum pricing, but there are issues with this too – not least because of the problems of restricting internet trade from England.

Coming so soon after the local income tax U-turn, Mr MacAskill will not want to be the one who makes another big reversal in government policy, so he will be desperate to keep at least some of his plans intact.

If he succeeds, he will have reversed the trend of U-turns and policy reversals that started with the local income tax. If he fails, it will start to look as if that trend has become a crisis. Maybe it is not so surprising after all that Mr MacAskill needs more time to get his plans right.