Analysis: Health effects might win Labour over

THE only clear reason that Labour would appear to be opposed to minimum pricing is because it could be viewed as a policy that would cost the working class more money.

However, most individual Labour Party members in Scotland will probably think the pluses outweigh the minuses, due to the health benefits.

But there’s an important question about where the money from the increased prices will go and this is an issue that doesn’t appear to be clear at the moment. The Scottish Government doesn’t seem to have yet come up with a device to make sure all the money doesn’t simply go to supermarkets.

Labour is likely to come over on this issue eventually on the grounds of health, as measures such as those to restrict pub opening hours clearly have not worked in terms of dealing with Scotland’s acohol problems.

This will particularly be the case if Labour sees that the health benefits of the policy is starting to help the SNP.

In this situation, Labour in Scotland has to be careful it’s not on the wrong side of the argument.

One of the reasons for the delays with this policy is the prospect of a legal challenge.

The danger of people smuggling cheap alcohol from parts of England to Scotland could be another reason for the delay, with the government thinking through the legislation as much as it possibly can.

But on the issue of potential different minimum prices in England and Scotland, we’ll eventually start to see both countries moving in the same direction and the price will tend to converge after a while.

• Trevor Salmon is a professor of politics at the University of Aberdeen