Dr Evelyn Gillan: Time to lift our national alcohol burden

For a long time, it appeared that Westminster would not be following Scotland’s lead in introducing minimum unit pricing, favouring instead a ban on below-cost selling.

It is to the coalition’s credit that, having examined the evidence, it rejected this measure on the basis that the price of the vast majority of products would not be affected.

One of the arguments against minimum pricing is that price is not the main issue; that we need to tackle our peculiarly British drinking culture. Comparisons with France and Spain are inevitably made. But what people are missing is that widely available cheap alcohol is part of our culture. If we want to change culture then increasing the price of the cheapest alcohol is a good place to start.

With the rest of the world looking on, this is the time to demonstrate that we can take meaningful action to reduce the burden of alcohol harm that affects families and communities across the country.

l Dr Evelyn Gillan is chief executive of Alcohol Focus Scotland