You will all recall that we passed this legislation in the Senedd last year. Similar legislation has been operational in Scotland for over a year, and a recent survey, which was published over the past few days, suggests that the policy has been a sweeping success in reducing the amount of alcohol that people in Scotland, even, drink.
This is a lie. There is no evidence that minimum pricing had any effect on the amount of alcohol consumed in Scotland, but it is this kind of garbage that has persuaded Welsh politicians to go ahead with the same regressive measure.
It was announced today that minimum pricing (at 50p per unit) will begin in Wales on March 2nd. Welsh drinkers should therefore stock up at the end of February, but most of the population will not be too far away from alcohol sold at the market price in any case. And the Severn Bridge toll was helpfully abolished last year.
As always those helpful folk at the Sheffield Alcohol Research Group have given some specific predictions of what will happen in the first year of minimum pricing. They include:
- A 3.6 per cent fall in per capita alcohol consumption
- 22 fewer units consumed per capita per annum, rising to 69 units for the poorest drinkers
- 591 fewer alcohol-related hospital admissions
- 31 fewer alcohol-related deaths
- 2,093 fewer alcohol-related crimes
Let's sit back, wait, and see if any of that happens, shall we?
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