Budget 2024: No time to make alcohol cheaper
BUDGET 2024 is no time to make alcohol cheaper with alcohol deaths, hospital admissions, liver disease and cancers rising.
That is the call to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt from North East health programme Fresh and Balance, warning that the toll of ill health from alcohol has been fuelled by making it cheaper and more available over a decade.
Alcohol is a group one carcinogen and a direct cause of at least seven types of cancer. However despite almost 1 MILLION alcohol-related hospital admissions a year and record levels of alcohol deaths, alcohol duty was frozen in the Autumn statement until 1 August 2024 with no increase in duty on beer, cider, wine or spirits.
Ailsa Rutter OBE, Director of Fresh and Balance, the North East tobacco and alcohol programme, said: “Like tobacco, alcohol is taking a massive toll on the country’s physical and mental health. We have welcomed bold action on smoking but where is any meaningful action to reduce alcohol harm?
“At present you can drink nearly a week’s alcohol units for around £5 which is a shameful situation. We need consistent action to tackle the affordability and promotion of harmful and unhealthy products and action has been severely lacking when it comes to alcohol.
“Right now, you would never guess both tobacco and alcohol are harmful, cancer causing products. Two thirds of all alcohol sales in the UK are to heavy drinkers and this harm will continue to get worse without action.”
Evidence shows that action on price is one of the most effective mechanisms for tackling alcohol harms and this is not limited to alcohol duty – experience from Scotland has shown that Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) for alcohol has saved and improved hundreds of lives since it was introduced in 2018, reducing deaths caused solely by alcohol by 13.4% – or sparing an estimated 156 families a year the loss of a loved one.
The Scottish Government recently announced plans to increase the minimum price to 65p per unit, with the aim of consolidating the effectiveness of the policy – demonstrating once again the glaring contrast with England, where action on alcohol has been notably absent and with the North East suffering from the most severe alcohol harms.
Balance in November launched the brand new “Alcohol is Toxic” campaign to warn alcohol is a direct cause of 7 types of cancer – including bowel, breast, liver throat and mouth cancer.
Cancer Research UK has estimated alcohol was linked to 740,000 new cancer cases globally in 2020 including 17,000 cases of cancer in the UK.
The World Health Organisation warns there is “no safe amount” of alcohol for health with the risks starting from the first drop.