Alcohol Abuse (Young People) (Hansard, 14 May 2002)

§ Jim Sheridan (West Renfrewshire)
I am delighted to have the opportunity to raise the issue of binge drinking and its effect on youngsters, and to share with other hon. Members my experiences and concerns.
Binge drinking is a problem with proven links to many of the more serious aspects of antisocial behaviour in our communities. The debate is important because it will consider many issues associated with binge drinking, such as teenage drinking. As we know, our teenagers are tomorrow's policy makers. A recent report on behalf of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, by Communities That Care, covered some 14,000 secondary schools throughout England, Scotland and Wales. It stated that the widespread misuse of alcohol among under-age drinkers cannot safely be ignored by parents or policy makers. Alcohol Concern stated that the report is the latest in a series of studies indicating that young people are drinking worrying amounts of alcohol". It adds that drinking among teenagers is linked to antisocial behaviour and the use of other drugs.
The following figures from a survey show the scale of binge drinking among British teenagers. Up to 25 per cent. of 13 and 1-year-olds claim to have downed at least five alcoholic drinks in a single session. That figure rises to 50 per cent. of all 15 and 16-year-olds. Some 27 per cent. of 15 and 16-year-olds reported going on three or more binges in the past month. The survey also found that 9 per cent. of boys and 5 per cent. of 11 and 12-year-old girls describe themselves as regular drinkers. Those figures rise to 39 per cent. of boys and 33 per cent. of girls aged 15 to 16. The majority of children surveyed stated that their parents would think it wrong for them to steal or to use illegal drugs. but the proportion who said that their parents would object to under-age drinking declined significantly.

§ Mr. John Lyons (Strathkelvin and Bearsden)
I should point out to my hon. Friend that most research shows that young people do not regard themselves at as risk from alcohol. According to various surveys in Scotland and the rest of the UK, education for children about alcohol is almost non-existent in some schools. Perhaps some attention can be given to that in this debate.

§ Jim Sheridan
My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I shall deal with education later.
The national picture gives cause for concern, given the association of binge drinking with criminal activities committed by teenage drinkers. Some 10 per cent. of schoolchildren admitted that they had committed burglary, and 25 per cent. of 15 to 16-year-olds admitted to carrying offensive weapons. The report's findings simply replicated the conclusion of earlier reports that British teenagers are more likely to get drunk than their European contemporaries. Some researchers would claim that that is attributable to a more relaxed attitude to alcohol use in Britain. 753 In a recent case in Stirling, three boys aged between 10 and 12 were admitted to Stirling royal infirmary, suffering from the effects of alcohol. The two boys aged 12 were described as suffering from drowsiness and vomiting. The condition of the 10-year-old boy gave greater cause for concern. His body temperature had to be raised, as it was dangerously low. Coupled with severe vomiting, his condition could have led to cardiac arrest. Police in Stirling are still trying to discover who supplied the boys with alcohol—and therein lies another problem.
Consumer advocates and anti-alcohol groups have recently called for regulations to place stricter controls on the marketing to teenagers of fruit-flavoured alcoholic drinks. Such drinks are known as alcopops and are designed to appeal to the younger drinker. The groups say that the new hard lemonades and other fruit-flavoured malt beverages are primarily targeted at teenage consumers. Alcopop drinks are clearly child-oriented products that are designed to get children to consume alcohol at an early age. The complaint called for an investigation into whether labelling and marketing of fruit-flavoured alcoholic beverages could be construed as unfair marketing practice under law. In response to the complaints, drinks manufacturers and distributors stated: It's ridiculous to suggest that the flavour of a drink is what stands between a teen abiding by the law or illegally breaking the law.
The chief executive of the charity Communities That Care recently called for urgent Government action to spearhead a joined-up approach by all agencies to provide support for young people, addressing drinking and other problematic factors that contribute to their lifestyle. A recent World Health Organisation report stated that one in eight deaths among young men in the UK are caused by alcohol abuse. While children in most European countries are given wine with their meals by their parents in an effort to encourage responsible alcohol consumption, most British children cannot wait to reach the legal age to drink in order to emulate the drinking habits of their parents. The report states: While we are developing a growing appreciation of wine and food, we are still a nation that does most of its glass raising just before closing time.
Older British drinkers have developed a last drink syndrome, in which they have a ritual that when last orders are called at the bar, they order two drinks or more just to squeeze in a final one for the road. That means that they are attempting to swallow two pints in the time that they would normally only drink half a pint. That quick intake means that they get drunk and stagger out into the night to get involved in brawls and fights in late-night carry-out shops and taxi ranks, leading to more public disorder.
The British Entertainment and Discotheque Association, a representative body for late-night venues with more than 1,000 members across the UK, has been heavily involved in the debate on binge drinking and the impact that alcohol discounting has on the late-night environment in our communities. It is calling for a solution to the problem that still gives operators some freedom to offer promotions while removing the ability to offer the deep discounts and irresponsible promotions that cause so much trouble in our communities.
The British drinker does not know how to drink sensibly. As my hon. Friend the Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Lyons) said, we need a programme to 754 educate and inform the British public about sensible drinking and the horrific problems associated with binge drinking. To that end, I welcome the current initiative from the Scottish Executive to attempt to provide such a programme for the people of Scotland. I ask that the Government give serious and urgent consideration to a similar programme throughout the UK.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Dr. Kim Howells)
I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire (Jim Sheridan) for raising those important issues. As he pointed out, all hon. Members are rightly concerned about the welfare of children, and alcohol abuse by the young is a vitally important issue for every parent. He has spoken eloquently about matters that are causing a great deal of anxiety in all our constituencies.
The protection of our children is one of the key purposes of licensing law and is a primary aim of licensing reform and the modernisation for which I am now responsible as a Minister. I am pleased to have the opportunity to reply to this debate, because we have a very good story to tell of positive steps taken since 1997 to tackle directly the problems associated with under-age drinking.
The issues affect many Departments, as my hon. Friend suggested. They need joined-up government and joined-up thinking. The Home Office is actively addressing alcohol-related crime and drunkenness on the streets involving the young. The Department of Health is concerned about sensible drinking by all of us, but especially by the young. It is developing a national alcohol strategy that will embrace many of the issues that I will mention this evening. The Department for Education and Skills includes alcohol education in the national curriculum as part of general teaching about substance misuse, which is another point that my hon. Friend made. The Department of Trade and Industry regulates the advertising, marketing and packaging of alcoholic beverages, which can be made overly attractive to the young. Customs and Excise is actively seeking to prevent smuggled alcohol being sold on the cheap to kids and adults. In the terrible example that my hon. Friend gave, the alcohol may have come from such a source, because streets in some areas are awash with it. The Treasury has changed the duty rates on mixed drinks made of spirits mixed with soft fruit drinks so that they are now taxed as spirits rather than wine. This will make them more expensive and less accessible to the very young.
We in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are responsible for the licensing laws and the age at which alcohol may be purchased in England and Wales. Moreover, the Scottish Executive and the Northern Ireland Office have a similar role in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Hon. Members will recall that the Government came to power in 1997 promising to tackle the problem of alcopops. It was an issue of great concern to many parents, and a very worrying trend. Working closely with the Portman Group, we called upon producers and suppliers of alcohol to discharge their social responsibilities with regard to the problem of under-age drinking. A range of additional controls within the 755 Portman Group's code of practice were introduced and had a significant impact on the merchandising and packaging of alcoholic drinks.
The number of complaints made to the Portman Group's independent panel about the marketing of alcohol to children and its packaging has now dwindled to almost nothing. That is an achievement of which the Portman Group and the Government should be proud.
In 1999, we gave our wholehearted support to the private Member's Bill presented by hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell), following the tragic death of his 14-year-old constituent, David Knowles. The Licensing (Young Persons) Act 2000 closed a loophole in the main licensing statutes that had allowed some staff in licensed premises to sell alcohol to children without fear of prosecution or conviction. The Act also introduced for the first time a new offence that prevents adults hanging around off-licences from buying alcohol on behalf of minors. We know that there are clear links between that and the sale of other drugs.
In April 2000, the Government included a raft of measures to tackle under-age purchase and consumption of alcohol in the White Paper entitled "Time for Reform." My hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire has urged us to implement these reforms at the first opportunity. Although I know that many in the House would have liked us to move more swiftly on reform generally, we certainly cannot be criticised for any delay on the measures regarding children.
The White Paper proposals will tackle under-age drinking. They were given priority ahead of general reform and were included in the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001. Three crucial measures have been brought into force since last year's general election.
On 1 December last year, the test purchasing of alcohol was put on a statutory footing for the first time in England and Wales, bringing it into line with the arrangements for tobacco. Trading standards officers can now send minors into licensed premises to attempt to buy alcohol. This is a valuable deterrent that has heightened the risk of detection and prosecution for those unscrupulous traders making profit out of causing harm to our children.
The Act also placed a new positive duty on licensees and their staff in England and Wales not to sell alcohol to children. The defences that can be mounted against prosecutions have been amended, and it has been made easier for enforcement agencies to secure convictions. Retailers now know that in the case of any doubt about age they simply should not make the sale.
The Act has also made it easier for local authorities to designate areas in their towns and cities where alcohol may not be consumed publicly, and it has expanded the powers of the police to confiscate alcohol carried by children in those areas.
As I made clear at the outset, licensing law can only be one element of a much wider strategy. Data from research sponsored by the Portman Group strongly suggest that children are obtaining a great deal of cheap alcohol from unlicensed individuals peddling smuggled alcohol. This is a cynical trade, with little regard for the consequences for the young and, indeed, for parents. The Government have stepped up their campaign to defeat the bootleggers, with the Treasury providing more customs officers dedicated to detecting those involved.
756 Our wider strategy includes the work of the Departments for Education and Skills and of Health and the Portman Group in providing more health education resources for children and parents to learn about sensible drinking. I was shocked to hear my hon. Friend say that some schools in Scotland provide no education about alcohol, and I hope that those schools will realise that that is vital work. A great deal of research shows that most of the alcohol obtained and consumed by minors is provided by their parents, and public education to change some of our entrenched attitudes is essential.
A great deal has been and is being done in the public and private sectors relating to licensing, health and education. However, I emphasise that there are no easy or quick fixes when it comes to under-age drinking. Education, as my hon. Friend suggested, lies at the heart of much of the problem. By the time children are in their teenage years, bad habits will often have been formed. We need to reach them earlier, as we have done with some success—although it is by no means complete success—on tobacco. I acknowledge that there is a great deal more that we can do regarding the general reform of licensing. Our laws are archaic and incomprehensible to many parents.
My hon. Friend talked about binge drinking. When, over the 2001–02 new year period, I managed to get the Regulatory Reform (Special Occasions Licensing) Order 2001 through the House to extend drinking hours to 36 hours, the police informed us that it was the quietest new year's eve they could remember, with the least amount of violence. My hon. Friend is right to point out that although binge drinking may not result in fights inside pubs or even outside those pubs, it certainly results in violence in the fast-food outlets where people steam in when they are thrown out of the pub, usually at the same time and in their hundreds.
Minors cannot purchase alcohol in pubs and nightclubs, but children as young as five can lawfully consume alcohol in pub gardens and some family rooms. Consumption is prohibited only in the area of licensed premises known as "the bar". This also means that children aged over four can, in theory, drink alcohol freely in a licensed restaurant that has no bar. We must not be fooled by the counter from which drinks are supplied in a restaurant—that is often not a bar as understood in the law. These are archaic and complex areas of the law, and it is no wonder that most parents find it all utterly confusing. We intend to sort all this out through the general reform of licensing law, and a Bill will be introduced as soon as parliamentary time permits.
Once again, I thank my hon Friend for raising these important matters for debate and for giving us the opportunity to set out our approach to them. If we do not sort these matters out, I fear for the future of many of our young people and also for the future of communities like the ones in which I and many colleagues here tonight grew up. This problem undermines the social cohesion that has made those communities such remarkable and good places in which to raise children. This is a very serious issue and I hope that I have shown my hon. Friend that the Government are taking it very seriously.