Minimum unit pricing of alcohol: analysis of consultation responses

2. Introduction

The Scottish Parliament passed legislation in 2012 which allows the Scottish Ministers to introduce a system of minimum unit pricing for alcohol. The legislation was then challenged in court, and this delayed the implementation of this important public health policy. On 15 November 2017, the UK Supreme Court confirmed that the legislation which allows minimum unit pricing to be introduced is lawful.

The Scottish Government plans to introduce minimum unit pricing for alcohol on 1 May 2018. Before this is introduced, the Scottish Ministers ran a public consultation from 1 December 2017 to 26 January 2018 on the proposed price of 50 pence per unit. The preparation, evaluation and revision of food law requires a consultation to take place under EC Article 9 of Regulation 178/2002, and the fixing of a minimum unit price of 50 pence falls within this requirement. The consultation asked "We invite comments on the proposed minimum price of 50 pence per unit which is set out in the draft Scottish Statutory Instrument at Annex A." The consultation was carried out through the Citizen Space online portal although some responses were received by email. Published responses will be available through the Citizen Space portal.

This report sets out the responses received to the consultation and provides an analysis of these. The findings presented summarise the views of those who participated in the consultation. Given that this was a self-selected group, these findings should not be seen as representing the views of the wider population. This report aims to provide a balanced account of the views submitted by respondents. However, the findings only provide a relatively high-level summary of a range of more detailed responses.