Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) Continuation and future pricing: Equality Impact Assessment - Results

Recommendations and Conclusion

It is expected that the continuation of MUP at 65ppu will have a positive impact overall at the population level. In particular the increased price – as set out in Sheffield University’s “New modelling of alcohol pricing policies, alcohol consumption and harm in Scotland” - is expected to reduce alcohol specific deaths and hospitalisations wholly attributable to alcohol.

The evaluation of MUP shows that MUP has had a positive impact on health outcomes, including addressing alcohol-related health inequalities. There was evidence that it reduced deaths directly caused by alcohol consumption by an estimated 13.4% and likely to have reduced hospital admissions by an estimated 4.1% up to the end of 2020, compared with if MUP was not in place. The largest reductions were seen in men and those living in the 40% most deprived areas.^[20] This evaluation has been commended by public health experts in terms of its approach and conclusions and is considered to be a robust assessment of the impact of MUP.

A price rise to 65ppu will likely enhance the impacts that were observed at 50ppu. Although there is no evidence which looks at the anticipated impact of the price increase across the protected characteristics specifically, demographics of different groups that consume alcohol at different levels provides an indication of the potential impacts on some groups with protected characteristics. For instance, the increase in price is expected to lead to increased positive effects of the policy than at the current price of 50ppu, i.e. older age groups and men, who consume higher than average amounts of alcohol, are likely to experience increased positive effects than groups who tend to consume less alcohol.

In addition to this summary of equalities considerations, the Scottish Government has considered a range of evidence on the potential effects of the continuation and price increase of MUP. Further detail and evidence is set out in the Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA).