Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) Continuation and future pricing: Island Communities Impact Assessment

Step Four – Assessment:

The islands tend to have slightly lower levels of hazardous and harmful drinking as well as lower mean units of weekly alcohol consumption compared to Scotland as a whole, but there is nothing to suggest the intended outcomes of MUP differ in the islands, therefore no unique impacts on islands communities have been identified and no potential barriers or wider impacts have been identified.

Following the implementation of MUP in 2018, Public Health Scotland led a wide-ranging, comprehensive, five-year evaluation of MUP^[10]. A final report on the evaluation of MUP^[11] was published on 27 June 2023 and found that:

“Overall, the evidence supports that MUP has had a positive impact on health outcomes, namely a reduction in alcohol-attributable deaths and hospital admissions, particularly in men and those living in the most deprived areas, and therefore contributes to addressing alcohol-related health inequalities. There was no clear evidence of substantial negative impacts on the alcoholic drinks industry, or of social harms at the population level.”

No evidence was found during the five-year evaluation to show the implementation of MUP at 50ppu has had an effect on the island communities in a way that is significantly different from its effect on the mainland. The Scottish Government has concluded that the increased price of 65ppu strikes the appropriate balance between achieving the public health aims of Ministers and minimising the potential effects on business, industry and consumers.