Labour ignored the warnings and we’re all paying
THE introduction of 24- hour licensing by the Labour government in 2005 was meant to herald a new era in social responsibility. Its advocates claimed that more flexible pub and club opening times would mean less frenzied alcohol consumption, a reduction in street violence, and reduced pressure on the emergency services.
A new, relaxed ‘continental-style’ cafe culture, even. A decade later, such predictions have proved to be completely wrong.
Some of us medical experts, as well as this newspaper, warned at the time that the inevitable mayhem in Britain’s urban areas would inflict an intolerable strain on our civic infrastructure and severe damage on our nation’s health. That is exactly what has happened.
This week’s report based on interviews with emergency staff provides a graphic insight into the expensive chaos driven by this reckless liberalisation.
Police say that 53 per cent of their work is now taken up with tackling alcohol-related crime. Shockingly, 96 per cent of ambulance staff have experienced threats or abuse from inebriated patients.
As a doctor specialising in the treatment of liver problems, I always feared that a rise in disorder and disease would be the consequence of this foolish experiment.
Increasing the availability of alcohol was bound to increase consumption among heavy drinkers, and thereby worsen alcoholrelated morbidity.
It is a pity the Westminster establishment did not take notice of the clarion warnings back in 2005. In my own field of healthcare, I see the terrible results of the change all the time.
In 2012-13, there were more than a million hospital admissions linked to alcohol consumption, while in 2012 the number of alcohol-related deaths reached 6,490, a 19 per cent increase on the total in 2001. In a worrying reflection of the binge-drinking culture, accidents due to alcohol abuse – including drink-driving – are the biggest cause of death among those aged 16-24.
The rise in liver disease is particularly disturb- ing. According to Alcohol Concern, deaths from liver disease have reached record levels, going up by 20 per cent in a decade, with alcoholic liver disease accounting for over a third of all liver disease deaths. Of course, all this puts a tremendous burden on hospitals, sometimes resulting in inadequate care for patients.
But, as we are witnessing, the impact of alcohol abuse goes far beyond the health service. It is a principal engine of crime, with alcoholrelated offences estimated to cost about £11billion a year. Moreover, in half of all violent incidents, victims report that the offenders were under the influence of alcohol.
Drink also damages family life, shatters relationships, leads to the neglect of children and warps spending priorities, all the more so today because it is so cheap and easy to buy. Given that it is more affordable than ever before, it is no surprise to find that between 2009 and 2012 household expenditure on alcohol rose by 1.3 per cent. Labour’s law change in 2005 acted as a catalyst for such wreckage.
If we are to reverse the trend, the Government must stop being so submissive to the powerful drinks industry, which acts out of its own vested interests and has little concern for public health.
I believe there should be minimum alcohol pricing in supermarkets, fewer irresponsible cut-price promotions, and more restrictions on marketing, such as the alcohol sponsorship of sport. Above all, there must be a repeal of the 2005 law.
‘We have been drowned in a torrent of gin and beer,’ the Victorian Liberal leader William Gladstone famously said after his party’s defeat in the 1874 general election, which he attributed to the brewers’ aggressive campaigning against proposals to restrict the sale of alcohol. The same might be said of Britain in 2015. Professor Roger Williams is director of the Institute of Hepatology