Downing Street Says

» Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Alcohol

Asked if the Prime Minister had outlined any specific proposals on alcohol at the seminar this morning, the PMS said that they had had a good seminar with alcohol retailers and manufacturers and enforcement agencies this morning. The purpose of the seminar was to tell the alcohol industry the action the Government was taking over the coming months to tackle binge drinking, to help people drink sensibly and to discuss what more they could do. The Prime Minister summed up the meeting by saying that he thought it was clear that the solution lay beyond the stream of individual measures; it was about creating a cultural shift and having local coordination, better education and enforcement and individuals taking personal responsibility. It was not just about small individual measures, it was about looking at the issue in a much wider context.

Asked if the Prime Minister made any suggestions to the drinks industry regarding what more he would like them to do or might ask them to do, the PMS said that the Government clearly had concerns about underage drinking and the importance of dealing with this issue was emphasised at the seminar. We were already taking action on a number of fronts more generally on alcohol, not least the review of the Licensing Act, which would report early next year.

Asked what the cultural shift should be and whether it implied that we did not need any more revisions of the law, the PMS said that we were not saying we did not need any more revisions of the law and that we were reviewing the licensing laws. It was about more joint work at local levels; having better coordination; better education and better enforcement of existing laws.

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