The spectre of minimum pricing

Minimum pricing is firmly back on the agenda. Pressure group Alcohol Concern argued this week for the introduction of minimum pricing as a better way to bear down on consumption than outlawing below-cost selling.

Greene King boss Rooney Anand joined the debate last month: "I would like to see a minimum price set for the sale of alcohol. It is a basic law of economics that price is a big factor in influencing demand, so it must make sense that setting a realistic minimum price will discourage bulk-buying drinks."

In Manchester, 10 local authorities are looking at setting a minimum price by way of a local bylaw. Significantly, the idea is being progressed through the Greater Manchester Authorities Health Commission. There are plenty of very seductive reasons to support minimum pricing. I'm sure you've heard the arguments.

It would impose a floor on rock-bottom supermarket alcohol pricing while not affecting the on-trade, so closing the yawning gap on price between the two. Minimum pricing would appease the health lobby and, at last, chase away the claims of irresponsible alcohol retailing.

But we need to look beyond these arguments and think hard about what minimum pricing actually means. In short, it's going along with the notion that other people, outside this industry, should be involved in setting prices because we're not capable of setting prices in a responsible way.

It's a massive elephant trap dug by the health lobby in what seems like a sun-lit glade. Once the over-riding principle has been conceded — that a minimum price needs to be set — the health lobby can then focus on throwing spears into the pit; the pressure will refocus on whether or not the minimum price needs to be raised to produce the optimum effect on public health.

The danger is that minimum pricing would ratchet over the years until it's having a meaningful effect on consumption — and then rise some more until it's having a profound effect on consumption.

Minimum pricing is creating the vehicle for certain quarters to punish alcohol by way of pricing in a way akin to tobacco. To quango-ise alcohol pricing is to pitch the trade into a new and never-ending public debate where we are forever on the back foot. Handing over the power to fix pricing to a committee of do-gooders and health fanatics is a recipe for burdensome regulation and the politicisation of pricing.

There is simply no knowing where this will end up. A collective angst seems to have seized public debate on alcohol consumption, so perception and reality are barely on nodding terms. The pub trade's credentials as the home of supervised consumption have been reinforced since the start of the millennium by ever-higher retail standards.

Debate should be about how public policy encourages greater use of this civilised environment for alcohol consumption.