Mark Daniels: VAT + Duty won't end liver abuse

You can't fail to have noticed this week the news reports (again) concerning England's drinking problems, this time focusing on the rapid increase of liver illnesses in people under the age of thirty.

Once more, alcohol is being presented as the scourge of our society and it won't, therefore, be long before another round of consultations in to further restricting the way pubs sell beer gets underway.

And yet, while admissions to England's hospitals for alcohol-abused livers has increased fifty percent in young people during the last decade, another report shows that beer sales in pubs fell 7.5% in 2010.

So, if 333-million fewer pints are being sold in the nation's boozers, where is the increase in liver damage coming from?

The answer is, quite simply, through the recognised trend of pre-loading. While the Government may wish to bury its head in the sand and pretend it isn't happening, the massive availability of cheap alcohol from just about any retailing outlet cannot be ignored when trying to determine just why the next generation of drinkers is making themselves ill almost twenty years earlier than the previous generation of drinkers.

"I had no idea I was drinking so much," was one quote I saw in the news, and it's one that doesn't surprise me - and yet it's also one that the powers-that-be seem to have failed to understand when it comes to imposing restrictions on our licenses.

The majority of public houses are safe and sensible places to imbibe a bit of alcohol. Invariably, we look after our customers, provide them with a fun and enjoyable place to socialise, and monitor their consumption. We'll slow them down if we think they're drinking too much and send them on their merry way when it's time - often calling a taxi and some of us will walk or drive our customers home to ensure they get back safely, if we can feasibly do so.

But if the general public can quickly, easily and incredibly cheaply get hold of alcohol when they're doing their weekly grocery shop, filling their car up with petrol or even browsing the Internet, is it really that surprising that so many youngsters are turning up in hospital with their insides bleeding and their livers falling apart?

Last week the Government did attempt to pay attention to the issue for a moment by announcing a laughably pathetic approach to minimum pricing, which was proven in another article on this website to make absolutely no difference to the price that the majority of off-trade establishments are currently selling booze at.

Sadly, though, very few people outside the pub trade are prepared to stand up and say that pubs are responsible places to enjoy drinking or that the off-trade need to have more sensible legislation imposed on them.

Until the Government pays proper attention to this issue, and while the price gap between on- and off-trade products remains so vast, the issue of early-onset cirrhosis is unlikely to go away.