The Big Interview: Henry Ashworth

09-Apr-2012 - Last updated on 11-Apr-2012 at 08:14 GMT

Henry Ashworth: Leading the way on responsible drinking

Nobody can accuse Portman Group’s chief executive Henry Ashworth of not having enough experience of the harm that alcohol misuse can cause. As Adam Pescod discovers, he is the ideal man to encourage responsible drinking.

For anybody to have a vested interest in the responsible marketing of alcohol, one would reasonably expect that person to have witnessed first-hand the damaging impact of alcohol misuse.

That is true of the Portman Group’s chief executive Henry Ashworth who, having grown up in Newquay, oversaw the establishment of Fifteen Cornwall, a restaurant in nearby Watergate Bay, owned by the Cornwall Foundation of Promise (CFoP) charity, and inspired by chef Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Foundation, which celebrated its 10-year anniversary last month.

The organisations aim to give unemployed and disadvantaged young people the opportunity to realise their potential, and Ashworth’s involvement in Cornwall gave him a dose of perspective.

“Going through that process means I have seen the impact alcohol misuse can have on people and their families, and children, because many of these children came from those kinds of chaotic backgrounds,” Ashworth reflects.

He adds: “But I also saw the role a fantastic restaurant business plays in rehabilitating those people. So, in a way, that was a part of the move to get involved in the bigger debate around alcohol.”

Ashworth also ran his own hotel business in Cornwall for eight years, following in the footsteps of his family, who were hoteliers.

“Of course, from that I had an interest in tourism, the night-time economy, and the role good food and drink plays in people’s leisure time.”

Government business

His first foray into alcohol policy came in 2008 when he joined the Better Regulation Executive (BRE) in the then Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform, before moving on to the behavioural insights team at the Cabinet Office in September 2010. The latter is popularly referred to as the Government’s “nudge unit” as its work is based on the idea that small changes can have a big impact on people’s behaviour — and that politicians must help to make the “right choices easier to make”.

“People are predictably irrational in how they make decisions,” says Ashworth. “Alcohol time and time again comes back as being one of the most interesting areas because the vast majority enjoy a drink, the vast majority of those enjoy a sociable drink and they drink responsibly, and yet we still have lots of misuse and harm and lots of costs to the economy associated with alcohol misuse. Being a part of finding solutions to that is very exciting, and that is why I turned up here.”

The alcohol debate has dominated the domestic and political news agenda lately, with the publication of the Government’s Alcohol Strategy, which reflects a determination to solve the UK’s binge-drinking problem, described by the PM as the “scandal of our society”.

Ashworth agrees with David Cameron to an extent but is adamant that political intervention is by no means the silver bullet when it comes to tackling the issue.

“It is a scandal, but it is a scandal for everybody,” exclaims Ashworth. “If the vast majority of people — the silent majority — are drinking responsibly and enjoying a sociable drink, then it is a scandal that there is a reckless minority ruining it and giving everybody who enjoys going out in a town centre or going to their local pub a bad name.

“So you can’t try and point the finger at any particular one group of people. I think that is where the Government can go horribly wrong because I think everybody needs to find ways of working together.”

The right strategy?

Commenting on the Alcohol Strategy, which includes plans to introduce a minimum price for alcohol of 40p per unit, Ashworth added: “There is no doubt that minimum unit pricing being brought into the market has had a significant negative reaction from the mainstream press.

“My feeling is we have to step forward and do what we can do. I think there are a lot of question marks over whether we want to fix prices in this market, and the jury is still out on whether the Government can [legally] fix prices. There are also questions over what this means about the political philosophy of this Prime Minister, and this Government.”

Ashworth added the Portman Group “was taken completely by surprise” at the timing of the strategy’s publication, the same day that a new pledge of cutting 1 billion units of alcohol was made by drinks producers, wholesalers and retailers as part of the responsibility deal.

Regardless, he is confident that, with a year under its belt, the deal will prove that voluntary agreements between big industry players and policymakers can work, given time.

Even with the Government pushing ahead with minimum pricing, and the health lobby refusing to commit itself to the deal, Ashworth still has absolute faith in the long-term success of self-regulation in the drinks industry.

Compare that to the pub industry, where the Government has shown more support for self-regulation by tightening up, but maintaining, the industry framework code that governs the relationship between pubcos and their tenants.

Reflecting on the progress of the deal, Ashworth said: “At the moment, one of the things I feel strongly about is that the debate around alcohol has become horribly polarised. That can’t be helpful to anybody, not to the public health lobby, nor is it helpful to businesses.

“We have to find things that we can agree on because if we can’t agree on anything, we can’t work together — and we have to work together because actually people who misuse alcohol turn up at their GP surgery. I think producers absolutely recognise the role they have got, but we need to find ways of moving beyond this polarised debate.”

This would appear easier said than done given the entrenched stance of the health lobby, a significant proportion of which is yet to sign up to the deal, claiming it doesn’t offer a tough enough solution to alcohol misuse.

Ashworth, however, chooses to highlight those areas where there is agreement between the industry and its doubters. “I think those that are still part of the responsibility deal have taken a lot of flak from those people who walked away but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t carry on and shouldn’t invite them to come back in with those areas that they can support.

“Some people in the health lobby were calling for the deal to lead on pricing. That was never going to happen because it is anti-competitive to do that. The drinks industry cannot lead on price changes, it has to leave that to the Government.

“But reformulating products, innovating to create new low-alcohol alternatives, this is all fantastic stuff that the public health community welcomes and that could well be a way to get them back involved.

“I think the other area that it welcomes is working with wider employer groups.”

The 50% relief on duty for lower-strength beer and wine has led to a great deal of activity in this area of the drinks market, and the new pledge under the responsibility deal to roll out more of these lower-ABV products is a positive outcome for Ashworth in his new co-chairman [of the responsibility deal’s alcohol network] position.

“I think this pledge, when the dust settles [from the Alcohol Strategy], will be seen as an unprecedented step in the way this industry can work, and how we are changing the way that we approach responsible drinking.”

A responsible way forward

Meanwhile, an overwhelming response to the consultation on the Portman Group’s Code of Practice (a new code is expected to be published in October), and a substantial increase in the number of requests for advice from drinks producers has given Ashworth even more reasons to be cheerful.

“We think there is a strong case [to commend] those companies that seek advice from us, who we either find have no issues with the product or promotion they wish to put out, or seek advice from us and make changes as a result.

“We think that is great due diligence and great corporate responsibility, and that in due course we should be working with those companies to say this is actually part of a really effective regulatory process.”

So Ashworth is clearly a great supporter of the British pub, a place where alcohol can be enjoyed responsibly, and of well-produced, well-marketed alcohol.

“At the end of the day, we are drinks producers, we make fantastic drinks based on their taste, based on their flavour and based on their quality, and alcohol is an ingredient within that.”

He believes the industry should be able to continue in that vein, free from the claws of Government, while continuing to defend itself against “some pretty vehement attacks from people who would quite frankly rather there was no alcohol in the country at all”.

Ashworth says: “They are living in cloud-cuckoo land as the vast majority of people in this country drink and enjoy a drink responsibly.

“The Government recognises that, so pulling together to tackle alcohol misuse, we think the Portman Group has a really key role to play.”

My kind of pub

“I am an extreme sports fan and love a pub where people go back to after an exhausting day to share stories.

“Therefore, a pub overlooking the action, where people can come back and share their adventures with their mates, is my kind of pub.

“There is a fantastic place down in Cornwall called the Beach Hut, just north of Watergate Bay. That used to be my pub."