SBPA calls for Scottish Government to review alcohol restrictions
Patrick Browne made the comments in response to research carried out by the Behaviour and Health Research Unit - a collaboration between the University of East Anglia and the University of Cambridge, which focused on the banning of multi-buy promotions.
The Scottish government was among the first in the world to introduce a ban of multi-buy promotion (for example, “2 for £8” and “buy-one-get-one-free”) in 2011. Pubs in Scotland were already banned from offering irresponsible promotions under the Licensing Act.
The study said there was no evidence the ban reduced the purchasing of beer, cider, wine, spirits and flavoured alcohol drinks. In addition, it did not reduce the total amount of units of alcohol purchased.
Scottish consumers started buying fewer products per shopping trip than they would have without the ban, but went out to buy beer and cider more frequently, leaving the overall amount purchased unchanged.
Browne said: “SBPA has always argued that there needed to be a balanced and evidence-based approach in Scotland’s licensing laws and restrictions on legitimate promotional activity.
“The Scottish Government’s earlier research on the effect of its multi-buy ban showed limited impacts which the latest research casts further doubt on. Given that the Scottish Government’s own data which shows that per adult sales of pure alcohol in Scotland have fallen by 8 per cent since 2009 – that’s equivalent to 35 million fewer pints of beer per year – the effect of promotional restrictions in Scotland have been very limited compared to the changes in consumers’ own behaviour.
“It is perhaps time for the Scottish Government to review the overall effect of the current restrictions which now seem to be targeted largely at pubs and bars.”
This study was published in leading academic journal, Addiction. Using detailed household purchasing data from the Kantar WorldPanel, the researchers evaluated the impact of the policy on the volume of alcohol purchased as well as on consumers’ alcohol shopping patterns.
