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Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con): May I state from the outset that a very sensible debate has taken place for the last hour or so? I would like to start with some comments on the contributions so far. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins), who brings a wealth of experience from his previous chairmanships. I, too, believe that there is an important debate to be had about the damage caused to foetuses from alcohol. That is so important that we should have a separate debate on it. I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman that an educational process needs to take place throughout the country, not least in pre-natal classes.
The hon. Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean) defended the brewing industry fantastically well. Perhaps I should declare an interest at this stage in that I occasionally feel the need for the odd pint of Burton ale, even though my preference is for Guinness. I declare that interest at the outset. What concerns me slightly, however, is that the decline in pubs and pub sales is not just about beer but about what goes on in pubs. The sale of cider, for instance, is a bit of a fad at the moment and should not be addressed in the same way as the sale of beer.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Barnsley, Central (Mr. Illsley), whose letter, I believe, prompted the debate. I know that he raised this important issue at Prime Minister’s Question Time the other day. If we are not careful, we will no longer have the great British pub where we can go and have a beer and enjoy a social life, which is very worrying. So many people come to this country and talk about our pubs, but a frightening number of pubs have closed over the past 20-odd years.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) brought a wealth of knowledge to a typically robust speech from his experience of representing a seaside town. Having lived in that seaside town for some 15 years myself and served as a fireman in the area, I can tell the House that the knowledge gained from living in a seaside town outranks any other. Southend needs day trippers, but I think it wants to keep only some of them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Selby— [Interruption.] I apologise. The hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) now represents the all-party parliamentary beer group. My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) represented it for many years, but clearly the hon. Gentleman has ousted him. That event must have been a sight for sore eyes. I understand that the hon. Gentleman represents the beer group very well. Apparently I am a member of it, although no one told me. [Interruption.] That is quite nice; I shall be along later.
I meant to refer not to the hon. Member for Selby but to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who has a wealth of experience in the retail industry and defends his position very well, although I disagreed with most of what he said.
The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) made some extremely important points, not least in defending his figures to the Minister but also in making it clear that if we really want localism—which, I think, is the way politics has to go in this country—we must respect the elected local representatives and trust them to run their areas in the way they feel is appropriate. It was right to give them more powers to look after licensing and invoke what local people want.
Having declared my personal interest in the odd pint, I think it important to add that social, sensible, safe drinking is part of the British culture and something that we want to encourage and keep going. I fully recognise the danger that the minority will spoil things for the majority, but we must not underestimate the damage to the nation’s health that is caused by alcohol. Although I agreed with much of what the Minister said, I believe that the Government are sending mixed messages. One example is, of course, the legislation allowing 24-hour licensing.
As the hon. Member for Barnsley, Central pointed out, very few public houses allow 24-hour drinking—only 460, I believe. However, plenty of off-sales establishments open for 24 hours a day, and the problems that that causes have been raised. A new fad has developed in drinking. I have observed it for myself when I have been out on patrol with my local police, and, sadly, I have seen the results in local accident and emergency departments, as well as in the A and E departments around the country that I have visited in my new capacity.
The practice is commonly called pre-loading. Young people aged 18, 24 or 30 get half-cut before they go out, and they do it on very cheap alcohol. One of the excuses is that when they reach the pubs and clubs they find the alcohol very expensive. The hon. Member for Barnsley, Central mentioned the £10 litre bottle of vodka. Shortly before the debate started, I asked in the Library what the duty and VAT on that would be. The answer was £9.31. Someone is losing an awful lot of money, and I do not believe it is the distillers, because they tell me that they are not. Somewhere along the line, there is an encouragement to sell alcohol very cheaply. In what are often large supermarkets that are open very late there is an encouragement not just to sell booze cheaply—the supermarkets would go bust very quickly if that were the case—but to get the footfall in the store and to encourage people to purchase other products while they are there; this is a loss-leading practice. While it is not for any Government to tell Tesco, Asda or Sainsbury’s how to run their supermarkets, they have a moral responsibility to this country, and selling alcohol so cheaply—sometimes, sadly, to under-age people—is morally wrong.
The cost to this country is not just to do with fashion, or some of our town centres being no-go areas at night, or our pubs changing. There is also the cost to the NHS and the cost to the health of the people of our country. The estimated current cost to the NHS of alcohol misuse is £1.7 billion, while at the same time we have hospitals and accident and emergency departments around the country closing. How much better could that money be spent within the NHS?
Sadly, last year some 4,000 children—under-16 year olds—were treated for alcohol misuse. Those Members who go out on patrol in their constituencies with the police will have seen those children. They are the same age as many of our children. I went along with the police recently and they found a young lady lying on the local village cricket green. She was lying next to a bottle of vodka and several bottles of alcopops. There was no one else in sight because they had seen the police coming, but she was out of her brains so they left her. It was very dark, and if we had not seen her she would have lain there throughout the night unconscious from alcohol, and if she had vomited she would almost certainly have died. That shows that this is such a serious issue that we cannot just leave it alone and say, “This has nothing to do with Parliament and Government.” It is a fundamental role of this House and Government to do something about that. Violent crime is a matter that all Members have experienced in their constituencies. It one of the subjects that people come to my surgery to talk to me about the most; it is one of the biggest worries of my constituents. Half of violent crime is alcohol-related.
May I defend some of the staff in the pubs and clubs of this country? According to the figures I have, 83 per cent. of assaults on bar and club staff are the result of their having said, “No”—that is, they are the result of them having done their job. I completely agree with Members who have said that the way forward is for the penalties for those trying to purchase alcohol in such circumstances to be as great, if not greater, than for those who sell it, because that is a big problem. Those who buy alcohol covertly for others, and those parents—I say this as a parent—who happily let their children go off to parties with half a bottle of vodka, should think about that; they should think about the damage they do to their families and the future of this country, because we know that addiction to alcohol often leads to addiction to other things.
I therefore urge the Government to examine their drug strategy. Drug strategy units do fantastic work, but every time I visit one of them anywhere in the country the people who work there say to me that they cannot do their job without help from the Government to address the alcohol problems in the country. We cannot address drugs in isolation. We must deal with drink and drugs together, educate the community, and give the necessary powers to the people who are doing the work for us, so that we have a better society to live in.
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