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Speeches and Statements

London Local Alcohol Strategies

Speech by Vernon Coaker, Home Office minister, to the London Local Alcohol Strategies conference on 18 March 2008.

Good Morning, apologies for being late, I want to begin by thanking Jo Gordan, the Home Office’s Regional Deputy Director for London for welcoming me here today. I thank Jo and colleagues at Government Office for London for the work they are doing, not only to tackle alcohol-related harm, but to also improve the lives of Londoners.

It was with great pleasure that I read the programme of events for today and saw that representatives from Drug and Alcohol Action Teams, Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships, Primary Care Trusts, public health, clinicians, academics, members of the alcohol industry, councillors and representatives from the Mayor’s office would be here for the announcement of London’s statement of priorities for tackling alcohol harm.

As I am sure you will agree, tackling alcohol misuse requires a strong partnership approach.

I welcome this opportunity to set out what the Government is doing to tackle alcohol-related harm. Our national priorities aim to achieve:

  • fewer alcohol-related violent incidents
  • fewer people experiencing drunkenness and rowdiness in their are
  • fewer admitted to hospital for acute alcohol-related illnesses
  • fewer children drinking alcohol
  • trying to change culture

To achieve this, we:

  • published Safe. Sensible. Social. The next steps in the national Alcohol Strategy in June of last year which set out a clear programme of action to tackle alcohol-related harm, and
  • published the first ever alcohol Public Sector Agreement in October of last year.

Since then, there have been a number of new developments:

  • In February, the Home Secretary set out her vision on alcohol and made a number of new announcements which emphasised our commitment to tackling alcohol-related harm, especially amongst the young,
  • Earlier this month, the Culture Secretary set out a further serious of actions that the Government will take in response to the publication of the review of the Licensing Act 2003, and

Key achievements to date include:

Drinking levels appear to be stabilising with statistics showing early signs of an end to the increase in levels of alcohol consumption. We welcome reports that the proportion of men drinking more than daily recommended limit fell from 39% in 2004 to 35% in 2005.

Another achievement is Better education and communication through the highly successful Know Your Limits binge drinking campaign and enforcement of Ofcom’s new code on television advertising.

We are also trying to Improve health and treatment services with the first national assessment on need for and availability of alcohol treatment providing strong a strong evidence base for action. Trailblazer schemes were launched in October 2006 to identify and advise people whose drinking habits are likely to lead to ill health in future.

According to the British Crime Survey, the actual number of offences where the offender was judged to be under the influence of alcohol has dropped since 1995.

We have launched alcohol referral pilots in Ealing in West London, Cheshire, Liverpool and Manchester where advice is being provided to those who have been arrested for an alcohol related offence. These pilots are an additional tool for reducing alcohol-related offending and are contributing to the Government’s plans to deliver simple, speedy, summary justice through referring offenders to advice about safer drinking as a condition of caution. To date, 758 individuals have received referrals.

We have achieved significant reductions in test purchase failure rates from over 50% in 2004 to the current level of 14.7% to ensure that ever decreasing numbers of children are able to get access to alcohol illegally.

We are continuing to carry out enforcement campaigns to target young people drinking in public. The Confiscation of Alcohol Campaign (Oct – Nov 2007) focused on young people themselves using the powers already available to police. Over 3,700 Litres of alcohol were confiscated across 23 police Basic Command Units (BCUs). The success of this campaign led to the development of a national confiscation campaign in February which involved 175 BCUs and allowed police to use ‘Directions to Leave’ powers to disperse people where ‘alcohol related crime or disorder’ was suspected.

We are continuing to work with the alcohol industry and have brokered a voluntary industry agreement to put health information on most alcohol labels by the end of 2008. Local partnership schemes continue to promote responsible management of licensed premises. We welcome the funding that the industry has committed to the independent charity, The Drinkaware Trust, to promote sensible drinking and look forward to the industry doing more to promote sensible drinking and to tackle alcohol-related harm.

We understand the importance of local partnership to tackling alcohol-related crime and anti-social behaviour. To help facilitate this, we have produced ‘Safe. Sensible. Social. Alcohol Strategy Local Implementation Toolkit’ and ‘A practical guide for dealing with alcohol-related problems: What you need to know’ to help frontline practitioners tackle alcohol-related crime and anti-social behaviour.  

 

London perspective

I am especially encouraged to know that Government Office for London has used the allocation of £120k from the Home Office to support:

  • The establishment of a forum of alcohol practitioners and stakeholders,
  • Build the capacity of local partnerships to develop their local strategies, and
  • Develop a Regional strategy / statement of priorities.

We welcome the great work that is happening in London involving the industry and front-line practitioners to tackle alcohol-related crime and anti-social behaviour. Examples include:

The Safer Socialising award scheme in Lambeth to encourage a wide range of licensed businesses to achieve higher standards of operation and to demonstrate they have policies and procedures in place to actively reduce crime and anti social behaviour.

Another example is A crackdown on drunk and disorderly behaviour in Tower Hamlets through a hard hitting poster campaign to promote responsible drinking in Tower Hamlets during December to let people know that by being drunk and fighting, they could end up in jail, and also that £80 fines could be given for being drunk and vomiting or urinating on the street.

A further example is The Westway Strategy initiative to tackle street drinking in Kensignton and Chelsea which focused on a range of issues including examining and comparing the ‘make up’ of the street drinkers in the designated area as well as the impact they had upon the local community, the immediate environment, outreach work linking the street drinkers into services which significantly reduced their presence on the street. This resulted in an outreach project being set up by partnership funds and involving the use of legislative powers such Designated Public Place Orders and the creation of Controlled Drinking Zones which have enabled the police and PCSO’s to target particular individuals around their antisocial behaviour linked to alcohol abuse as opposed to a blanket ban on street drinking

So this captures what has taken place so far. But there is more that we can and will do. The next steps include:

  • Later this year, we will launch a multi-million pound advertising campaign to challenge the tolerance of drunken behaviour and increase public awareness of the risks of excessive drinking and how to get help in the coming months.
  • We will publish a Youth Alcohol Action Plan to set out further measures to tackle underage drinking and give advice to parents and young people to help them make informed decisions about alcohol.
  • Extend alcohol arrest referral pilots from the current four pilots to up to ten new areas so that under 18s can also benefit  from a brief intervention from a trained worker.
  • We will continue to robustly enforce the law to wipe out sales to under 18s.
  • We will robustly enforce of the Licensing Act to clamp down on irresponsible alcohol promotions and irresponsible retailers.
  • We will take stock of the findings of the Department of Health’s review of the link between alcohol price, promotion and harm and the Home Office’s review of the alcohol industry’s social responsibility standards document and set out the way forward on these issues to ensure that the alcohol industry plays its part in reducing harms.
    • A new yellow and red card alert system that clearly outlines the consequences of breaching your license.
    • Changing offence of “persistently selling alcohol to a person under 18” from ‘three strikes’ to ‘two strikes’ in three months.
    • Utilising existing powers to identify problem premises. We will make it easier to review premises where local intelligence suggests there is a problem,
    • Supporting the police and local authorities to identify problem hotspots by ranking geographical areas and concentrations of premises on the basis of the risks they present to crime and disorder, public nuisance and children. This will allow licensing authorities the ability to exercise more caution and conditions when issuing licenses, and wholesale withdrawal of licenses in these areas, and permit local authorities and police to target enforcement resources more effectively at problem hotspots.  
      • Increase the maximum fine for anyone not obeying an instruction to stop drinking, or to give up their drink in a designated public place from £500 to £2,500;
      • Make it easier for the police to disperse anti-social drinkers – both adults and children –from any location – if necessary, we will change the law to make this happen;
      • Extend the use of Acceptable Behaviour Contracts for young people caught drinking in public, to require them and their parents to attend a session with an alcohol specialist; and
      • Extend alcohol arrest referral pilots so that under 18s may also benefit from a brief intervention from a trained worker.  This will help deal with young people drinking in public who are already involved in criminal activities.

And look to the National Audit Office’s audit of NHS costs incurred through alcohol misuse which will report later this year to allow us to recognise those areas that are doing good work and identify those that are doing work and identify those where more work needs to be done.

There is a lot of work that Government is taking forward to reduce alcohol related crime and disorder.  There is of course more that we can do.  But I am confident that by working together, with local enforcement agencies, PCT’s, licensing authorities, the alcohol industry itself and with those in the communities affected by these problems, we will make a real and lasting difference.

I thank you for your continued dedication to tackling alcohol-related harm and look forward to working with you in the future to deliver, real tangible changes.

Thank you

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