One of the leading UK campaigners for a minimum unit price for alcohol has been speaking at a North-East conference. Health and Education Editor Barry Nelson listened to his passionate plea for something to be done to prevent thousands of unnecessary deaths caused by cheap booze

IT would be fair to say that liver specialist Professor Nick Sheron is no friend of the drinks industry.

A passionate campaigner for a minimum unit price for alcohol, Prof Sheron accuses the industry of backing a business model which involves selling vast amounts of cheap cider and vodka to people who are drinking themselves to death – because they can afford to.

The professor argues that a minimum price per unit policy would push up the price of the highly alcoholic drinks favoured by problem drinkers but have no effect on low risk drinkers who preferred lower strength drinks.

He points to France, where a deliberate decision to emphasise better quality bottled brands rather than cheap wine sold in bulk, has added value to the French drinks industry and produced a five-fold reduction in alcohol-related liver disease deaths at a time when the UK has seen a five-fold increase in such deaths.

The keynote speaker at a conference in Durham City, organised by Balance, the North East Alcohol Office, the Southampton University academic used the occasion to attack the industry - and the Government – for failing to bring in a measure which experts believe would save thousands of lives.

Citing the experience of one Canadian state - which saw a massive 32 per cent fall in alcohol-related deaths within six months of bringing in a 10 per cent price increase on alcoholic drinks - Prof Sheron says minimum unit pricing is “the most exquisitely targeted public health policy you could hope to find and will have no effect on the low-risk drinker”

That’s why he regards the failure of the Government to bring in minimum unit pricing last year as a missed opportunity and a tragedy for those who will lose their lives prematurely because of the affordability of cheap drink.

Prof Sheron starts by asking the question why there has been a 500 per cent increase in the number of people dying of alcohol-related liver disease in the last few decades.

“Since 1980 there has been a massive reduction in the consumption of weak beer in pubs. Now most drink is stronger, bought from supermarkets and drunk at home,” he says.

“They buy much stronger drinks, such as strong lager, cider and vodka.”

He recalls when he was a student in the late 1970s none of his friends drank vodka. Now “all young people are vodka drinkers. The industry deliberately made vodka the club drink and they succeeded.”

The main reason why vodka has become so popular, apart from the promotion of alcopops in the 1990s, is price, he argues.

He points out that a litre of vodka which can cost as little as £29 today cost the equivalent of £95 in 1980.

The other main factor, according to Prof Sheron, was the reduction in duty paid on alcoholic drinks, “which started with Mrs Thatcher and was carried on by Tony Blair and which is related to the successful lobbying by the drinks industry,” he adds.

“The changes in affordability have had a direct link to liver mortality,” he says.

Studies show that in the 1920s and 1930s liver disease was very much confined to the rich. It only became a disease of the poor after Mrs Thatcher started cutting alcohol duty.

The decision by the Coalition Government to scrap the duty escalator on drinks, which would have ensured regular increases, was the result of highly effective lobbying by the industry, he adds.

Prof Sheron calculates that if the duty escalator on drinks had stayed in place 45,000 fewer people would die from alcohol-related liver disease by 2020.

He also throws in a calculation that the cost of alcohol harm to the UK taxpayer works out as £38 per taxpayer per week.

“The drinks industry is reliant for their shareholder profits on the minority of people who drink too much,” says Prof Sheron.

“The UK industry wants to pile it high and sell it cheap. That is the business model in the UK. They could change that model and not cause deaths on a huge scale.”

As a key player in the campaign to persuade the Government to bring in a minimum unit alcohol price of between 45p and 50p Prof Sheron is clearly bitterly disappointed at the U-turn performed by Prime Minister David Cameron last year, when he dropped his commitment to MUP and brought in a much-criticised policy of targeting “below-cost” drinks.

“We convinced David Cameron on minimum pricing. He understand it. He was signed up for it and he actually still is,” the professor says.

The problem, he adds, was when the Government moved onto a pre-election footing and changed the main advisor to the Prime Minister from an NHS expert to an experienced lobbyist who had worked for the tobacco industry in the past.

“There was a right-wing coup initiated by Lansley, May and Gove and Cameron did one of his u-turns and took it out,” he adds.

“We were so close to getting a minimum price per unit through. We can go there again. We just need to be better at making the arguments,” he says.

Prof Sheron told everyone in the room - which including health professionals working in the field of alcohol and liver specialists – that they had to “rely on the democratic process” to bring in a minimum price policy, urging everyone to write to their MP urging them to back minimum pricing.