NEW laws to tackle bingedrinking will be unveiled today, which Home Secretary Jacqui Smith hopes will end scenes of “people lying on the pavements and being sick”.

Pubs, clubs and shops face a ban on “irresponsible” price promotions and being forced to offer smaller glasses after ministers declared self-regulation had failed.

The police will also get tougher powers to snatch booze from youngsters, to prosecute those who sell it to them, and street drinkers will face massively increased fines.

Legislation to be announced in Wednesday’s Queen’s speech will include the measures.

Under the new regime, anyone caught drinking in one of the 600 or so designated “no drinking” areas in town centres across the country could be fined £2,500 – five times the present maximum.

Police will no longer have to prove youngsters with booze intended to drink it before being able to confiscate it – making it easier for them to take unopened bottles and cans. Under-18s caught with alcohol three times in a year will face possible £1,000 fines and officers will also get powers to disperse groups of younger children – aged as young as ten.

And shops will get fewer warnings about underage selling – facing punishment if they are caught doing it twice in a two-month period rather than three times.

There will also be a consultation on what measures should be included in a new statutory code of practice – including bans on some happyhour type promotions.

Ms Smith said the sort of things she wanted to see outlawed were “drink as much as you can” for a set price nights, ladies-drink-free promotions and games that encouraged binge drinking.

The code could also force all outlets, including restaurants, to publicly display the amount of units in all the products sold and to stop offering only large glasses. “I don’t think any of us want to have our city centres with people lying on the pavements and being sick,” the Home Secretary told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show.

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said: “There is no doubt that extended licensing hours have led to increased problems of alcoholfuelled disorder causing untold misery for too many towns and communities, as well as placing even more burdens on already overstretched police forces.

“Yet, Labour’s response has simply been to pass more laws and regulations which they then simply fail to enforce.

This is more of the same.”

Ms Smith said evidence showed more relaxed licensing laws had not led to an increase in alcohol-related incidents.