Caution on 24-hour drinking laws
Government plans to introduce 24-hour drinking will increase the £1.7bn alcohol-fuelled harm costs the NHS every year, a leading group of doctors has warned.
The Royal College of Physicians claims that there is already an “epidemic” of binge drinking in the UK and says the plan “flies in the face of common sense”.
The medical group says that one in four people in Britain are now drinking at potentially hazardous rates.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Professor Ian Gilmore, the Royal College of Physicians’ licensing committee chairman, said that problems associated with the liberalisation of licensing laws abroad should act as a warning against taking similar action in the UK.
Professor Gilmore said that violence had increased in Perth, Australia following a one-hour extension to drinking time and suggested that similar evidence was available from Iceland and the Irish capital, Dublin.
“It is fanciful to think we can turn ourselves into a French-style wine tippling culture merely by abolishing licensing regulations,” said Professor Gilmore.
His warning echoes recent concerns expressed by outgoing Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir John Stevens who warned that changes under the new Licensing Act could strain police resources.
But Licensing Minister Richard Caborn insisted that the Government is working to address the causes of binge drinking and stressed that police and local councils would be given increased powers to deal with irresponsible licensees.
“We are working very closely with the trade to make sure their employees do not sell to drunken people, do not sell to young people under age,” he said.
The Government claims that the new licensing laws, which come into force next year, will cut crime by allowing pubs and clubs to stagger closing times and thus avoid drinkers spilling out onto the streets at the same time.
