Alcohol Policy

The Department for Communities is seeking views on current liquor licensing laws, their impact, if any, and what changes could be considered in the future.

Home Office statisticians have launched a consultation on the ‘Alcohol and late night refreshment licensing’ statistical releases. This consultation is being run to gather insight and seek your views on the presentation and timing of the Government Statistical Service’s ‘Alcohol and late night refreshment licensing’ statistics and specifically why you use the data, what information is used, how frequently you use the information and any concerns over quality.

Following the decision to implement a minimum unit price for alcohol in Wales, the Welsh Government are consulting on a proposed minimum unit price of 50p.

The Scottish Government has launched a consultation on whether to introduce a fee for applying to renew a personal licence, and whether or not to set that fee at £50.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Illicit Trade has launched a call for evidence to inform their inquiry into the state of illicit trade in the UK.

The Health Select Committee has launched a one-off inquiry to assess the case for introducing a minimum unit price (MUP) on alcohol in England in the light of developments since the Health Committee's report in 2012 on the Government's Alcohol Strategy

The Welsh Assembly Health, Social Care and Sport Committee have issued a call for written evidence to inform its inquiry into the general principles of the Public Health (Minimum Price for Alcohol) (Wales) Bill.

The House of Lords Liaison Committee published a report earlier this year which looked into new investigative committee activity. In their report, they recommended the appointment of an ad hoc post-legislative scrutiny Committee to consider whether the Licensing Act 2003 has met its objectives.

As part of their scrutiny work, the Committee have issued a call for evidence in order to inform their inquiry and consequently their final report which would include recommendations to Government for more effective practice of the Licensing Act 2003.

HM Treasury has launched a consultation on the structure of the alcohol duty system.

The government announced at Spring Budget 2017 that it will consult on options so that duty rates better correspond to alcoholic strength:

• the introduction of a new band to target cheap, high strength ‘white’ ciders, below 7.5% abv
• the impacts of a new lower strength still wine band, to encourage the production and consumption of lower strength wines

The Sentencing Council is consulting on draft revised guidelines for summary offences in the Magistrates’ Court Sentencing Guidelines. The revisions will affect alcohol sale guidelines. The Sentencing Council proposes to introduce “Few entries in refusals/incident book (where defendant is licence holder or regularly making alcohol sales)” as a higher culpability factor. ACS' submission can be downloaded below.