Improving Scotland’s Health: Minimum Unit Pricing of Alcohol

Results updated 26 Feb 2018

The Scottish Government plans to introduce Minimum Unit Pricing for alcohol on 1 May 2018.  Before they introduce the Minimum Unit Price, the Scottish Ministers ran a public consultation to gather views from people, businesses, public bodies and interested parties about the Scottish Government’s preferred price of 50 pence per unit of alcohol.  This  ran from 1 December 2017 to 26 January 2018.

The consultation received a total number of 130 responses , 70 of these responded to the proposed price directly. Of these 70, 52 (74.3%) indicated that they are in favour of the 50 pence Minimum Unit Price. Sixty-four of the 70 respondents (91.4%) who commented on the proposed price are either in favour of a 50 pence per unit minimum price or a higher Minimum Unit Price.

Taking account of a range of factors, including the responses to this consultation, the Scottish Government concluded that a Minimum Unit Price of 50 pence per unit provides a proportionate response to tackling alcohol misuse, as it strikes a reasonable balance between public health and social benefits and intervention in the market. Scottish Ministers will now proceed to propose to the Scottish Parliament that a minimum price of 50 pence per unit is introduced from 1 May 2018.

The full Report analysing the findings of the Consultation can be accessed by clicking on the "Full Consultation Report" link below.

Responses where respondents have indicated that they are content for these to be published can be downloaded by clicking on "view submitted responses" below.

 

Links:

• Full Consultation Report

Published responses

View submitted responses where consent has been given to publish the response.