Reading: Yes / No / Not Given: Question 9

Minimum unit pricing, which sets a legal floor price per unit of alcohol regardless of brand or where it is sold, has been introduced in a small number of jurisdictions as a targeted response to alcohol-related hospital admissions. Unlike a general alcohol tax, which raises the price of every drink roughly in proportion to its existing cost, a minimum unit price affects almost exclusively the cheapest, highest-strength products, precisely the drinks favoured by the heaviest consumers, while leaving the price of moderately priced wine and craft beer largely untouched. This precision is the policy's central strength, and it is one that blanket taxation cannot replicate.

Critics of the policy warn that it disproportionately penalises low-income drinkers, who make up a large share of the customer base for the cheapest products, while wealthier heavy drinkers who favour premium brands are barely affected by the floor price. There is a genuine equity concern buried in this criticism, but it rests on treating all low-income drinkers as a single group, when in fact the health evidence available so far shows that moderate drinkers at every income level change their purchasing very little in response to a minimum price, while it is specifically the small subset of dependent, high-volume drinkers, across income levels, who reduce consumption most sharply. If that pattern holds, the policy's costs fall mainly on those whose drinking was already causing them serious harm, which is a very different distributional outcome from the one critics describe.

None of this settles whether minimum unit pricing is sufficient on its own. Reducing the affordability of the cheapest alcohol does little to address the underlying drivers of dependent drinking, such as unemployment, chronic pain or untreated mental illness, and jurisdictions that have introduced the policy without also expanding addiction treatment services have seen smaller reductions in alcohol-related hospital admissions than those that combined pricing with treatment investment. Whether the policy would remain effective if extended to a much larger, more diverse population than the jurisdictions that have trialled it so far is a question current evidence cannot yet answer with confidence. What can be said is that, as one component of a wider strategy rather than a stand-alone fix, minimum unit pricing achieves something blanket alcohol taxes do not: it targets the price increase specifically at the drinking patterns most linked to serious harm.

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer? Write YES, NO or NOT GIVEN.

1. Minimum unit pricing has been introduced in only a small number of jurisdictions so far.
2. A minimum unit price increases the cost of cheap, high-strength alcohol more than it increases the cost of moderately priced wine or craft beer.
3. Health evidence collected so far shows that moderate drinkers at every income level significantly reduce how much they buy in response to a minimum price.
4. The drinkers who reduce consumption most sharply under minimum unit pricing are mainly dependent, high-volume drinkers across income levels.
5. Jurisdictions that combined minimum unit pricing with increased investment in addiction treatment services saw smaller reductions in alcohol-related hospital admissions than jurisdictions that used pricing alone.
6. Current evidence can confidently predict whether minimum unit pricing would remain effective if extended to a much larger and more diverse population.
7. The impact of minimum unit pricing on alcohol-related crime rates has been shown to be greater than its impact on hospital admissions.
8. The minimum unit price floor set in the jurisdictions discussed applies equally to alcohol sold in bars and alcohol sold in shops.