Doubt over Gordon Brown's promise to tackle booze problems in Britain

Jan 2 2008

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown appears to be about to do a "U-turn" over Britain's controversial 24-hour drinking laws.

During his first weeks in office Prime Minister Brown announced he was personally reviewing the impact of the 24-hour drinking laws because of a surge in binge drinking and alcohol-fuelled violence across England and Wales.

The 24-hour drinking laws allows pubs and clubs to stay open later into the night has been widely blamed for contributing to the problems with alcohol being reported across the country.

The Government’s review on the liberalisation of licensing laws, due within weeks, is now expected to dismiss claims that all-day licensing has contributed to binge drinking and instead to conclude that the new rules have broadly worked well with the need for only minor changes.

It is thought instead that the focus will be on tackling the culture of drinking with moves such as stamping out the drinking of alcohol on streets and tougher enforcement of existing laws, particularly those forbidding the sale of alcohol to minors.

This apparent back down comes as emergency services have reported a record number of calls on New Year's Eve and ambulance crews in some areas have responded to 37 per cent more calls than the year before.

Back in July Mr Brown at his first Downing Street press conference as Prime Minister said he recognised there were "strong feelings" about 24-hour drinking.

It appears that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which is collating the study plans to the leave the laws in tact and will concentrate instead on areas such as restrictions on live music in pubs, clubs and restaurants as they are generally satisfied that they are working as intended and say criticism is exaggerated or misplaced.

Despite indications of a rise in alcohol-induced admissions to hospitals since the reform the Department of Health has raised no objection to 24-hour drinking and says if there is evidence of people arriving at emergency departments with alcohol-related problems, it is impossible to prove it is the 24 hour licensing laws that caused them.

The police too have also dropped their opposition to later drinking hours, despite some concern that the change has displaced trouble in town and city centres to the early hours of the morning, making it more costly to police.

Local councils too support the new drinking law which gives them and their local police greater powers to restrict, suspend or remove licenses of rowdy premises or to limit opening hours.

The British Liver Trust however says the number now being admitted to hospitals because of alcohol is a big problem for the country and blames the problem on a combination of cheap drink and extended drinking times.

The charity figures show that more than 500 people a day are being admitted to hospital because of alcohol-induced accidents, violence and liver damage and the number of alcohol-related hospital admissions has increased by almost a third since the licensing laws were relaxed almost two years ago.

According to NHS statistics the highest number is in the North East.

NHS statistics show that in 2003-04 there were 147,659 admissions to English hospitals where alcohol was given as a cause.

In 2005-06, when the drinking laws were relaxed, the total was 193,637, or 530 admissions a day.