Health coalition calling for even higher duty on drinks.

(From Off Licence News)

Byline: Laura Clark

Retailers and trade bodies have attacked calls by a lobbying group for an increase in alcohol duty.

The push by the Alcohol Health Alliance - a coalition of health organisations and charities - has been criticised as wrongly linking binge-drinking to levels of alcohol taxation.

The group, headed by the Royal College of Physicians' president, Professor Ian Gilmore, has been set up to put pressure on the government to increase tax on alcohol and to ban pre-watershed alcohol advertising. It is also calling for health warnings on alcohol adverts and promotions in a bid to curb irresponsible drinking.

Jeremy Beadles, chief executive of the WSTA, attacked proposals to raise alcohol tax. "We think their proposals about tax are completely wrong and the evidence supports us in this," he said.

WSTA policy advisor Stephen Hogg questioned the AHA's evidence. "All the indicators at the moment suggest that higher taxation is at best a blunt weapon and at worst can be counter-productive and lead to unintended consequences," he said.