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Mr. Brown : As is the Bill. On that point, the Bill is welcome unamended.
However, my hon. Friend and I part company on whether the definition of intoxicating liquor at retail should be left at 1.2 per cent. or put at some lower figure. Some of my hon. Friends have challenged me about the matter, but 1.2 per cent. is quite high. There seems to be general agreement that the figure should be lower. The case for putting it at 0.05 per cent., as in my amendment No. 1, rather than 0.5 per cent., is based on the following three reasons that I can think of. You may be able to think of 33 reasons, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne may be able to think of 333 reasons. However, there are three good reasons that should command the full support of the House.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood said, consumer demand can be met by current technology for beers of 0.05 per cent. alcohol or less. It has been suggested--I am glad to see that my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone has returned--that even at no-alcohol levels, and certainly at low-alcohol levels, alcohol must be made from full-strength alcohol and a dilution process then takes place. However, the technology that now exists has proved successful in manufacturing no-alcohol and low-alcohol beers at 0.05 per cent. alcohol by volume. Those tests have been successful to the extent that no-alcohol and low-alcohol beers below 0.05 per cent. now have a 30 per cent. share of the market. Both the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton may challenge me on whether it is technically feasible to manufacture low-alcohol beers at less than 0.05 per cent.
11.15 am
When I took my amendment to the Public Bill Office, the Clerks were at first disinclined to accept it on the grounds that Mr. Speaker would not select it because low-alcohol beer could not be made at 0.05 per cent. Like me, they did their researches, as they always do. We are well served by all who work in the Public Bill Office. One cannot bounce them into anything, because they are experts and they are never wrong. On this ocasion they were not wrong. They did their research and noted, as I have noted, that 30 per cent. of the market for no-alcohol and low-alcohol beers is accounted for by beers of a strength of 0.05 per cent. alcohol by volume which are on sale and available. Therefore, my amendment was not only tabled but selected by Mr. Speaker.
We have proof positive that if, in the early stages, there is any element of doubt in the Public Bill Office about an amendment, it will get its facts right before recommending to the House an amendment that cannot be anything but in order.
There is no technical reason for stopping, as my hon. Friend wishes to do, at 0.5 per cent. alcohol by volume. To bring it down to 0.05 per cent. would remove all danger of anyone becoming intoxicated from low-alcohol beer. I
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forget which of my hon. Friends said in an intervention that one would have to drink vast quantities--pints and pints or gallons and gallons--of beer at 0.5 per cent. alcohol by volume before one could become intoxicated. As my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne would say, I beg to be in respectful disagreement with my hon. Friend. It seems sensible to avoid the danger of intoxication from the sale of low- alcohol beer from unlicensed premises. I shall use as evidence for my remarks the report to which I have already referred by Professor Po at Queen's university, Belfast. I shall refer to it in a moment.Mr. John Marshall : My hon. Friend has referred more than once to that learned report. He said that he had sent it to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, or that it found its way to him. Did he send a copy to my hon. Friend the Treasurer of the Household, who has a deep interest in these matters? As it is from a professor in Northern Ireland, did he also send a copy to my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley), who also has a deep interest in these matters?
Mr. Brown : I did not send the report to my hon. Friend the Minister. Ably briefed as ever, and suspecting that I might refer to the report, he has a copy on the Front Bench with him. I spoke earlier of the way in which Back Benchers are served in the House. Not only do we have brilliant and accurate advice from the Public Bill Office, but we can be assured that, when a Back Bencher refers to a report that others might regard as obscure but which he regards as eminently important, my hon. Friend the Minister has it available for his reference. I am only sad that he has not learned the lessons of the conclusions of the report, which I shall reveal to the House in a moment.
Mr. Andrew Mitchell : I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry for giving way. He has cited the report more than twice. Does he have additional copies for me, and my hon. Friends and Opposition Members to peruse before he takes us through it, as I hope he will?
Secondly, will my hon. Friend tell the House a little more about Professor Li Wan Po? If we are to attach great weight to what he has said, we need to know a little more about where he did the treatise and about his experience. I feel sure that that would enable the House to give sufficient regard and weight to his report.
Mr. Brown : If only the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Energy would be patient, all will be revealed. You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, are in the Chair when the Chancellor of the Exchequer makes his Budget statement. Before he does so, you always say that copies of the Budget speech and related papers are not to be passed around the Chamber until the Chancellor has sat down. When I have completed my speech, I shall take such copies as are necessary for the hon. Member for Huddersfield, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Mitchell) and any others--
Mr. John Marshall : What about the Treasurer of Her Majesty's Household?
Mr. Brown : I shall come to the Treasurer in a moment. I shall take copies of the report with great pleasure, so that, if any hon. Member doubts what I am saying about my amendment and wishes to challenge me, he or she can do
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so with all the evidence. Therefore, the answer to the questions of my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling is yes, but when I have sat down.I am aware that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, are the same Mr. Deputy Speaker who is in the Chair on Budget Day and who takes a dim view of papers and copies of reports being circulated while the Chancellor is making his speech. We have to wait until the Chancellor sits down before papers and copies of reports relating to his speech can be circulated in the Chamber. Therefore, once I have concluded my speech, I shall go straight to the photocopying machine and take such copies as are necessary.
Nobody can challenge the evidence of a professor at the University of Belfast--
Mr. Brown : Because as my hon. Friends the Members for Eltham and for Eastbourne will testify, that university is probably one of the best institutions of academic learning in the United Kingdom. My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) has referred to the Treasurer of Her Majesty's Household. I have a suspicion that the Treasurer of Her Majesty's Household has read the report and that it was he who sent the report to the Minister. Everything in the report supports all that the Treasurer has said about the dangers of alcohol both in the Chamber and outside the House during the 11 years and two months that he has been a Member. I said that there were three reasons to support my amendment. So far I have adumbrated two of them, so here is the third. If the level were confined to 0.05 per cent. of alcohol by volume, consumers in unlicensed premises would need to make no judgment about the level of alcohol. That is highly desirable in this already confused area. Consumers have difficulty distinguishing no-alcohol brands from low-alcohol brands, as is clear from some of the interventions made this morning. That is perfectly understandable. We glibly talk about "low-alcohol" and "no-alcohol" drinks, but there is not only confusion in the public mind ; there is still greater confusion in the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Honiton is seeking to clear up that confusion, and I have no complaint with the general tenor of what he is seeking to do.
If the definition of "intoxicating liquor" were pitched at 0.05 per cent., matters would be much simpler. All products with a "low-alcohol" descriptor would be confined to licensed premises and all products with a "non- alcoholic" descriptor would be available in both licensed and unlicensed premises. What could be simpler? The simple test would be, if there is any alcohol in it, it must be sold in licensed premises only ; if there is no alcohol in it, it can be sold in unlicensed premises. Surely that is even simpler than the clarification that I fully acknowledge that my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton is seeking to bring to section 201(1) of the Licensing Act 1964. However, there is still an element of confusion in my hon. Friend's Bill.
Sir Peter Emery : I know that my hon. Friend would not want to use words that might mislead the House, but surely he accepts that some of the products that are marketed as containing 0.05 per cent. alcohol nevertheless contain some alcohol. As they contain the slight 0.05 per
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cent. of alcohol, my hon. Friend's argument that there is no alcohol in such drinks is misleading, and I am sure that he would not want to mislead the House.Mr. Brown : I see the point that my hon. Friend is making. I must acknowledge that even non-alcoholic beer may have contained alcohol at, say, one part per million-- [Interruption.] --perhaps it is one part per 100 million--but it might be even less than that. Alcohol may have been involved because of the process of manufacture that my hon. Friend has described.
That is where the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South is absolutely correct. One would have to drink a swimming pool full of such a drink before there was any danger of one registering even 1 mm on the breathalyser. If one consumed such a quantity of drinks of 0.05 per cent. alcohol by volume to register that level, one would almost certainly be dead from causes other than alcoholism because one would have had to drink several times one's body weight.
I accept the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton about not misleading the House. I certainly do not want to do that, but I am sure that he will agree that it would be impossible for somebody to become intoxicated in any way--even a seven-year-old--if my amendment were accepted. As I have said, by the time that one started to register as intoxicated on any breathalyser machine, one would almost certainly be dead for other reasons.
Sir Peter Emery : Much of my hon. Friend's argument has been about topping up the extra amount that one would have to drink if one were to be positively breathalysed on leaving a bar. If a person with 79.97 mg of alcohol in his blood per 100 ml leaves a bar and is breathalysed, that person is not considered to have committed an offence. We may deprecate the fact that he has that amount of alcohol in his blood, but he will not have committed an offence. However, if, with a reading of 79.97 mg per 100 ml in his blood, that person then drank something with 0.05 per cent. alcohol by volume, he would be over the top. Therefore, there is no absolute factor to suggest that, even if my hon. Friend's amendment were to be accepted, topping up would be done away with. As much of my hon. Friend's argument rests on that point about topping up, he should admit my argument. I accept that the level that he is proposing is not as great as that which I have proposed, but a level still exists and must be accepted as still existing.
Mr. Sheerman : Before the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) resumes his speech--
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. We cannot have an intervention on an intervention. I call Mr. Brown.
Mr. Brown : I shall give way to the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) in a moment. My hon. Friend the Member for Honiton is technically correct, but it is impossible to measure the degree of accuracy to which he has referred on any breathalyser machine--
Sir Peter Emery : Is my hon. Friend sure?
Mr. Sheerman rose --
Mr. Brown : Well, I believe that the hon. Member for Huddersfield is sure, at any rate.
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Mr. Sheerman : We are not doing full justice to the scientific evidence. It is not just a question of Professor Po's evidence. I have similar evidence from King's college and other universities and institutes, which all points to the fact that it is impossible, in terms of the research carried out on the capacity of the human body, to reach the 79.95 level and then to become over the limit by an alcoholic content of 0.05, although an alcoholic content of 0.5 could put one over the limit. The hon. Gentleman is not doing full justice to his case.
Mr. Brown : The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We should not rely only on Professor Po's research. I have all the other evidence to which the hon. Gentleman has just referred.
Mr. John Marshall : And my hon. Friend is coming to it.
11.30 am
Mr. Brown : Yes, I am. I have also the report of Professor Tipton of the university of Dublin and the report by Dr. Badawy, a top-grade biochemist with the South Glamorgan health authority. The hon. Gentleman's point is also confirmed by Professor Merton Sandler of the postgraduate medical school at the university of London. I have also the policy statement of Professor Timothy Peters, FRCPath. of the King's college school of medicine and dentistry, King's college, London, regarding the top -up question. I shall return to that statement in a moment, but not until I have dealt with the university of Belfast report.
Mr. John Marshall : Much of the discussion has centred on whether taking another drop of alcohol would push someone over the breathalyser limit. Does not my hon. Friend agree that the discussion should centre on whether a person's ability to drive would be impaired? There is a great deal of evidence that the driving of many of those who are below the breathalyser limit is impaired, that they cause unnecessary accidents and that they may cause unnecessary loss of life. That is the real issue, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : But that is not the purpose of the amendments. I hope that the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) will return to that purpose.
Mr. Brown : You are absolutely right, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You were quite right to rule my hon. Friend's intervention wholly out of order. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the amendment, which addresses the top-up question. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) has always been concerned about the effect of alcohol on driving. He knows a great deal about the subject. He has demonstrated his expertise and knowledge whenever he has served on Standing Committees that have considered transport Bills.
If my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South had wanted to challenge me, he ought to have questioned me on the top-up policy by referring to the Guinness policy statement on the top-up question.
Mr. Page : Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Brown : Before my hon. Friend starts to challenge me on the top- up question, which is wholly in order insofar as it relates to the amendment, I ought to tell him about the top-up question. If the blood alcohol level is 78 mg per
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100 ml of blood, one pint--that is, 568 ml- -of low-alcohol beer containing 1 per cent. by volume of ethanol, consumed over 20 minutes is almost certain to increase the blood alcohol level of many adult subjects to a value above the legal limit for driving of 80 mg per 100 ml of blood.Mr. Brown : Dr. A. Badawy, a top-grade biochemist, says that. He represents South Glamorgan health authority.
Mr. Page : I chide my hon. Friend for the way in which he is presenting his case, but it pains me to do so. Normally, one produces the evidence in scientific matters and draws conclusions. My hon. Friend has been drawing conclusions for a considerable time. I hope that we shall soon hear about the valuable evidence of Professor Po, on which the whole of my hon. Friend's case rests.
Mr. Brown : If I had walked into the Chamber, picked up Professor Po's report and read it, you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would have immediately called me to order and asked what it had to do with the amendment. You would also have ordered me to resume my seat. We have to keep within the rules of order and we have to speak to amendments. If we do not, we are ordered to resume our seats, or we are called to order. An amendment is tabled to do this or to change that, and we have to consider the basis is for wanting to make the change. We have to provide a basis for the argument. Then we use the evidence. It ought to be done my way, or hon. Members would be ordered to resume their seats. We make our case and then introduce evidence to support it when we are challenged by colleagues, as I am being challenged. I hope to be able to rebut those challenges, at least to the satisfaction of the Chair, as each challenge is put to me, by revealing my evidence. The Minister is in possession of all the evidence that I have in my hand. I am not making up these names. Every piece of paper that I possess is also possessed by the Minister and can be found in his files. He has the report by Dr. Badawy of South Glamorgan health authority. He also has the report on the Guinness policy statement on the top-up question from Dr. Timothy Peters and also the report from Dublin university by Professor Tipton, who is the head of the department of biochemistry at Trinity college. If my hon. Friend does not believe me, I hope that he will believe the Minister when he refers to the evidence.
I said earlier that the House should support my amendment rather than the amendments of my hon. Friends the Members for Maidstone and for Gedling for three reasons. My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling has been absolutely irresponsible in tabling his amendment. According to amendment No. 10, the level of 0.5 per cent. would be deleted and would be replaced by a level of 1.2 per cent. Dr. Badawy, of South Glamorgan health authority provides the evidence on which we should reject my hon. Friend's amendment. Dr. Badawy says that it is possible for someone to consume 1 per cent. by volume of alcohol ethanol over 20 minutes and that in the case of many adults that alone will mean that they are above the legal limit for driving. According to my hon. Friend's
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amendment, that limit would be raised to 1.2 per cent. He wants people to drive while they are under the influence of alcohol. My hon. Friend's amendment is irresponsible. I do not believe that he intended it to be irresponsible when he tabled it. It is quite possible that he may catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and rebut the charge that I have levelled at him, but I prefer to use the evidence of Dr. Badawy, a top-grade biochemist, as the basis on which I shall cast my vote if my hon. Friend is irresponsible enough to call a Division on his amendment. I hope that he will not even move the amendment. If he does, I hope that he will not press it to a Division, but if he does that, I urge the House to reject it utterly. The amendment is irresponsible, but my hon. Friend is the Parliamentary Private Secretary to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy, so he cannot be irresponsible, but that is the effect of the amendment. I shall give way to my hon. Friend and I hope that he can account for his amendment.Mr. Andrew Mitchell : My hon. Friend makes an uncharacteristically intemperate attack on my amendment. If I am fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall certainly move amendment No. 10 and I shall demonstrate that, far from being irresponsible, I am seeking to join the rest of the House and act in the spirit of the Bill in making it safer for children and those who drive having consumed modest amounts of drink, by making the definitions clearer. If my hon. Friend stays to hear my brief intervention in the debate, I hope that he will realise that my amendment has the same intention as his, but I am approaching the same common task with a slightly different emphasis.
Mr. Brown : I am sorry, but that will not do. I am seeking to reduce while my hon. Friend is seeking to increase. It is that simple.
Mr. Mitchell : I am seeking to maintain the status quo.
Mr. Brown : My hon. Friend is wrong. He is not seeking to maintain the status quo. The Bill reduces the limit from 1.2 per cent. to 0.5 per cent. I am proposing that it should be 0.05 per cent. My hon. Friend says that he is in favour of the status quo, but he is in favour of returning to the limit set in 1964, which is not the base from which we should be starting now that there has been a 30 per cent. growth in the market in low -alcohol and non-alcoholic beers. Mr. Mitchell rose --
Mr. Brown : Does my hon. Friend really want to intervene again after what he has just heard?
Mr. Mitchell : I merely wish to stress that I am seeking to maintain the status quo. The Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery) is not yet law, so the status quo is currently 1.2 per cent.
Mr. Brown : Why do we change legislation? Why do we seek to alter the status quo? Because we are not satisfied with the present position. The Government have been in power for 11 years. On 4 May 1979, when the Prime Minister first appeared at the Dispatch Box, she did not say that we had just been elected as a Conservative Government and we were here to maintain the status quo. We are not here to maintain the status quo ; we are elected to implement our beliefs and to make changes in
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legislation. We are here to make improvements. My hon. Friend should not defend the status quo, which is indefensible. Clause 1 of the Bill amends section 201(1) of the Licensing Act 1964. It is a move in the right direction, but it does not go far enough. It rightly amends the status quo that was set in 1964 and that is unacceptable in 1990. It has to be changed for the reasons that several hon. Members, certainly the hon. Member for Huddersfield, have mentioned. The status quo once left us without the breathalyser and without speed limits. We changed the status quo because it was wrong. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend will seek to make a case for his amendment, but he has not made a case for it in his interventions so far.Mr. Roger Gale (Thanet, North) : I, too, hope to catch your eye later, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend has quoted a statistic several times. He said that 30 per cent. of the market represents low-alcohol and non-alcoholic beers. The House might find that slightly misleading. Perhaps my hon. Friend can explain what proportion of that 30 per cent. represents low-alcohol beers and what proportion represents non-alcoholic beers.
11.45 am
Mr. Brown : I cannot do that as I should need to take advice from Guinness Brewing G.B., as that was the source of the statistic that I quoted. Unfortunately it did not break down the figures within that 30 per cent. into LABs and NABs.
Mr. Sheerman : I do not want to prolong the hon. Gentleman's speech, which has lasted for more than one hour and 10 minutes, but the letter that I received from Guinness pointed out that its products at 0.05 per cent. alcohol now represent 20 per cent. of the LAB and NAB market.
Mr. Brown : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that information, which answers the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, North (Mr. Gale).
I have set out three reasons why we should accept my amendment in preference to the status quo, to the figure that my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton suggests, to the figure chosen by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone in her amendment No. 8 and most certainly in preference to the amendment that my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling seeks to move later this morning.
If the definition of intoxicating liquor were to be struck at 0.5 per cent., there would be three categories : low-alcohol products allowed to be sold in licensed premises only ; low-alcohol products allowed to be sold in licensed and unlicensed premises and non-alcoholic products allowed to be sold in licensed and unlicensed premises. In those circumstances it is possible that there would be a move to reclassify 0.5 per cent. alcohol by volume as alcohol free to avoid consumer confusion. My hon. Friend the Member for Honiton would be the first to say that that would be utterly misleading. I referred earlier to the note that Guinness Brewing G.B. sent to my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister also received a copy of that letter.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. Although it seems an awful long time ago, I have heard all this before. I very much hope that the hon. Gentleman is not getting repetitive.
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Mr. Brown : You have not heard it all before, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I quoted paragraphs 1 to 4 and I referred to paragraph 5. I referred to the report of Professor Li Wan Po of the department of pharmacy at Queen's university, Belfast. I did not refer to that report in detail ; I merely referred to the author, the title and the author's credentials. Most emphatically, I deliberately did not do so because I knew that if I were to read out paragraph 5 of the letter and I then returned to the report, you would probably call me to order, so I took great care not to refer to Professor Po's report in the context of my amendment.
I left out paragraph 5 of the letter, as the record of my speech will show, and with your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I must stress that that study showed the following fact to be true. A calculation has been made. If you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, think that you have heard this all before I shall stop, but I do not think that you have. The intake of a single bolus--I may have to define that for hon. Members who are not familiar with the term--of one pint or steady drinking of two to three pints per hour of beer containing either 0.5 per cent. by volume of alcohol or 1 per cent. by volume of alcohol--0.2 per cent. by volume of alcohol less than the status quo-- increases the blood-alcohol level, whereas the intake of beer containing 0.5 per cent. of alcohol by volume is perfectly safe. Who says that? Not me. Have I said it before this morning? No, because there must be verification of the fact. My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling upbraided me for stating a conclusion without first giving the evidence. To keep myself in order, I have just given the conclusion.
The evidence of Professor Li Wan Po--
Mr. Dalyell : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Seventy-seven minutes into his speech, is it in order to move that the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) no longer be heard and that we hear the Minister and the hon. Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery)?
Mr. Deputy Speaker : I very much hope that the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) will take that as a message of resentment about how speeches have been needlessly protracted. I remind the House that more than 20 private Member's Bills are on the Order Paper. At the end of every Session, there are complaints from hon. Members who have been frustrated in their efforts to bring their Bill before the House and make progress. I hope that hon. Members will bear in mind the interests of other hon. Members and my duty to safeguard them.
Mr. Brown : Most certainly, but you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will acknowledge that before the Bill, which was a balloted Bill, is put on the statute book, we should consider its implications. In its present form, the Bill may mislead people outside into believing that by consuming low- alcohol beers, having consumed two and a half pints of full-alcohol beer, they are safe. They may be endangering themselves and others by being over the limit.
Mr. Dalyell : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I have your guidance? Is there a qualitative difference between balloted Bills and ten-minute Bills a legitimate parliamentary procedure whereby hon. Members have had the sweat of queueing at the Public Bill Office? May I have a ruling on whether balloted Bills are qualitatively more important than and different from ten-minute Bills?
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Mr. Deputy Speaker : The position is quite clear. All the Bills on the Order Paper have equal status, except in terms of the sequence in which they come before the House.Miss Widdecombe : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I, more than any other hon. Member, have experienced the frustration of even a second-placed Bill failing because the debate before it was protracted, sometimes deliberately. Many amendments have been tabled to the Bill, which reflects serious interest in it. I have spoken to an amendment about which I feel extremely strongly. I am interested in the points being made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown). He is addressing not one, but a series of amendments. If his speech is lengthy, surely it has been in order and surely he is addressing the Bill. As it has precedence, we are entitled to do so.
Mr. Brown : I apologise for detaining the House, but I remember that when the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone was before the House there were 30 or 40 Bills following it. We debated the Bill until 2.30 pm, but it did not proceed beyond the first amendment. I do not remember hon. Members expressing much concern about that.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. The concern that was expressed to the Chair on that occasion prompted my remarks this morning. I hope that the hon. Member for Maidstone (Miss Widdecombe) will bear in mind her resentment of how some hon. Members treated her Bill when considering the rights and interests of other hon. Members. Let us get on.
Mr. Brown : I shall deal now with the report from Queen's university, Belfast, but I do not know how to do so. Should I read out the facts or the summary? From what you have said, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you will be satisfied--if you are satisfied, other hon. Members will be--if I simply paraphrase it.
Theoretical modelling of alcohol pharmacokinetics in humans was carried out to investigate whether low-alcohol beers could raise blood-alcohol levels to toxic level. A literature search was carried out to obtain the prerequisite parameters for alcohol
pharmacokinetics in humans. Data published in studies were pooled and described statistically to provide mean values and variance data. Simulation using those parameters was carried out with the computer packages non-lin and minitab. Non-lin is a general non-linear programme, while minitab is a general statistics package. The conclusions that can be drawn from the current study are : "Wide inter-subject variability exists in alcohol elimination from the body. Factors known to alcohol elimination rates and effects include gender, previous exposure, age, genetic variability in enzyme activity and social setting and a blood-alcohol level 800 mg per ml is reduced to half that level in about two and a half hours." Mr. Andrew Mitchell : These are complex scientific matters. May I emphasise that it would be helpful if hon. Members could have a copy of the research that my hon. Friend is producing?
Mr. Brown : I have been generous in giving way. I have had rather more interventions than I should have liked, but as soon as I sit down I shall photocopy the report and ensure that it is available to hon. Members so that they may challenge what I am saying if they wish. You, Mr.
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Deputy Speaker, thought that you heard me say something before. I am happy to provide you with a copy, and perhaps the Clerk might like one in order to assist you. It is an important report.Conclusion No. 4 shows that a pint of non-alcoholic beer had a negligible effect on blood levels. A pint of low-alcohol beer may increase the blood level to over 150 mg per litre. That is almost twice the legal limit for you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to drive to Doncaster or for me to drive to Cleethorpes.
There can be no doubt that this is a serious amendment that deserves the serious consideration of the House. My comments have been challenged, but I have not relied on my intuition or my statistics and I have not made them up. I have not relied only on the views of Guinness, although it must be acknowledged that it has a vested interest in how the Bill gets on the statute book. I have relied on medical and academic evidence, not just on the report from Queen's university Belfast. I have relied on a host of other medical experts, so I hope that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will be the first to agree that I have approached the debate reasonably and responsibly.
Mr. Page : My hon. Friend is at last coming to the evidence on which he has based his case so far. I accept the learned professor's words when he says that if one drinks 0.5 per cent. by volume of alcohol, more alcohol will be put into the blood than if one drinks 0.05 per cent. One does not have to be a professor to reach that conclusion.
Did I hear right? Did my hon. Friend say that the learned professor said that if one drinks one pint of the 0.5 per cent. by volume low-alcohol beer, it could reach levels of 150 per cent. in the blood?
Mr. Brown : Yes, my hon. Friend heard precisely that. He was the one who intervened in my speech earlier to say that someone would have to drink gallons and gallons of low-alcohol beer for it to have a negligible effect. If my hon. Friend wants further evidence, my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton has the very report.
12 noon
Sir Peter Emery : It is 1 per cent., not 0.05 per cent.
Mr. Brown : It is contained in conclusion No. 5 in the report. If my hon. Friend wants me to refer to the evidence, I must turn to page 12. I have a suspicion that while I do not think that I would be out of order, it appears that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, might think that I was out of order if I were to refer to page 12, but my whole case rests on conclusion No. 5, and I think that I would be perfectly in order to draw that to Mr. Deputy Speaker's attention.
I shall turn to conclusion No. 6, on page 13, which states : "Drinking non- alcoholic beer at a rate of 1 pint per 20 minutes does not increase alcohol levels beyond 15 mg per millilitre." There is even more damning evidence in the report, where it states :
"Drinking low-alcohol beer at a rate of one pint per 20 minutes may raise the blood-alcohol level"--
wait for it--
"to 800 mg within three hours."
[Interruption.] I thought that that would cause some murmurs and raise the temperature. The report continues :
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"Rapid drinking of one pint of de- alcoholised beer when the blood-alcohol level is already at 800 mg per ml, will increase that level to higher levels for half an hour."
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