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Mr. Ernie Ross: It is on the other side of the country. It is in Scotland.
Miss Kirkbride: I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. I hope that he will forgive my imprecise knowledge of the geography of Scotland. I may not have been paying as much attention as I thought, for which I apologise.
A scheme is working--in Scotland--and we should learn from it. Another worked in my constituency, but we need a nationwide scheme. We could then reasonably expect people who wanted to buy alcohol to provide themselves with an identity card; we could all have confidence in such a system.
Third-party buying of alcohol would pose a difficulty for the operation of the measure. We are all aware that older brothers and sisters buy alcohol for their siblings and friends. The measure would not stop that. Perhaps the Minister has some views on how to deal with that loophole. Furthermore, we would not want parents potentially to commit an offence by having alcohol at home. However, it might be possible to clarify matters as regards the passing on of alcohol that is then consumed in a public place.
Mr. Mike O'Brien:
I am listening carefully to the hon. Lady's remarks. She has expressed concern about the purchase of alcohol by someone aged over 18, who then passes it to someone aged under 18 who drinks it in a public place. It is one thing for a parent, in the confines of the family home, to offer someone aged under 18 wine at a family meal, but quite another for under 18s, under 16s or even under 14s to booze on lager--bought for them by someone who should know better--in a public place and to cause disturbance to others.
Miss Kirkbride:
I am grateful that the Minister has reassured the House on that distinction in the law. That supports the measure, because it is even more necessary that we should not encourage unscrupulous licensees.
Mr. Heald:
Would my hon. Friend like to pay tribute to the work of Robert Spink, a former colleague in the House, who promoted the Confiscation of Alcohol (Young Persons) Act 1997? That measure came into force shortly after the general election and allows the police to confiscate alcohol from young people in certain circumstances.
Miss Kirkbride:
I thank my hon. Friend for drawing my attention to that measure. Obviously it was passed before I became a Member of the House, although I should have paid greater attention when I was sitting in the Press Gallery as a Daily Telegraph correspondent. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding me of the important efforts of other Members.
Some allusion has been made to statistics. The number of under-18s convicted or cautioned for alcohol-related offences during the past few years makes interesting reading. When my parents were young, there was obviously not such a great interest in alcohol, because in 1955 only 669 convictions were of under-18s. Recently, the problem has grown. In 1995, there were 2,904 convictions for that age group. In 1955, 669 represented 1.2 per cent. of all convictions for such offences, but by 1995, 2,904 represented 7 per cent. of all convictions.
That is a high percentage of convictions for illegal acts relating to the consumption of alcohol and to drunkenness. They provide us with reasons to act. Furthermore, the statistics are old and, sadly, time marches on, so the figures may now be even higher.
When my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border intervened on my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West, my attention was drawn to the fact that there was an extraordinary blip in the figures for 1975 and for 1985. In 1975, we had the greatest number of convictions for drunkenness and alcohol problems in all age groups since records began--104,452. I have been racking my brains to try to recall what happened that year to cause such drunkenness. I do not remember its being world cup year.
Mr. Maclean:
It was the Labour Government.
Miss Kirkbride:
My right hon. Friend says that it was the Labour Government. In a non party-political debate such as this, I was not going to say that, but it is quite curious.
Mr. Mike O'Brien:
I must defend the previous Labour Government. That was about getting convictions--enforcing the law. The hon. Lady will note that the point at which convictions dropped to their lowest was in 1995, if I remember rightly from what was said by the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean), the former Home Office Minister who was then responsible for these matters, who quoted the statistics earlier.
Miss Kirkbride:
Gosh, I must defend my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border. I do not believe that that is true. The 1975 figure for convictions for under-age drunkenness and alcohol problems
Nevertheless the figures are worrying, as is evidence of the problems that some areas are experiencing. Sadly, the areas that experience the greatest difficulties with young people and alcohol tend to be--but are by no means exclusively--among the more socially deprived. It is worrying that some of those communities are having great difficulties.
I note that, at the Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool, children as young as eight are being admitted with acute alcoholic intoxication. It is deeply shocking that any parent responsible for a child could allow him or her to get into such a state. In 1986, just 20 children were treated at the Alder Hey for alcoholic intoxication. By 1996, that figure had increased tenfold, to 200.
I do not wish to single out Liverpool as the only area that has such difficulties; I fear that the experience at Alder Hey represents a much wider picture throughout the United Kingdom. The figures are most worrying. One cannot believe that the sole cause is the fact that the local off-licence sold those children alcohol. It may be more an issue of parental responsibility. Nevertheless it is worrying, and we need to do something about it, because research shows that children who start abusing alcohol at a young age--not just working it out for themselves and then enjoying it later, as a responsible adult--are likely to have alcohol-related problems in later life. That is a tragedy for them but, as we also know, alcohol-related problems are a great problem for the rest of society.
Mr. Kelvin Hopkins (Luton, North):
I join hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell) on introducing this seemingly modest but important Bill. It is about a serious subject, which should concern all of us, especially parents. I apologise for having had to leave the Chamber briefly, earlier in the day, to attend to other business. I hope that I did not miss too much. I have listened with great interest to what all other hon. Members have said.
Before I come to the body of my speech, I should like to comment on some of what has been said. I generally agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Clarke) on just about everything. However, I was concerned by his suggestion that we might reduce the age at which one can legally consume alcohol. He drew a parallel between that and the equalisation of the age of consent in sexual matters, but I do not think that such a parallel exists. The issue needs further debate before that idea gains currency. In fact, many of the problems caused by alcohol need further discussion in the House, and I look forward to future debates on the subject.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Hamilton) talked about the importance of developing appropriate and sensible attitudes to alcohol consumption, particularly in the family. He quoted practice in Belgium, but I would caution against referring to continental practice. Alcohol consumption is still considerably higher on the continent than in this country. The gap is narrowing somewhat, but continental countries have much more serious problems with alcohol than we do.
I remember my late father telling me of his first visit to Paris in the late 1940s. He saw a Government advertisement on a metro train and, roughly translated into English, the legend was, "No more than two litres of wine a day." By my calculation, that is a safe limit of 24 units a day. We have made some advance since then, but that example illustrates the problems that used to exist on the continent of Europe. They are reducing, we know, but they are still a good deal more serious than ours. I hope that those countries imitate our practice rather than us imitating theirs.
Alcohol is a legal drug that is used and enjoyed by most people in a sensible way, but it is also dangerous. It can be addictive, it causes accidents and it underlies much anti-social behaviour. It is chemically very simple. For the organic chemists present, it is C 2 H 5 OH, which is ethyl alcohol. It has certain effects on the body, especially if it is used to excess over long periods. It is chemically next door to methyl alcohol--meths--which destroys body tissues and causes blindness fairly quickly. We are dealing with chemistry that is rather worrying and dangerous for the human frame.
It was inevitable that humankind would discover alcohol. Hon. Members may have seen a wildlife programme on television in which monkeys lapped up puddles of fermenting fruit in a forest, and they were obviously very drunk. Their behaviour, not surprisingly, mirrors what happens to human beings when they imbibe too much. Some were clearly exuberantly happy, others were aggressive and, although it was not on screen, some were no doubt behaving in a sexually licentious way.
For the monkeys, however, the experience was a very rare event. They could not walk into an off-licence or a supermarket and buy unlimited quantities of mass-produced alcohol. They did not face the risk of excessive, prolonged drinking over many years and the addiction that can follow. It was a rare and interesting event for the monkeys, and it did not pose them any serious dangers. I suppose swinging through the trees after drinking a lot of alcohol might not be safe, but I hope that they had enough sense not to do that.
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