Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
301-319)
MR DAVID
NORTH, MR
JEREMY BLOOD,
MR JEREMY
BEADLES AND
MR MIKE
BENNER
14 MAY 2009
Q301 Chairman: Good morning, gentlemen.
Could I thank you for coming along and helping us with this inquiry.
This is our third evidence session on our inquiry into alcohol.
For the record, could you give us your names and the current positions
that you hold?
Mr Benner: I am Mike Benner, Chief
Executive of CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, a not-for-profit
consumer group.
Mr Blood: I am Jeremy Blood. I
am Managing Director of Scottish and Newcastle UK, a leading brewer
in the UK, but also a pub owner.
Mr Beadles: Jeremy Beadles, Chief
Executive of the Wine and Spirit Trade Association.
Mr North: I am David North, Community
and Government Director at Tesco.
Q302 Chairman: I have got a question
for all four of you. I recognise that with four witnesses this
has a tendency to go on in terms of time, so we will ask specific
questions to one or two of you and we will try and keep to the
timetable if that is at all possible. I do not want to shut you
up, of course. Do you accept that this country has a problem with
alcohol or are we just really witnessing the latest "moral
panic"?
Mr Benner: Have we got a problem
with alcohol consumption? No, I think that alcohol consumption
per se can have—
Q303 Chairman: I was asking about
alcohol in general.
Mr Benner: Alcohol consumption
can have a positive benefit in lots of people's lives. Moderate
consumption of alcohol has been shown from a number of sources
that it can have some health benefits. Clearly there are problems
with excessive consumption of alcohol and that does lead to problems
with crime and disorder. That would be my view. I think moderate
consumption can be a good thing for lots of people.
Mr Blood: Yes, the way the alcohol
culture operates in the United Kingdom does lead to some areas
of misuse and those are well documented and we need to address
those. My commercial enlightened self-interest—I hope it
is enlightened—is that we want a sustainable market for
our products in the future, so for us it is important that we
address and recognise where alcohol is misused and the problems
it causes.
Mr Beadles: Without doubt we have
had an issue with problem drinking within the United Kingdom for
many centuries, if not thousands of years. It is a cultural thing
and a problem that we seriously need to tackle. I do think that
some of the coverage over the last three years has been very high
profile and I do not think there is enough understanding that
consumption levels within the United Kingdom have been dropping
since 2004 and binge drink statistics have also shown a drop since
2000 and 2002. We need to understand why consumption is dropping
and how we can build on that and, therefore, how we can tackle
problem drinking.
Mr North: I would start from the
position that most people purchase alcohol and consume it responsibly,
and we see in our shops that is the case. Most people buy alcohol
as part of their weekly grocery shop and then consume it responsibly.
I take Jeremy's point that some of the trends are helpful, however
I would say in reading the reports that the Chief Medical Officer
and others have produced that there are worrying trends and also
issues that need to be addressed in terms of deaths from alcohol
related causes or abuse, whether that is in a social or personal
setting.
Q304 Chairman: Do you accept that
alcohol is a potentially dangerous product?
Mr Blood: Yes, that is why you
need a licence to sell it.
Q305 Chairman: So it should not be
sold in the same way as eggs or bread?
Mr Benner: I think that is absolutely
right. It is not comparable to baked beans or washing powder,
it is a regulated product and, therefore, needs to be controlled,
which is why minimum pricing could be a way of achieving that.
Q306 Chairman: Does anybody else
have a view?
Mr Beadles: I would not disagree,
it is a licensed product, it has a huge level of regulatory framework
around it and there are 35 pieces of legislation that relate to
the sale, consumption and misuse of alcohol. I think it should
be seen in that regard. We have to be wary of demonising the product.
The majority of consumers enjoy alcohol responsibly and the majority
of producers produce fine products that the consumers enjoy.
Q307 Chairman: David, you do not
have direct responsibility within Tesco for alcohol, but what
is your view about selling it in the same way as eggs and bread?
Mr North: I would agree with others
that it is not sold in the same way as eggs or bread, and nor
should it be. If you were to come into our stores obviously you
cannot purchase alcohol if you are under-18. If you come down
the alcohol aisle of one of our stores you will see that we put
a lot of information so that the customer can be aware, and I
would say better aware, of the consequences of abusing alcohol.
Q308 Sandra Gidley: What information?
If I go down the drink aisle in any supermarket, and it is not
just the drink aisles, it is as you go in and halfway through
the store, the information is all about, "This one is nice
and fruity, this one is dry", and all the rest of it. I have
never seen any health information. Are you saying that Tesco now
puts health awareness information in their alcohol aisle?
Mr North: Absolutely. I was in
a number of our stores yesterday and you can see point of sale
information very visibly every few feet in the alcohol aisles
that, for example, tells you the Chief Medical Officer's recommendations
on alcohol intake. It will also tell you, for example, that it
is good to drink water alongside alcohol and that you should space
your consumption.
Q309 Sandra Gidley: How recently
is this?
Mr Beadles: Can I step in and
say that the Wine and Spirit Trade Association working with the
Drink Aware Trust, which is the industry-funded charity, developed
point of sale materials which reflected the Chief Medical Officer's
health advice and also gave sensible drinking tips for the industry.
They were produced towards September and have rolled out in a
number of stores. They are not in every store yet, there is no
doubt about that, but there are a number of store groups that
have developed them. It is an ongoing process and we will be building
it. I would be very happy to send copies to the Committee so you
can see them.
Q310 Dr Stoate: Can I just ask Tesco
how much money you put into the Drink Aware Trust?
Mr North: I do not have the number.
Q311 Dr Stoate: Could you provide
it for us, please, it would be very useful?
Mr North: Yes, of course.
Q312 Chairman: I have a local Tesco
but it does not have just an alcohol aisle. Going back five or
10 years most supermarkets had an alcohol aisle but many of them
do not now, they put alcohol at the ends of aisles that sell many
different and varied things, do they not?
Mr North: Most of our alcohol
is sold on the alcohol aisles and there are usually one or two
aisles in the store.
Q313 Chairman: You fall over promotions
when you walk into some supermarkets. With the size of supermarkets
nowadays it could be 100 or 200 metres away from the alcohol aisle.
Mr North: Yes. You are absolutely
right, Chairman, some alcohol is sold away from the alcohol aisle.
Almost always those will be promotions, particularly around particular
celebrations, whether it is Christmas or Easter. At the moment
we have a wine festival in our stores so you will see those products
sold on our promotion aisles in some cases.
Q314 Chairman: Do you think it is
all right to promote alcohol, and I am not saying that Tesco does
this but a major supermarket did, at the end of a children's clothes
aisle?
Mr Beadles: I do not believe that
it is appropriate to sell alcohol and to market it there. In fact,
the industry codes on the subject say that alcohol should not
be promoted alongside anything that would appeal to children.
There will always be instances where store managers get it wrong,
and we have dealt with a number of those over the past six months
where consumers have complained to us that they think a product
has been inappropriately placed, and in all instances we have
stepped in and the retailer has removed and changed the product
location.
Q315 Dr Stoate: We have a photograph
here of a supermarket taken in February 2009 with children's clothing
and a huge rack of wine at the end of the same aisle. Obviously
it does happen.
Mr Beadles: It does happen. The
industry code suggests that it should not happen, that it should
not be marketed alongside that, and when consumers make representations
to us we take it up with the retailers.
Q316 Sandra Gidley: Is it not right
to say that store managers these days actually have very little
autonomy, particularly in a large supermarket, because the placement
of products is quite a fine art? You are making the store manager
a bit of a scapegoat, are you not, by blaming him?
Mr Beadles: I am not intending
to make him a scapegoat and that is not what I am saying. In a
lot of the instances where we see it the store manager or a member
of staff has been replenishing stock and got it wrong, and we
do step in. We had one recently where they had just had a large
shipment of teddy bears in and they were trying to find anywhere
in-store to put them and one pile had ended up near a stack of
beer. A consumer complained and we had them removed straight away.
It is not something that the industry believes should happen,
but where it does happen then any reference that is made to us
is taken up. Licensing officers quite often come through to us
on this subject and retailers are very quick to make the changes.
Q317 Dr Taylor: Is it within the
code to put huge stacks of cut-price Stella or whatever it is
right at the entrance where you almost fall over it and have to
walk round it?
Mr Beadles: We do not have any
restrictions within our retail codes on that element. It is an
issue we have struggled with, to be honest, in terms of wording
because of the different store environments. If you have a limitation
that says you cannot have alcohol within a five or 10 foot radius
at the front of the store, if you only operate an off-licence
that means you cannot have any of your product within 10 foot
of the front of the store. We have struggled with this issue and
I am not sure that we have reached a satisfactory conclusion.
It is not something that we have managed to develop any codification
on.
Q318 Dr Taylor: So it could be reasonable
to suggest that large supermarkets at least should not put their
loss leaders, cheap offers, right by the front door?
Mr Beadles: There are certain
commercial restrictions in terms of us getting retailers to agree
where they can or cannot place promotional activities under the
Competition Act, I am afraid. Certainly this is a matter that
we have had discussion with the Home Office about.
Q319 Chairman: Jeremy, have you got
anything that you could share with the Committee in relation to
that particular aspect in terms of trying to get cooperation from
some supermarkets and you cannot?
Mr Beadles: To be honest, I think
we could get some cooperation if we could write a clause, if we
were allowed, under Competition Law to agree where we were able
to market things. I cannot get supermarkets to agree where they
do or do not place promotional activity. We have recommendations
about avoiding theft and things like that, but we cannot reach
that conclusion.
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