Examination of Witnesses (Questions 164-205)
BRIGID SIMMONDS, STEPHEN OLIVER AND NICK BISH
12 OCTOBER 2010
Witnesses: Brigid Simmonds,
British Beer and Pub Association, Stephen Oliver, British
Beer and Pub Association, and Nick Bish, Association of
Licensed Multiple Retailers (ALMR), gave evidence.
Q164 Chair:
Good morning and welcome to the Transport Select Committee. Could
I ask you to identify yourselves please for our records, with
your name and organisation?
Stephen Oliver:
Good morning. I am Stephen Oliver. I am from Marston's Plc.
Brigid Simmonds:
I am Brigid Simmonds. I'm the Chief Executive of the British Beer
and Pub Association.
Nick Bish: Good
morning, Chair. My name is Nick Bish and I am Chief Executive
of the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers, which is the
trade body solely dedicated to representing the grass roots of
the industry, small pubs and bar companies.
Q165 Chair:
Thank you very much. In your written evidence the British Beer
and Pub Association concentrate on saying that pubs have become
increasingly family friendly, reducing the concentration on alcoholic
drinks and having more non-alcoholic drinks, food and other things.
Yet you say that if there was a 50mg limit that would have a drastic
effect on business in pubs. How can those two things be the same
if you are reducing the dependency of the business on alcohol,
yet you are saying that reducing the limit would be very harmful
indeed? Are those two things compatible?
Brigid Simmonds:
I don't think the two are incompatible. Madam Chairman, I think
I would have to say at the beginning that this is a hugely sensitive
subject and it is one where we very much appreciate that sensitivity.
We are very much in favour, and we made it clear to Sir Peter
North that we were in favour, of random breath taking. We see
that as a next logical step because I think random breath taking
and enforcement is hugely important to this. But we are concerned
- and we are still closing 39 pubs a week - about the effect of
reducing the blood alcohol limit to 50mg because we are concerned
that people simply won't understand, and therefore will stop going
out because they don't believe that they can have a drink with
a meal which, as you rightly say, is happening in more and more
pubs now. The smoking ban having taken its effect, many pubs are
serving food to survive. In fact, we now serve more food than
the whole of the restaurant sector put together.
Q166 Chair:
Can I take you up on that bit? You have said, as you have put
in your written evidence, that you are increasingly selling more
food. Why would this produce a bigger threat to the pubs? If you
are increasingly selling more food and reducing dependency on
alcohol, why would there be such a dramatic impact if the alcohol
level was reduced?
Brigid Simmonds:
Because if you sell food, people want to go out and have a meal
in a restaurant, and they want to have a drink with it. Our concern
is that the effect of reducing it will mean that people will decide
that it is not worth taking that risk and they will stay at home.
Q167 Chair:
You say also that 17% of all pub visitors drive or are passengers
in the vehicle. How did you get to that figure?
Brigid Simmonds:
We have a lot of statistics about many different things, so we
have statistics about how many people visit pubs overall. We have
52,000 pubs in this country and we took that as an average, and
having talked to our members. Stephen may have a view about how
it affects his particular company.
Q168 Chair:
Yes. Mr Oliver, can you help us on this one: how you get to that
figure?
Stephen Oliver:
I can. Just for the record, Marston's owns five breweries and
we also operate 2,200 pubs across England and Wales. To try to
answer your question, food is a much more important part of what
we offer to our consumers than ever before. We are building at
the moment, for instance, 20 new pubs a year and nearly half of
the sales in those pubs comes from food. I would add to what Brigid
has said by saying that there are still many, many pubs however
in the UK which do rely on drink for a substantial part of their
turnover. That includes many rural pubs as well. In my view, a
change downwards in the drink-drive limit would have an impact
on those because consumers would think very carefully indeed about
going out and having a drink, whether it is with a meal or just
having a drink in general.
We have seen over the last few years some very substantial
impacts on the British pub industry. At one stage, over 50 pubs
a week were closing: it is now down to somewhere in the region
of 39 or 40. There are a range of reasons for that, not least
of which is the smoking ban. A reduction in the drink-drive limit
would undoubtedly add much more pressure to many of those pubs,
a lot of which are in rural areas.
Q169 Kelvin Hopkins:
I am a great supporter of the pub as an institution, the British
way of life, part of our culture and all that. Indeed, 25 years
ago I used to be Chair of a social club which sold alcohol - a
party political one. That closed because of drink-driving effectively.
People just wouldn't come into the town centre from their homes
to drink because they had to drive home. Is it not the case that
the big effect of the drink-drive laws has already had its impact,
and that any marginal change now would not make that much difference
compared with what has happened already?
Brigid Simmonds:
I think the biggest difficulty is that the system that we have
at the moment is one that people understand. They are quite clear
in their own view that they shouldn't drink and drive and that
they can have a drink when they go out. I think by changing it
we may move from "you idiot" to "you're unlucky".
There is a clear acceptance that we have some of the safest roads
in Europe with the drink-drive limits that we have at the moment.
I think there is a real chance that we will undermine the moral
understanding that we have about drink-driving at the moment.
It is something we hugely support. We support the Department for
Transport every year, and have for over 40 years, in drink-drive
campaigns.
Chair: Mr Bish, do you
want to comment on this?
Nick Bish: No,
I am content.
Q170 Kelvin Hopkins:
Two more questions. One doesn't know - I don't know anyway - what
proportion of those who are convicted of drink-driving or of being
involved in accidents are actually driving home from pubs. It
may be that the great majority are not driving home from pubs
and therefore, as I say, the impact has already been effected
on pubs. I support pubs, as I mentioned, and local licensed victuallers
tell me that the real problem they have is competition from supermarkets
selling vast quantities of drink which is below a price that the
pubs could possibly operate at. I have argued this case as well
and they seem to accept it: that a unit price for alcohol would
actually benefit pubs because it would raise the price of alcohol
sales in supermarkets but not affect pubs.
Brigid Simmonds:
It is true that 70% of all alcohol now is sold in the off-trade
rather than in the on-trade, if I can broadly look at it like
that. But it is not true for beer. For beer, we still have 50%
of what is sold in the off-trade and 50% of what is sold in pubs.
Beer is actually hugely important to the viability of pubs and
one of the reasons why people go and visit great British pubs,
whether they be from abroad or from here. What has not happened
as part, perhaps, of this report is there has not been an economic
study which looks specifically at the effect that changing drink-drive
laws would have on the pub. That is where our major concerns lie.
Q171 Kelvin Hopkins:
My final question is: do we know how many of those who have consumed
alcohol in pubs actually drive away afterwards? A high proportion
would walk home, go by public transport or be driven by someone
else, a family member, or whatever. It may only be a very small
proportion of people now who actually drive away from a pub having
consumed alcohol.
Brigid Simmonds:
I think that this is very true in town centres. People do come
by public transport and we can have a discussion about how difficult
it is to get home afterwards. I think that is a separate issue.
But really in rural and semi-rural locations people still do drive
there. People drive there particularly if it has a very good reputation
for food. They drive there to go to a particular pub or restaurant
because they want to go to that particular pub or restaurant and
that is a good reason for going; and, yes, they do still drive.
Q172 Kelvin Hopkins:
Just a final point: my family and I regularly go to pubs. What
happens is that one of us doesn't drink and the others do.
Brigid Simmonds:
I also think that there are a lot of youngsters who would never
consider drinking and driving. That is why I say our laws have
been hugely effective. You have to make sure that in changing
the law you are going to have a law that people really readily
understand and is going to be properly enforced.
Q173 Mr Harris:
I think in this debate - and I am sure this is not the first time
that this room has heard exactly these arguments that are in front
of the Select Committee over the years - isn't there a danger
that your sector, your organisation, is sometimes, and I think
unfairly, seen as the bad guys because you are thinking of the
economics of the argument? Would you not agree that the big issue
is how do we reduce the number of people killed on the roads through
drink-driving? We have had evidence earlier that about 430 people
a year do die in that way. Your main argument seems to be that
there should be an economic study to show the economic effects
on the pub sector as a result of a reducing of the maximum blood
alcohol content limit. It sounds to me as if you're not singing
from the same hymn sheet as everyone else in the country, who
are actually concerned about people's lives and are not really
concerned about the economics.
Brigid Simmonds:
We are very concerned about people's lives. I have said from the
start that we are very much in favour of random breath testing.
I think Sir Peter North was very surprised that we were in favour
of random breath testing. We are very much in favour of targeted
and vigorous enforcement. I think we need higher visibility, and
I think it is taking those as the next steps before you consider
whether reducing the blood alcohol limit to 50mg is really the
right way to go.
Q174 Mr Harris:
We have heard this argument about the smoking ban - and for the
record I was opposed to the smoking ban and voted against it -
and the impact in terms of the number of closures of pubs. Many
continental countries have a lower limit than in Britain. Have
they seen an appropriate reduction in the number of rural pubs
as a result of their lower limit?
Brigid Simmonds:
To be honest, the great British pub is unique in that sense, and
the way that they operate on the continent is really very different.
I think it would be very difficult to make that comparison.
Q175 Chair:
But has there been a reduction in pubs on the continent?
Brigid Simmonds:
Well, they don't have pubs on the continent. It is different culturally,
and I think that is what our concern is here. We have a very specific
British culture and the way it works.
Q176 Kwasi Kwarteng:
On this particular point, I wanted to raise something that Kelvin
mentioned, but he asked about three supplementary questions so
I didn't get a chance to follow up, so if I may, Chair. I think
he made a good point about the marginal change. What he was saying
was that in 1967 there was a pervasive culture of drink-driving.
Over the last 40 years, I wouldn't say it has disappeared, because
clearly there are problems, but it has gone down substantially.
What he wanted to know I think - and I'm not sure he got an answer
- was what you felt the marginal change was between going from
80mg as a limit to 50mg. Are you saying that the decline in your
business will be greater than it has been for the last 40 years,
or are you saying that it will be the same? I thought that was
a very interesting approach that he made, and I wanted to have
more clarity on this.
Brigid Simmonds:
It is very difficult to be that precise. The pubs are closing
for a number of reasons, not least the economy that we are in.
What I fear though is how the public would react to this - that
the public would react by saying, "If we can't have a drink
when we go out, we're just not prepared to go out." Yes,
that would have a catastrophic effect on our business.
Q177 Kwasi Kwarteng:
Do you think that is going to be initiated by the 80mg to 50mg
change?
Brigid Simmonds:
I do think it is quite possible that that will be initiated by
the 80mg to 50mg. If you see a 15% to 20% decrease in your turnover
in a pub you become unviable.
Stephen Oliver:
Indeed. Can I also make the point that if that were to be the
case, and Brigid has surmised that more and more people actually
stay at home to do their drinking and that is a trend indeed that
we have seen over the last few years, that is why the off-trade
has grown so much and this whole question of the morning after
becomes even more important. Then people are increasingly drinking
in an entirely unregulated environment where the questions of
measures and how much they are actually physically consuming become
much more difficult to understand and control. I think it does
raise the spectre that the following day, the whole morning after
issue becomes more and more important.
Q178 Chair:
Mr Bish, do you have a point?
Nick Bish: I would
just like to re-emphasise the point that is being made - that
only 30% of drinking now takes place in pubs, bars and restaurants
and 70% takes place in the home. There is perhaps a misapprehension
that the drinking at home is in a private home amongst the family;
but of course, it is actually in the unregulated environment,
the unsupervised environment. People are going out to drink, just
not to pubs. The Sunday lunch trip - is the informal visit where
a glass of wine or a beer or a drink might be taken. It is not
a lunch or a party where people might plan their homeward journey,
but the occasional visit. I think the industry must get across
the point that we are all in this together. If you say only 30%
of the drinkers are in pubs, it re-emphasises our ambition for
there to be no drinking and driving. We are absolutely at one
with Government messages on this, and have a track record of saying
so almost consistently throughout the years in all sorts of general
initiatives, poster initiatives and indeed local initiatives.
Yesterday, I was judging a competition in the Royal Borough of
Kensington and Chelsea called "Best Bar None". Five
of the pubs out of the eight I was judging were offering an initiative
called "ScooterMAN". I am sure the Committee will be
familiar with the general principle of where somebody comes and
takes you home. That's good stuff; it shows that the industry
is engaged and that we do have an ambition; we do understand that
one death is too many. We are not a different species, as it were.
Q179 Kwasi Kwarteng:
The judgment of the panel in the session before you came said
that all the evidence suggested that, if you lower the limit,
you lower the number of fatalities. That was incontrovertible.
Nick Bish: I heard
that, but it was also in the context of it being a package of
measures that included enforcement, penalties and the likely deterrent
effect. We are behind that. I think our concern about BAC and
the concentration of it in isolation is that it becomes so much
regarded as a limit up to which drink can be taken and the calculations
of a bit of wine, high strength or low strength beer and so on
and so forth. We discussed - in fact, I think you mentioned it
yourself, Dr Kwarteng - that the range of alcoholic drinks was
so wide now that to do formulas and put lists up all round the
pub would be impractical and unhelpful. As we see it, the message
has got to be, "Don't drink and drive", and the level
at which it is set and which you are considering, and on which
the Government has to make a decision, is based on where the law
kicks in and where penalties apply. We believe that it is the
certainty of detection and the severity of the penalty that is
certainly the area to explore first. There are many opportunities
to improve on figures that have shown a good trend. It is a public
policy success over the years and we should not take that away;
we should just acknowledge that there is more to do. We believe
that the "more to do" is in the context of deterrence
and enforcement.
Brigid Simmonds:
I am sure that the colleagues who were here before would also
admit that of course it will reduce lives if everybody actually
follows that change, and it is considered to be proportionate.
Our concern is that people will say, "We just don't care
any more. If that is the case and you can't go out and have a
drink, we are actually[2]
going to go out and we are going to flout it". If I can just
give a comparison to another piece of legislation, I don't think
that the changes that have been brought in affecting people driving
with mobile phones have any effect on people's behaviour. I, and
I am sure many people in this room, see people driving and speaking
on mobile phones all the time, despite the fact that there have
been high-profile deaths caused by people talking on mobile phones
and holding them to their ears. We have to make sure that changes
in legislation really are going to work.
Q180 Kwasi Kwarteng:
I think that is what they were suggesting. I am impartial as to
who is right, but they were suggesting that changes in the law
in other countries, and they suggested that change in law here,
would reduce the number of deaths. The gentleman said he wasn't
sure by how much that would happen, Chair, but he was convinced
that it would reduce the number of fatalities. I was just wondering
what your position was on that particular point. Do you accept
that?
Brigid Simmonds:
I think -
Q181 Chair:
Do you accept that deaths will be reduced under the proposal from
the North Report?
Brigid Simmonds:
If we look at other European countries, they have lower penalties,
lower levels of enforcement and they have higher levels of drink-drive
deaths and injuries.
Q182 Chair:
But would you accept that there would be a reduction?
Brigid Simmonds:
If the public absolutely embraced penalties, if it was properly
enforced, of course we would accept that there will be a change
and you will have less people killed on the roads, yes.
Q183 Iain Stewart:
I have two questions - one very factual. Going back to your 17%
of pub visitors driving, that is an average across the whole of
the industry. My particular concern is the impact of this change
on rural pubs. Do you have any data on what percentage of drivers
to pubs in rural villages might be?
Brigid Simmonds:
I think inevitably it is obviously steered towards those in rural
areas who are much more likely to drive than those people going
to town centres, so the statistics would move in that way anyway.
Q184 Iain Stewart:
So 17% would be the rural figure?
Brigid Simmonds:
It would be as much as the rural figure. It would be higher in
a rural context than it would be in town centres.
Q185 Iain Stewart:
I am trying to gauge how much higher. Is it 50% of visitors?
Stephen Oliver:
I would say that incontrovertibly all rural pubs are dependent
on people who drive to their pub for a substantial part of their
income, and particularly so of course if they are food orientated
as well. There is a phrase in the industry called "destination
pubs", where people drive to that particular pub because
it has a reputation for good food and drink as well. Unquestionably,
there is a much higher percentage of people who drive to rural
pubs. The key question then is to what extent would a change in
the blood alcohol limit have an impact on that behaviour?
Q186 Iain Stewart:
I have another question, thinking about designated driver schemes.
Do you think, as an industry, you do enough to promote that? I
am sometimes the designated driver and have a pint of orange juice
and soda water. I feel a bit fleeced because the cost of it is
pretty much the same as having a glass of wine or a pint of beer.
As an industry, do you think you do enough to promote the option
of a designated driver?
Stephen Oliver:
I am sure that we could do more. The designated driver scheme
has been around in the industry for many, many years very successfully.
It tended initially to be focused on particular times like Christmas,
New Year, etc., but now in fact increasingly it is run at key
periods through the year. I think it is up to individual companies
within the industry to decide how far they are able to take this.
My view would be that the industry probably could do more to encourage
designated drivers. Indeed, of course, we provide water for instance
free of charge to anyone who wishes it, so there are options.
Nick Bish: I would
just go back to the point that the designated driver scheme should
not be just some sort of pub-type initiative in rural pubs. It
is a very sound concept and I think Mr Hopkins himself was saying
that he took turns in driving, and you mentioned it yourself.
Designated drivers actually happen; you don't have to have a label.
It is a question of personal responsibility. It should be a universal
thing and our industry introduced the concept of it, or at least
the label. We would support any sort of widening of that good
practice out to the other 70% who are doing their drinking away
from pubs.
Q187 Mr Leech:
Mrs Simmonds, you said a couple of times - I don't want to put
words in your mouth so correct me if I am wrong - that people
understand the system at the moment; they understand how much
they can drink and be under the limit. Would you accept that there
is certainly some anecdotal evidence, whenever I talk to people
about the drink-drive limit, that people generally don't know
how much they can drink without being over the limit? Why do you
feel that people do understand how much they can drink?
Brigid Simmonds:
I think one of the reasons I feel they do understand it is because
we have the safest roads in Europe, and therefore there is obviously
some understanding of people going out there. I also think people
do understand. There has been a lot of publicity around this issue
in the last few months, and I think people generally understood
that they could go out and have a pint of beer or a glass of wine
and be under that 80%. I think it would create huge uncertainty
if it is 50% because, as Nick has already said, there is such
a range of different alcohols and different strength wines and
whatever.
Q188 Mr Leech:
Isn't it actually the case, though, that most people think they
can go out and have two drinks under the current limit?
Nick Bish: I have
to slightly differ here from Mrs Simmonds. I think the message
has got to be "Don't drink and drive", and if there
is uncertainty then it is around limits: that not only is there
a level, but it becomes a limit up to which you can drink, and
there is a sort of assumption that you can do this and you can
do that, and then we change the limit. The press, I am sure -
anyone in this room might find themselves on the sofa being interviewed
and the conversation will be about, "Okay, what do you think
now you can drink to go up to the new, whatever it is, set limit?"
Back we will come to the positivities of drinking as opposed to
the negativities. We don't want to go that way. It must be "Don't
drink and drive".
Q189 Mr Leech:
I was going to come on to that. Mrs Simmonds, you also said that
people will think, if the limit is reduced to 50mg, that they
can't go out and have a drink at all and be safe to drive. But
isn't that exactly what Mr Bish is suggesting that we want to
get to, whereby people don't think that they can go out and have
a single drink because all the empirical evidence suggests that
having anything to drink at all impairs your driving? Therefore,
if we get the mindset to people that when you go out and when
you're driving you don't drink, full stop, that will actually
save lives?
Chair: Right. "Don't
drink and drive" - what impact would that have?
Mr Leech: Surely, that
is a much more understandable position for people to take.
Stephen Oliver:
May I just make the point, to answer that question, that we already
have a drink-drive limit? One of the problems here is that it
is the serial offenders, the substantial amount over that limit.
The key question is whether or not reducing that limit by 30mg
is actually going to make a difference to that hard-nosed "I
will drink and drive" offender. I think it is very debatable
whether it actually would do. What it would risk doing is dragging
into its net a whole group of people who have had an approach
to alcohol which is actually very sensible and very responsible,
who suddenly effectively would become criminalised.
Q190 Mr Leech:
I accept reducing the limit to 50mg will have no impact on people
who will just go out and drink as much as they want and then drive
home. As far as I can tell, this is not aimed at those people
who will always flout the law. This is aimed at people who will
actually change their behaviour if the limit is reduced. Is it
not the case that, if we change people's behaviour so that they
no longer believe that it is sensible to go out and have a single
drink, and given that all the evidence suggests that it will reduce
the number of fatalities, therefore, if we change people's attitudes
to believe that they can't drink, it would be a good thing?
Brigid Simmonds:
The difficulty for us in our sector is that that means that people
will stay at home and decide not to go out at all. Can I just
be absolutely unequivocal? Our key message has always been "Don't
drink and drive". I think the issue here is at what level
do you want to criminalise people? That is where 80mg has been
clearly understood in this context. If you move to 50mg you could
have the effect that you are talking about, but there is a real
danger, in a pubs context, that people won't go.
Q191 Kwasi Kwarteng:
It seems that everyone is agreed that the message should be "Don't
drink and drive". Everyone seems to be agreed on that. If
that is the case - I am just asking generally - don't you think
that message is reinforced with a lower limit than the way it
is at the moment?
Chair: Is the message
reinforced?
Nick Bish: But
even Sir Peter North said - because the extension of that argument
is to take it to 20mg - that that was not likely to be effective.
Q192 Chair:
No, but at the moment we are asking you about the recommendation
in the North Report. Would you accept that if you take the objective
"Don't drink and drive", the reduction proposed in the
North Report would help?
Nick Bish: No.
Chair: No?
Kwasi Kwarteng: You don't
think the message -
Nick Bish: No,
I don't think it would, for the reasons I've just said. That will
then become another limit on which the debate will be how much
drink you can have to be up to the 50mg limit.
Q193 Kwasi Kwarteng:
But we have said the message should be "Don't drink and drive".
Nick Bish: Which
we are 100% and onside. I think we are looking at a proportionate,
a sustainable and an enforceable level which has public credibility
and which patently has done the job over the years. There are
things to do to improve it, and we submit that that is to do with
the deterrent effect of penalties and enforcement at the roadside:
random breath testing and perhaps the administrative removal of
licence at the time of the failed breath test. There are areas
we can go -
Chair: Okay. We have dealt
with some of those issues. We just need to get a response.
Q194 Julian Sturdy:
Thank you. Just going back to the pub closures, do you have any
figures regarding the percentage of pubs that are closing that
are urban compared to the rural pubs?
Brigid Simmonds:
I don't know that we break it down that way. We can break it down
that there are an awful lot of pubs that are closing that are
in the full trade, which is inevitable because they don't have
the support of companies like Marston's to help them keep open.
I don't know if you have any evidence as a company?
Stephen Oliver:
I would have to look it up and give you some supplementary information,
but it is a broad spread. Urban areas, town centres, as well as
rural pubs are all affected. The reality is that with the economics
many rural pubs are very finely balanced at the moment. You only
actually have to have a relatively small decline in overall turnover
to tip that pub into a situation where it is just economically
unviable, and that sadly is why you do see quite a number of them
with the shutters on the windows. I could give you a separate
breakdown.
Q195 Julian Sturdy:
But your feeling is that rural pubs are suffering more than urban
pubs; you just haven't got the figures. Is that what you are saying?
Stephen Oliver:
No, I wouldn't say that. I think it is broadly spread across the
whole environment where pubs are found.
Q196 Julian Sturdy:
Thank you. Can I just come back on something that Dr Kwarteng
was talking about earlier on? We were talking about the evidence
in the North Report. I think you are disputing some of the evidence
within the North Report. Do you think that we need more evidence
between the 50mg to 80mg to actually take anything forward? If
that evidence was forthcoming over a period of time - i.e. with
the new breath test that you can actually calculate the blood
levels in there - would you then support the reducing of the limit?
Brigid Simmonds:
As far as we are aware, most of the evidence is that people are
way over that 80mg, which is why we have those concerns. We are
not disputing what the North Report says at all. What we are talking
about here, I think, is whether public opinion and public behaviour
would mirror and support a change in that law. We are not in any
way disputing what he is actually saying.
Q197 Julian Sturdy:
I am not talking about the over 80mg: I am talking about the bracket
between 50mg and 80mg. When people are breathalysed and tested,
it has not been recorded to a great degree.
Brigid Simmonds:
I do think that more evidence would be hugely helpful. I think
that is probably a question for your next panel, as indeed is
the evidence around drugs. I think there is a concern that a lot
of people are tested for drink-driving but it may be other things
that put them over the limit, which was a discussion you were
having with the previous colleagues here.
Q198 Julian Sturdy:
If that evidence was forthcoming, would you be supportive then?
Brigid Simmonds:
I think we have to be clear. We are supportive of things which
cut deaths by drink-driving. Any member of the public has to be
supportive of that situation. What we are concerned about is:
will that change create the behaviour that you are talking about?
Q199 Lilian Greenwood:
I have three very brief questions. The first is that I am slightly
confused about the position of the panel. Mr Bish, I think you
were very clear that the message is "Don't drink and drive".
I am less clear about your position, Mrs Simmonds and Mr Oliver,
because you seem to be saying that people can come to the pub,
have a meal and have one drink. That is not "Don't drink
and drive". That is, "It's okay to come to the pub and,
as part of a meal, have one drink". Can you explain for me?
Brigid Simmonds:
Our clear message is "Don't drink and drive". We have
backed the Portman Group; we have backed the Department for Transport
for 40 years in making those messages clear. There is a difference
between what we say, "Don't drink and drive", and how
people actually behave. That is the difference.
Q200 Lilian Greenwood:
My view would be that people don't know how much they can drink.
They don't necessarily even know how many units of alcohol are
in comparative drinks. Are you saying that you believe that the
public know how many units are in a drink - there is a 250ml glass
of wine, which is what you will sometimes get in a pub now, as
opposed to 125ml; one is large and one is small, it varies between
pubs - that they know how many units and they know how many units
you can have and still be under 80mg?
Brigid Simmonds:
We are actually working with the Department of Health at the moment
to do something which will give more awareness around units. We
are looking at a poster campaign. We are part of the new Department
of Health's "Responsibility Deal", which is looking
at something to give people more information. I do think that
people have more of an understanding about units than they used
to have. I do think that you need to watch very carefully, as
you rightly say, what is the strength of a particular unit and
how large the glass is, but I don't think it is beyond people
to understand that. I think it is a case of we say very clearly
you shouldn't drink and drive, what is people's behaviour in reaction
to that, and what would their behaviour be if you made a change.
Q201 Lilian Greenwood:
The final question is: you have suggested that changing to a 50mg
limit would lose respect for the law. How do you respond to the
fact that surveys by the AA and others show widespread support
for a lower limit?
Brigid Simmonds:
I think the difficulty with the AA is they have been largely asked
on what is an abstract, and I don't think that their actual understanding
of behavioural change is the same as asking in that overall abstract.
I think that response reflects people's moral abhorrence of drink-driving
and that is encouraging, but I would want to drill a little deeper
to get a real and clear response to those questions. I am not
sure, but I think the AA survey was very much a quantitative piece
of work perhaps rather than qualitative.
Q202 Paul Maynard:
You have mentioned how rural pubs differ from urban pubs. Mr Stewart
has mentioned the designated driver scheme. I wonder what other
initiatives your industry has been taking to promote responsible
drinking in a rural pub.
Brigid Simmonds:
We very much support Drinkaware. In fact, the industry puts £5
million a year into Drinkaware, of which sum the British Beer
and Pub Association members put in half. We also have the Campaign
for Smarter Drinking, which is over £100 million over five
years. There has recently been a very big campaign, which started
in September, particularly looking at youngsters between 18 and
24 and about changing behaviours. We support Pubwatch. We support
the Best Bar None scheme, which Nick was talking about. We work
with the Home Office on Crime and Disorder Partnerships, and we
have been talking to them recently about doing more. So, yes,
social responsibility is hugely important to us as an industry
and it is something that we care about very deeply. We will work
with a lot of partners. Purple Flag is the new scheme. I actually
gave the awards for "Best Bar None" in Bournemouth.
Bournemouth is actually, I think, the first town in the UK that
has all three flags. It has flags for its water, bathing and also
for its night-time economy. We are very supportive of social responsibility
initiatives, and as an industry we put a lot of resource into
it.
Q203 Paul Maynard:
Clearly, as an industry, you are showing an impressive capability
to educate your customers to adhere to the 80mg limit. Why would
it be beyond your ability to demonstrate a similar capability
if we were to lower it to a 50mg limit?
Brigid Simmonds:
I think you have to be very careful about the word "education"
in going to the pub. People go to the pub for a fun night out.
They don't go to be told how to do things. I think we have to
be careful in some of the discussion. I am actually a great believer
in some of these new ideas about how you change behaviour and
how you get people to commit to things which will actually change
their behaviour. I think actually telling them what to do is a
different issue. We do do an awful lot of education in schools,
and our message, as we have clearly said, is "Don't drink
and drive". That is something that we are prepared to continue
to do.
Stephen Oliver:
Can I make a supplementary point? One of the most practical ways
in which the industry, in a sense, has responded to this and continues
to do so is the fact that pubs are now effectively places where
you largely go to eat rather than where you just go to drink.
That is a trend that has been in place for a long time and will
undoubtedly continue.
Q204 Paul Maynard:
I am so glad you said that because you have just pre-empted my
final question. You were mentioning earlier the importance of
destination pubs and of eating food in the pub. Is it not the
case that the business model of a successful pub is less and less
dependent upon alcohol sales and more and more dependent upon
changing social trends? Where is the evidence that, going forward,
this will not continue and that, if you want to run a successful
pub and a successful industry, alcohol sales will be the last
part of your business model? I understand what you are saying
and your concerns about the lowering of the drink-drive limit
and the potential economic impact. While you are requesting an
economic study, is it not the case that, going forward, social
trends are such that alcohol sales are going to be declining per
capita anyway because consumption is declining? Are you actually
not putting your finger in the dyke here?
Q205 Chair:
We keep coming back to this point. In view of all these changes,
why would this proposed reduction from the North Report have such
a drastic impact?
Brigid Simmonds:
Well, I think we have to be careful -
Chair: Mr Maynard is asking
Mr Oliver.
Stephen Oliver:
I would put forward a proposition that you are absolutely right.
There is an ongoing trend and we will expect to see this continue
into the future. I think the concern I would have is that the
introduction of the 50mg limit may effectively represent a step
change in that proportion of pub sales which remain alcohol. It
is that step change at a time of really difficult economic pressure
in this industry overall that could tip a very significant number
of pubs that wouldn't be able to immediately respond to that decline
in demand into a position where they effectively fail. A lot of
what we do in the industry has worked really effectively over
the last few years. We continue this movement towards food and
that will be the case in the future, but a change in the alcohol
limit is going to have quite a substantial effect on drinking
in those pubs where it is a relatively marginal activity. That
is why I think a better understanding of the economic impacts
of this idea of dropping from 80mg to 50mg is entirely merited
in the context of the modern pub.
Chair: Thank you very
much indeed for answering our questions.
2 Note by witness: insert "not" Back
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