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Health Bill for alcohol measures
24/03/2009
A new Health Bill that will bring together the Scottish Government's proposals to tackle alcohol misuse is to be introduced to the Scottish Parliament later this year.
The Bill, which will harness measures that otherwise would have been introduced by a combination of secondary legislation and provisions within the Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill, will allow Parliament to scrutinise all the measures together.
Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said:
"Scotland's alcohol misuse problem is estimated to cost our country at least £2.25billion per year in extra services and lost productivity and professionals are agreed that the threat posed to our national health from current levels of consumption is very great.
"Alcohol-related hospital admissions and deaths have increased markedly in recent years and this Government has already set out our framework for addressing the root causes behind these statistics."
In a letter today to opposition spokespersons, Minister for Parliamentary Business Bruce Crawford said:
"Having taken account of the representations made, the Government now proposes to introduce a new health bill that deals with a range of alcohol measures, including minimum price per unit of alcohol, alcohol promotions, limiting the use of marketing material, wine glass sizes, sale of alcohol to persons under 21 and the social responsibility fee.
He added:
"A new bill to take forward these provisions collectively will give this issue the prominence required and the Government welcomes the fact that the proposals in the Bill will be subject to full Parliamentary scrutiny."