 Good morning and welcome to the 29th meeting in 2015 of the Health and Sport Committee. I would ask everyone, as I usually do at this point, to switch off mobile phones as they can often interfere with the sound system, but also ask those who are with us this morning to take note that some of the members are using tablet devices, and this is instead of the hard copies of our papers. The first item on the agenda today is a third evidence session on the alcohol licensing, public health and criminal justice Scotland bill. We have a round table with us this morning, and we have got two round table, two evidence sessions, so I am suggesting in the interest of just getting to the evidence that we forgo the introductions round, and I ask people to just introduce themselves when they participate and when they come in, if that is okay. I should also note at this time that we have apologies from one of the witness panel firstly, Andy Ty, policy director at the Scottish Bay and Public Association, who has been caught up in the fog and the traffic problems are all from down south, and the plane cancelled last night, so we are something that is with him and he is not with us this morning. My vice convener, Bob Doris, is, for understandable reasons, not with us this morning, as Dennis Robertson, who is not with us, is through the illness. We are expecting Graham Day MSP as substitute later in the morning sessions to join us. We proceed firstly, go straight to questions, and Rhoda Grant. I would like to ask what is the impact of advertising on consumption. It seems to me that when advertising regulation was previously tightened up so that it was not targeted at children, we now see a decrease in young people drinking, and I am wondering if, further tightening up, could have the same impact. Thank you, convener. It is absolutely right. The children's drinking in Scotland has been going through a significant change over the past 10 years, and it is a very encouraging journey that we are on. I am sort of—reportment group regulates all other marketing except advertising, and Guy Parker from the SA represents the advertising sector. The idea is that it is completely comprehensive and with no gaps regulatory framework that makes sure that alcohol marketing is responsible, not targeted at children and is adults in its content and nature. Very much, I think, there has been an incredibly strong journey. I think that the very benefit of a self-regulatory framework is, if you take the Portman Group code, for example, that we are already in our fifth edition of that code. It was first introduced in 1996, and already it has gone through a number of changes, variations, improvements, and it can keep flexing and adapting as new channels of marketing come in, as new approaches come in, as new styles and trends come in. I would be very happy to provide further detailed evidence on the changes that have happened in that sector. Nathan Roberts from the Salvation Army. I think that, while we agree that self-regulation is a positive thing, we think that the provisions of this bill would take it a step forward by targeting advertising at children. We also see the value in wider restrictions because the evidence shows that it is not just targeting that it affects children's consumption, but a wider exposure to advertising in society generally. Whether it is targeted at children or not, it is the exposure that really has an impact on their intention to consume and on their level of consumption when they do begin taking up alcohol. That would be our point of view, and we have lots of evidence to point in that direction. Sir Parker. Thank you, convener. We do not think that further restrictions on top of those that are already in place are necessary based on the evidence. We regulate ads in all media, including on posters. We apply strict rules that put the protection of young people at the heart of our regulation through two routes. First of all, there are placement restrictions that prevent ads being targeted at minors and that also reduce the likelihood that they will see alcohol ads. They do not remove the likelihood that they will see alcohol ads. One cannot do that without a complete ban, but they significantly reduce it. The second route is that we have content restrictions that ensure that ads do not appeal particularly to young people. For example, ads are not allowed to reflect or be associated with youth culture. They must not link alcohol with daring, anti-social, aggressive or irresponsible behaviour. They must not link alcohol with seduction, sex or social success. They must not show alcohol being handled or served irresponsibly. They must not depict people drinking or playing a major part in the ad if those people either are or even just look under 25—not under 18 but under 25. There is a kind of buffer built in. These rules are really pretty strict. They were strengthened significantly in 2005 in response to evidence that was presented by the then government as part of its alcohol harm reduction strategy. In the last 10 years, as Sarah has explained, consumption, including underage drinking, including in Scotland, has been going in the right direction. It has been declining. The question from Rheodogrant was about the evidence base. The most recent reviews of evidence are the 2009 Shah review, which was commissioned by the then government. It was a big review. It was independent. There was also a 2009 review by the Science Group of the EU Alcohol and Health Forum that looked at the evidence at a more wider European level. Last year, there was a global Cochran review. All of these reviews conclude that there is either a lack of evidence or only limited evidence of the impact of alcohol advertising on consumption and also a lack of evidence about the positive impact of advertising restrictions. By positive impact, I mean the ability for an ad restriction to deliver a reduction in drinking or harmful drinking. The Shah review talked about indicative evidence of a small but consistent impact of advertising on consumption by young people and on consumption at the population level. It talked about much stronger evidence being there for relationships between things like price and drinking. The evidence is pretty limited. We have got to regulate in accordance with the principles of good regulation, which require us to make sure that our regulation is targeted and proportionate. There are various other principles, too, but when it comes to looking at the evidence base, the key ones are targeted regulation and proportionate regulation. In the context of drinking patterns and welcome changes in drinking patterns, given that evidence base points only to a limited impact of alcohol advertising on drinking, including young people's drinking, we think that the existing rules are set at the right level. We apply them very strictly. Last month, we banned an ad by Heineken for strong-bow. It's a YouTube ad. We banned it because we thought it implied that alcohol was as important or was more important than personal relationships. It was a very jokey ad, but that didn't get it off. In July, we banned an ad for a TV ad for the Diageo brand Smirnoff for implying that drinking Smirnoff was completely changing the nature of the social event and making it much more joyous and fun. Just to put this into context in terms of the complaints that we receive, we get about 37,000 complaints a year relating to 17,000 adverts in total across all media, all products and sectors. Last year, 187 of them were about alcohol ads and they related to about 140 ads. That's a very, very small minority of the total. Actually, we think that our regulation of alcohol advertising is much more important and requires much more resource than is implied by that percentage of complaints about alcohol ads. It goes to show, I think, that there isn't a lot of public concern in terms of the alcohol advertising that people are seeing. The final point I'd like to make is that one of the things that came out of the Shah review was that there's disagreement in the academic research over whether bans reduce consumption or increase consumption by having the obviously unintended side effect of increasing price competition between competitors because the more you ban advertising, the less options they've got with what to do with their budget and money that was previously in their advertising budget, mostly doing brand advertising, competing with other competitors to increase brand share, mostly, not exclusively but mostly, money that was previously there, moves and they're much more likely to put it into lower prices or price promotions if they're allowed to do price promotions and the evidence linking, as I said, the evidence linking price and consumption is a lot stronger than the evidence linking alcohol advertising and consumption. Chris Law. Hi, my name is Chris Law. I'm from the Institute of Social Marketing at the University of Stirling working on a project funded by the Salvation Army. Just in relation to the Scottish context, I just want to raise awareness of a particular study conducted by the University of Stirling, which was published in 2011. It was a longitudinal study looking at exposure to alcohol marketing among young people in Scotland aged 12 to 14 years and they followed them up again two years later. At the first wave, they did find significant associations between increased awareness of and involvement with alcohol marketing, drinking behaviour and intentions to drink in the next year and then at the follow-up stage, they found baseline exposure to alcohol marketing was significantly associated with drinking in those who weren't drinkers at baseline and increased consumption with those who were drinkers at baseline. I think that's important just to highlight that given that the study was conducted in Scotland. Any of the other panellists who want to come in? Yes, please. It's due to practitioners in advertising. I think, as well as the evidence, the point that I'd like to make is also from an IPA point of view what we'd ask is if people take into consideration not only the impact and effect of the legislation in this case in protecting harm to children but also thinking about the wider advertising industry within Scotland and I think that the impact on the industry could potentially be quite negative. I suppose the point that I wanted to make is the fact that advertising industry within Scotland is very much here as a force for good and has a good track record in terms of producing campaigns that do social good, if you think of recently this weekend we saw work that was done around the cancer early programme to increase early detection of lung cancer showing very positive results. I think also that advertising agencies make up an important part of the creative industries within Scotland and so they're a driver of the creative industries fueling things like website development, app development, illustrators, filmmakers, photographers all benefit from the advertising industry. I think that part of the benefit as well of advertising and advertising industry is that it's part of the events ecosystem which is a strong part of Scotland's economy so events such as tea in the park, venues like SSE, Hydro and Glasgow have all benefited from the expertise of IPA member agencies and so I think in that sense we just ask that when we're considering restrictions on any product or service there also we also take into consideration the restrictions that those may have an negative impact on the industry within Scotland and the positive effect that it has on the economy. Yes please just make a further comment Jonathan Roberts a further comment on on the research issues. Nathan's clarified one particular research study there but there have been several reviews of the literature, several reviews of the research over the years showing that longitudinal studies the majority of them do show that increased exposure to alcohol marketing leads to increased consumption and the results of those surveys are accepted by researchers and health bodies so the World Health Organization for example British Medical Association they all accept that increased exposure not just targeted marketing but exposure of all kinds leads to increased consumption and Salvation Army supports many people with alcohol misuse problems later in life and most of them would date that back to their childhood experiences and the habits and behaviors that are formed in childhood have affected them through their lives and it's the impact of exposure to marketing for under 18s that we're really concerned about not just because of what happens at that age but what happens as life goes on for them. I've got a couple of members but you know I'm just trying to keep on the theme Malcolm Richards and then I'll see Mike as well but you're Malcolm. Guy Parker gave a very useful opening statement but I think it would be helpful for us if we could have a comparison of the measures in place at the present with the three specific proposals in the bill. I mean it may be that I think some of it has been covered in your written evidence but I think it would be good to have on the record this is what the bill is proposing this is what you're saying is already in place and I suppose the second question although you dealt with enforcement in terms of the content of adverts I wonder about enforcement in relation to the three areas that are actually covered by well you know what they are the 200m one, the advertising one in shops and supermarkets and the sponsorship one I think that would be useful just as a happy to kick off I just want to urge some caution around the restriction and the evidence because I think as Guy said there is there's not clear evidence that marketing bans and restrictions actually drive reduced consumption the biggest thing we've got is the Cochran review and I would urge the committee to have a look at that and that's the most comprehensive analysis of restrictions and marketing that we do have so just to make that point in terms of the bill itself I think there is much to welcome and there is some the the importance of alcohol education for young people is is fantastic and I think actually widening that out to life skills and resilience training would be a great opportunity for the committee to recommend because I think single issues obviously take a lot of time and you need different subjects in schools but if you if you build a whole programme about resilience and life skills education and training for children then that can be just as effective if not more so there are a number of drinkware obviously provides some ready built systems for that and called intuition that you may want to have a look at it also very much welcome the alcohol awareness training and intervention as an alternative to penalty I think we've seen that many much success comes when brief intervention and actually having that conversation about when alcohol is becoming a problem is a very effective way of sort of preempting bigger problems down the line and obviously it's section nine that I'm sure as you expect that we think is made may not be needed through legislation there is already a very strong voluntary agreement that the advertisers have given and brand producers not to feature alcohol advertising with the 100 meters of schools I think this is a this has been a voluntary move and I know that many of the major producers have have rolled this out across the whole of the UK and there are numerous sort of poster sites and I think one of the one of the big challenges and opportunities about a regulatory system will be trying to police that trying to define what we mean by advertising on promotioning or marketing and obviously then the potential impact on a small high street for example if you have you know three shops a high street that's half a mile long and a sort of couple of schools are unnecessary in a crash then effectively you've banned any sort of alcohol alcohol marketing or advertising along that whole high street I think there can be a big impact to local economies I think the importance of the the night time economy and a very responsible and enjoyable place that people want to go can be a huge driver of economic value for small town centres so I would be very cautious about looking at restricting through legislation when actually what you can do is come up with some very clever and innovative voluntary agreements to achieve the same end guy and Nathan thanks thank you convener two of the three advertising specific measures that are proposed in the bill don't fall within our remit so I can't really comment on them with any great degree of expertise the two I'm talking about are the proposed restriction um for ads so that they only appear in licensed areas of um off sales premises and the sponsors the sponsorship restriction which Sarah will be very happy to talk to I'm I'm sure because their code the Portland Group's code covers sponsorship but we don't cover sponsorship arrangements um the the one that relates directly to the the regulation that we deliver is the proposed ban on alcohol advertising within 200 metres of schools nurseries children's playgrounds and so on and I come back to the point I made in my opening remarks about making sure that there's the right correlation between what the evidence is telling us about the impact of alcohol advertising on people including young people and the level of regulation that we're delivering and of course of course it's a judgment call when you're making that that judgment about exactly what the right right right standard should be what the right right rules what the right restrictions should be but in making that judgment it's very important that we take into account the evidence space that that that I've talked about um yes alcohol advertising has an impact on on consumption including consumption by young people um but the evidence is indicative and it's uh only a small impact and it's significantly less um substantially less in the impact of other things uh on young people other factors like parents peers price availability and and so on and there's a danger that we um think we're going to get more than we're going to get if we bring in extra advertising restrictions and the point I made earlier about us having to be evidence based means that we can't just consider what the impact of our regulation is in terms of protecting people particularly young people we have also got to consider the um impact of our regulation on the other side of the ledger and that's the impact on people's right to see um responsible advertising adults right to see responsible alcohol advertising um but but also the impact on businesses the impact on advertising funded media the impact on poster contractors who are funding bus stops and other street furniture that the the the communities welcome um so we have to consider that too otherwise our regulation gets pulled up at judicial review for not being in accordance with the principles of good regulation um we don't think the evidence space is there to justify um a 200 meter um exclusion zone uh I think in built up areas particularly in Scotland where I imagine there are there are there are a lot of schools nurseries and playgrounds that's gonna I would have thought rule out poster advertising um to really quite a high degree I don't have figures on the percentage of poster sites um but it's quite a significant restriction um so that's our that's our position on the on the one out of the three of the advertising proposals in the bill that really um I'm in a position to speak about so it's not in principle it's practicality and impact in the other that's not the point yeah it's in principle we have the 100 meters barn so the 100 meters barn is this is an extension why why wouldn't we extend that further if there's been some success for us and the voluntary code suggests or has claimed to some of the written evidence they've contributed to the reduction in underage drinking in that time being confirmed etc but you know that I think that that is a practicality case in the sense as I guy mentioned that would potentially lead to a complete ban on outdoor advertising in certain locations I'm not sure or we're not aware of anywhere but actually the register of schools creches nurseries and playgrounds exist if that if that does then I'm not aware of it to be able to actually implement it based on that it's a voluntary advertising it's a it's a voluntary commitment because I know you're desperate again and you will be given some opportunity again but please can I respond to your question convener that that it's a it's a it's a judgment call and it's about practicalities it absolutely is that um I mean if you want to if you want to um do everything you can if your only consideration is to make sure that advertising is having absolutely no impact on consumption including consumption by young people then you ban it all that's the obvious thing to do um my point is you can't if you're a responsible regulator you can't only look at that side of the argument you have to balance it up with the economic impact for example of banning advertising uh and other things like unintended consequences um I talked about the economic impact on businesses that rely on um advertising funding we have to take that into account when we make our judgments about where we draw the line and what restrictions we put in place I also talked about the fact that there might be this unintended consequence of because because people are no longer allowed to spend their their budgets or part of their budgets on alcohol advertising they put it into reducing their price and there's much stronger evidence linking price talking about this bill it's not just talking we're dealing with advertising this morning we've been dealing with the other issues so we're not it's not a standalone issue as presented in the bill there's a number of measures being proposed as well as the government measures currently stuck in the courts and have a minimum price anyway so there's a whole range of things you know issues at hand here I'm going to get Nathan and Jonathan in but I suppose in terms of the previous sessions we need to deal with this issue about some of us being lay people you know the the issue of the current situation and promotions it's against advertising it's against you know and whether this can be the proposals can be considered as a if you like creating a clarity and a tidying up of all of this so everybody's clear but we might be addressed that but I'm going to get obviously give Nathan and Jonathan Roberts an opportunity to come in here Nathan can I just clarify with regards to the courtroom review that's been cited with regards to restriction of advertising it's my understanding that the courtroom actually concluded there's a lack of robust evidence for or against the implementation of advertising restrictions and they recommended that advertising restrictions should be implemented within a high quality well monitored research programme to ensure the evaluation over time and that all relevant outcomes in order to build the evidence base just want to clarify that was their conclusion we you know from academics we always get an argument for more more research and study and mr robots yeah I just want to make a comment on self-regulation because it's generally accepted but well it's accepted by a number of people that self-regulation doesn't work you know it's it's good as far as it goes but it's not as effective as statutory restrictions and we've seen evidence of I think there's a European commission sponsored report in 2012 that showed so many instances of the portman codes being being got round by advertisers so that would be one point we would make as far as self-regulation is concerned also the sanctions we don't feel are very strong and of course once the advertising is out there the jobs have been done and any action that's taken is retrospective the impact has already been made so self-regulation we feel isn't as strong as making statutory restrictions which are included in this bill but we we feel that even these measures in the bill as good as they are don't quite go far enough because the 200 meter restriction we wonder where that figures come from because has any evidence been given to show that you know the number of or the amount of advertising takes place within that that perimeter is is more effective or more powerful in advertising beyond that perimeter there was a study in America showing that within 450 meters of a school of schools in Chicago there were 900 instances of alcohol advertising so even within that much right wider perimeter there are there were strong messages being given across so as far as the economic impacts concern we take that on board and we would you know we would want to see that proper cost benefit that analysis were done if measures were taken but there are plenty of other businesses who want to advertise and I'm sure the economy wouldn't suffer totally through a lack of alcohol advertising so that's just some of the extra points we would make. Do you want to come back to the Malcolm Hill? Oh sorry I've got another member here when I'll give them that Mr Cohen. Mr Chisholm's point about the practicality of I think one of the other practicalities guide talked on the areas that are covered but I think around sponsorship as well that I think one of the things to consider is particularly how events which are for example cultural events which have multi event multi audience events where actually there may be children's events and adult events running at the same venues or in the same locations and that the way that the portman code I think which I'm sure Sarah will be able to talk about in more detail actually suggests that it should be a 75 percent aggregate over 18 whereas I think the proposal on the bill is for a majority over 18 so the sense of portman code is stronger but I also think it allows it to be an aggregate rather than individual events so in that case where there's children's events and adult events then they don't then an alcohol brand can still effectively sponsor that event because the majority of the aggregate will be over 18 and I think I know the other evidence you've seen from youth links supported that the sense of not restricting young people from taking part in events and national stereo or in major cultural spaces which had some support from an alcohol brand as part of their commercial sponsorship of it. Thanks Brian I'll just give a bit more detail about the sponsorship code I think it's a great sort of example of leadership by Scotland actually that we have this UK wide sponsorship code in the first place it was actually developed a set of comprehensive guidelines were developed in Scotland working in partnership with the industry through the Scottish government alcohol industry partnership the portman group was able to take that that great start and then what we did is worked with all the rights holders major events and sports like Scottish rugby Scottish golf and we've actually developed a very comprehensive code of conduct and practice that actually helps to use the alcohol sponsorship for the for the Scottish good as well in so far as it makes sure there's a binding commitment to promote both responsible drinking and other either diversionary or other activities that will help promote either sports or cultural events at grassroots level. There are a number of very very comprehensive and fairly sophisticated measures that are included in those guidelines as well. Brian talked about sort of stadia if you are sponsoring a major stadium that you and that's going to run events for children you have to cover up the hoardings and you make a commitment to do that and there are some other other areas that teams with under 18s in can't be sponsored if you're a football team with a majority sort of 75% of under 18s or 25s and you can't have alcohol sponsorship either and if you've got an under 18 in your team you can't use that person to promote the brand in any way so there's a lot of very sophisticated and quite tight controls that exist but the other point to make there is actually sports sponsorship and cultural and event sponsorship is a huge part of sort of Scottish culture and well-being and I think many of us wouldn't argue that it's actually a great joy to actually go and see a sporting event or a cultural or arts festival and enjoy a drink and what we're all aiming to do here and I think we have the shared vision is that we want to normalise the responsible and moderate consumption of alcohol the the danger of blanket bands and sort of brown papers and blacked out windows is that you start to create a whole sense of excitement around a product that is actually when used in moderation is a very strong and enjoyable part of our cultural heritage so I would really sort of point those out details out and we've got lots more detail on the sponsorship code and just to reiterate that it can be used to sort of promote responsible drinking and and to actually one of the great examples was Jensen Button roaring around the streets of Edinburgh last year I don't know if any of you saw that but it was a part of a part of a big brand sponsorship for Johnny Walker and what you have is these global sports icons with blanket coverage telling kids not to drink and drive it's not cool don't do it and I think a message like that resonates so strongly from from people of that ilk than than perhaps somebody in a sort of looking slightly more serious so it can be used in a very powerful and meaningful way provided it's strictly in tightly controls and I think the self-regulating framework is an excellent way to do that without the cost to the Scottish taxpayer too Richard Lyle my question to to Sarah but I think I want to explore it and the point that Guy Parker made earlier in your submission you put that Portland groups code and alcohol sponsorship already goes further than the provisions contained in the bill to protect children from alcohol sponsorship so I'd like to speak about that but also you cite in the bill it cites that there's a the situation of the and I hope I pronounced this right Louie Evan market the French have alcohol advertising marketing and sponsorship ban in France and you cite that what's been said in the in the explanation notes in the bill if you look at what happened in France it actually the entire opposite became the case where the the bill in France when introduced in 1991 failed to reduce underage drinking accompanied two decades of increased harmful consumption amongst French children proportion of people who drunk actually went up or doubled in in the age range of 18 to 25 15 to 30 the people increased from 28 percent 25 percent and basically it failed so would you like to say a why the portman code is far better than they've all proposed and b why do you think the French ban failed thank you mr and I'm with you i'm not going to try and pronounce that particular bill but the the French alcohol marketing ban it I'll start with that first I think it's it's so often cited um I think it's the law law of an or um it's so often cited as the is the great sort of you know the magic bullet that will will solve um underage drinking and and tackle and make it will go away um I think the French government itself at some point has has said that it was introduced back in the 90s um and what's happened in France is we've seen um a very the complete opposite picture to what's happening here in Scotland the rates of teenage drinking have actually been increasing through that period um it's too complex a matter to to give a direct causal link to there is no marketing and that's driving consumption so I wouldn't go that far but I think it does show that it's not a magic bullet that's going to suddenly change the direction of a cultural shift um we have got an incredible shift going on in terms of young people's drinking here in Scotland and I think it's building on that rather than coming up with it with a sort of a law that didn't seem to achieve what it was aiming to achieve um in that in terms of the portman group code I think I've I referenced at the beginning the code on naming and packaging is already in its fifth it's been updated and and changed five times in the last 20 years I think it is and and the sponsorship code was introduced in 2014 um there are many things I've cited things like images of under 25s just can't be used in sort of promotional marketing and the idea of that is although the legal age for drinking is 18 the risk is that that sort of blurry age between 18 and 24 that the 17 year old or a 16 year old might identify so the industry through its through itself regulatory code and this isn't a voluntary code because you don't get to choose whether you apply to it it applies to your drinks marketing whether you like it or not um but the idea is to keep that real separation zone between what is adult marketing and what just sort of might appeal to children in the same way there's the strong restrictions about not using sort of cartoon imagery or or colours and fonts and brands that are all appeal all of this is really really carefully looked at and set out in within those codes and a great example is something like I think logo is being used on children's replica kits which actually didn't have to be legislated for because after I think you heard from a witness previously a secession who who raised it as an issue and what happened was through the voluntary action and discussing that with the portman group we are to bring in a restriction within the code that says absolutely no branding can be carried on children's replica kit it already can't feature on any merchandising or anything but it shouldn't be on children's replica kit either so that they're just some of the examples of how far we can go and it's a progressive and it's a it can flex and be flexible that as this as circumstances change to any other no I need to see if there's any other responses to your original question Richard I'm just on the the the Loire Évain the French law which is often mentioned when people talk to us about why the restrictions we got in place in the UK don't mirror those restrictions in France just to build on a couple of points that Sarah made that there's been a steady decrease in the annual alcohol consumption of people in France over the last 40 or 50 years from a very high point there's been a steady decrease that decrease started long before the adoption of the Loire Évain in 1991 it even slowed down slightly the decrease slowed down slightly after the adoption although I very much doubt there's any cause of relationship between those two things in 1999 an official French government evaluation report said that the law had been ineffective in reducing high-risk drinking patterns even the French anti-alcohol campaigning group accepted that the effects of the law were weak because problem drinking patterns were on the increase and have been on the increase in the last 20 years particularly amongst young people you know their binge drinking problem is getting worse their harmful drinking problem amongst young people is getting worse whereas in the UK happily our problem is getting less bad nonetheless the anti-alcohol NGO in France continues to advocate supporting the continuation of the ban on symbolic grounds but the point I'll be making is we can't make decisions as a regulator following the principles of good regulation on symbolic grounds we've got to have good evidence that they're proportionate and targeted you know we're dealing with in the national brands you know you represent people right across Europe as drinkers here but throughout that period become more became more mature that market became more restrictive the sought new markets and you know we you know our own whiskey brands market quite extensively young people across Europe it's a younger people persons drink in Europe rather than an older person's because it is here so you know whether it be voluntary whether it be legislation there needs to be some discussion and movement about this all of the time or we wouldn't we wouldn't have a you know the industry itself would not have had a voluntary ban unless legislation was being discussed or legislation was being proposed or you know so I suppose in this context if we're not having this this this debate about alcohol consumption or where we legislate for a lover what would we be doing that people would just be getting on with it you know what they would be aggressively marketing their brand that's what their responsibility is to do is it not I think to sell and grow their product I think I mean I I can't speak for for alcohol companies but when those alcohol companies talk to us in the context of the ASA regulatory system they talk about the importance of making sure that their advertising is responsible because they don't want to be implicated in in advertising that might have harmful effects and of course they also want to they've got a long-term eye on their business and if they're irresponsible then people might restrict their ability to do business as well it isn't it I don't think it's I don't think it's right to say that in the absence of law you're probably not saying this but in the absence of law or some other form of imposed regulation there would be a complete free-for-all one of the driving forces behind advertising self-regulation in the in the UK has been the recognition and this does call upon business people to be ffarsighted and and it's harder and harder for them to be ffarsighted because of quarterly results and targets and expectations it does call on them to be ffarsighted but there has long been in the UK a ffarsighted recognition that if advertising is responsible and if the advertising industry funds and an ASA system that makes sure their advertising is responsible and takes the day-to-day decisions out of their hands because they can't take decisions about their own ads and be credible if they do that then they will better maintain people's trust in advertising and the reason why that works for them they will tell you is because if people are more likely rather than less likely to to trust advertising and find it responsible find it not misleading not harmful not offensive then it works better for the companies. Well just one comment on the French law I suppose is that yes the the evidence is that consumption has increased over the years while the law has been in place but who's to say it might not have increased even more without the law I mean we don't have the research to show that plus the fact that there are other forms of advertising which have come in over that period like digital marketing which have undermined we would expect the particular stipulations of that law over that period but I think we always need to come back to the fact that research shows over periods of time the longitudinal research shows that exposure to marketing does increase consumption and whether it's targeted or not it's exposure of all kinds and on the sporting and cultural events advertising the proposal for the bill was surprised that it's not as stringent as the voluntary codes actually I think that's already been mentioned about the the proportions of the intended audience but the question we would have over that would be well how can you how can you judge one proportion in one event against another proportion in another so for example if you had an event with 50 000 people and you were looking at the majority of the intended audience as being young people then you're looking at 25 000 if you had an event of 5000 the intended audience of young people was again a majority you're looking at over two and a half thousand so you could have an instance where one event would you'd have to ban advertising because it was targeting the same number of people as a larger event which had the same number of young people but was allowed to go ahead because of that I'm not probably making that very clear but because of the proportions between events you might have 4000 people attending one event 4000 young people attending one event where advertising would be banned but 4000 people attending another event where it wouldn't be banned so you'd have the same number of people the same impact but because the proportions relate to different total figures you would have a different approach to it so our concern with that is that perhaps it needs tightening up and the processes around how proportions are applied need to be clarified but also we would recommend that proportions are lowered at least to the 25 percent that's part of the voluntary code but maybe even down as lowest 10 percent which I think was recommended by a House of Commons committee in recent times or even which would be our recommendation a total ban of advertising at sporting and cultural events because as we said it's not just the targeted events but it's exposure on a whole which affects young people a quick response to that to to to those proposals a very quick one so go round the last you know section of this committee and I've still got committee members who wish to come in and I've got the memories proposed in the bill so quick responses to that I think I want a total ban on advertising at sporting and cultural events I don't think fits within the intention of the bill which is protection of harm to children I think when you look at some of those events which alcohol brands support things like the Rider Cup right through to the mountain rescue in Scotland so actually funding that comes from alcohol brands to support organisations and support events in Scotland I think is a good positive way for brands to promote themselves and to promote themselves in a responsible way I think as the IP we certainly endorse what Guy said that our membership our aim is for the membership to actually influence their clients influence the alcohol producers to market their brands responsibly because the best brands the brands which are going to be most successful are those ones that behave in a responsible manner and we always place that influence on clients as much as possible just very briefly I think I would urge comfort that I take your point about the sort of ratios can change but the absolute fundamental backstop is that advertising or any sort of in brand sponsorship must not be designed in a way that would particularly appeal to children so while it's an adult in nature the 75 25 is it's pretty strong i mean it's stronger than the rest of the the whole of europe I think they run something more like 70 30 so we do go that further but the key point is that the advertising must be to appeal to adults and not to children yep but you fully yep response to that particular point the advertising at football clubs for example and sponsorship of shirts I mean they might be aimed at adults but they're bound to appeal to children how can you not say that they'll appeal to children it's self-evident I would have thought because children football appeals to children basically so the sponsoring of events would have an impact on them as well but it takes us back to the does does exposure of a brand drive the children to take action I mean and you must be very clear that children are exposed to huge numbers of brands marketing and advertising across their daily lives um there is a very clear filtering system that takes place and there's a lot of complexities around how marketing and advertising works but but we must look at this in a positive way because what you can do is buy it's the same example as with the jentson button you know a childhood hero hearing a message about don't drink and drive from jentson button is fundamentally a stronger and positive brand statement than than trying to get lots of lessons in school I mean this this can work as part of a healthy and sensible culture and I think it's a real opportunity here for Scotland to to look at those voluntary partnerships and frameworks and keep strengthening keep making them fit for purpose as we go forward yes give it a go briefly and then I'll go to make my cameo just two very quick responses um Mr Roberts is quite right that we we don't know what would have happened if the loire van had not been enacted but I think I'm right in saying that in the presentation of this bill the loire van has been quoted as a success in terms of its impact on reducing consumption or harmful drinking and I don't think that case has been made and the point about digital advertising is a good one because of course we all know that one of the things that's changed markedly about the world we live in is that in the last few years there's been this digital revolution and including the use of social media and the point I want to make there is that the ASA system covers advertising in digital media there's quite a lot spoken about how advertisers not just in the alcohol sector but advertisers are exploiting social media to irresponsibly advertise to children we did a study a year or so ago that looked at the social media habits of under 18 year olds of the 427 ads that that our our children saw um three of them were for alcohol and they were all on facebook those ads and that the children were served those ads because they they lied about their age and said they were over 18 which tells a different story about the arguable inadequacies of self-declared age verification as a as a sort of age gating system but I think does does cause us to question what I think is a bit of a myth that children are being absolutely bombarded with advertising on social media and if they were and if this if this was taking the place of advertising in other media why why are we happily seeing this decline in consumption including amongst young people in this country? Mike McKenzie thank you Fin Bender part of what I wanted to ask is maybe already been covered but I'd like to just get a wee bit more information I suppose from Sarah and Guy and it's about this French experience because the received wisdom in Scotland for many years has been that along with a sick man of Europe status we also have this very unhealthy relationship with alcohol but from what I'm hearing this morning um our experience and I think Guy's just indicated the experience that that the statistics show that actually compared to France at least we're on the a good trajectory whereas they're on a bad trajectory what I'm wondering though is where's the base level um you know of those trajectories are they are they going to a bad place but are essentially overall in a much better place and are we um you know going to a good place but our starting point is a much worse place um I'm just interested to um get that kind of context Can you help me with that one? I think you know you're absolutely right in a way um Scotland had in terms of I mean looking at statistics across the board I mean I think we are everybody often sites UK statistics and that's fine but looking at Scotland you are starting from a much higher perspective particularly in terms of young people's drinking um and I think if you're looking back in 20 2004 um you know of 13 year olds sort of two thirds had had tried alcohol at the age of 13 in 2004 um if you compare that now in 2013 68% of your 13 year olds in Scotland have now not even tried alcohol so that is a hugely positive generational shift it's not to say that you weren't starting from a low level but what what you've seen I mean that that's sort of gone down significantly um one of the biggest measures I think that we all should focus on is past week drinking people agree that's the sort of best way to look at what what sort of you know what what habits are um there is an incredible statistic that I pulled out from the the Scottish Adolescent Survey recently um in terms of past week drinking just 1% of your 13 year olds have said they've tried alcohol in the last week and that compares to 10% back in 2004 um so there is a huge generational change going on I would say on social media we again we don't know why but equally if you compare the sort of a 10 year olds 13 year olds leisure time now compared to 10 or 20 years ago it looks fundamentally different um I think we have to recognise that generationally you know alcohol is just not such a big thing anymore I mean it's still very important it's still very harmful and we know that there are I mean I think one of the the biggest areas that we must look at is the variation in health harms as well and that's both regionally and in terms of um socio and economic class drinking as well some people are are definitely suffering disproportionately more when they shouldn't be and that that's the time that's the that's the targeted tackling we should be looking at on the statistics we do acknowledge that the consumption has fallen quite markedly in Scotland but it's still at a very high level so 32% of 13 year olds would still say that they have drunk alcohol and 70% of 15 year olds would say so so the levels are still very high and compare that with 2% of 13 year olds who say they've smoked and 15 and only 9% of 15 year olds who say they've smoked then the figures for alcohol are markedly higher than the figures for smoking still at really an acceptable level and I make also the point that I made in conjunction with the French law that who's to say that those figures would not be lower if there had been greater marketing restrictions over that period I mean you can't argue one way or the other with those figures but um our basic point would be that they're still too high and so I think that's a good case for marketing restrictions being put in place. Nathan, can you just make a brief comment as well I mean we often default to France as the default example of legislation to live processes with marketing but other European countries are moving forward with it as well and Finland and Norway in particular have quite high restrictions on the levels of marketing they have and study published in 2006 showed that these countries as well have some of the lowest levels of consumption in Europe they're suggesting that there's an inverse relationship between the strength of policy and the amount of alcohol which has been consumed by young people so there's also a broader picture outside of just the French example. It's the one thing given that mankind has never been able to resist the forbidden fruit since the dawn of mankind I just wonder thinking back to my own underage drinking experience which seems a heartbeat ago ago um the forbidden fruit sometimes does taste sweet and I just wonder in terms of banning as opposed to perhaps advocating using the powerful tool of advertising to advocate responsible drinking you know are we actually in danger of creating the problem that we're seeking to deal with if we go down the banning route with advertising I think what we've heard this morning is proportionality I'm trying to answer your question here but because there's you know we are on a journey where we all agree round the table that that there should be responsible marketing it's the extent of the advertising is it not are the restriction rather than the principle. What was trying to say to that convener if you'll just indulge me for a second is that Guy mentioned earlier on the ban and an advert that said that the the party would go better with Smirnoff. My life experience suggests that the party probably would go better with maybe not Smirnoff but certainly Oesh Gavar and that perhaps life in general might go a wee bit better with a little bit provided it's in moderation and my understanding that young people is that they can abide hypocrisy even less than I can so I just wonder you did say that companies are keen to ensure that people trust their advertising but is there an opportunity for rather than having such a blunt instrument having an instrument that's maybe just a wee bit more precise a bit more honest and a bit more helpful and I'd be keen to hear what the witnesses have to say on the subject of that that that ruling. Heineken would probably agree with you that we shouldn't have banned that that sorry Smirnoff Diagio that market Smirnoff would agree with you that we shouldn't have banned that out but but the rules are strict and we thought we should I think there's a distinction between making sure that strict content rules are rigorously applied and banning advertising which I think can send the message the forbidden fruit message that you talk about although I worry more about the point I made earlier I made a couple of times actually about budgets then moving into price lower prices. I echo that and I think I'm sure Brian would say as well I think that the creative industries that we have particularly around the Scottish brands are fantastic and I think there is a real it gives a real rich tapestry to life to see these different stories being created around brands and you know and as consumers we love that you know people don't want we've sold past to sort of the only age that people just want the facts that I think it would be very difficult in terms of the modern world to sort of look at that even though I'm sure we're fractionally ago but I would encourage but that that creativity must be constrained by a sensible practical and proportionate framework and I think that's sort of what we're trying to achieve with our self-regulatory frameworks. Just a quick response to the point about the forbidden fruit I think that applies more to the availability of alcohol than to the advertising of alcohol surely a restriction on advertising of alcohol doesn't make it less available it just makes it more attractive so I don't think the forbidden fruit argument really stands in that case. That's actually been answered but could I just very briefly touch on the Norwegian situation where you mentioned the Salvation Army input as the complete ban on advertising alcohol and the effect it has had on reducing consumption of alcohol do we actually know that or we all know that the price of alcohol in Norway is perfectly expensive is that more of an impact than the ban on advertising I mean I do have any knowledge of what's what matters there so maybe it's up for that information thanks. It took policy from multiple different components I think guys mentioned it before marketing is just one sub component and they were rating the overall strength of their policy of which marketing was one the particular study I referred to didn't isolate the independent effect of marketing with regards to the consumption it was an overall sort of five star policy review system and looking at a correlation between that level of policy and the level of alcohol consumption there similar with France I don't think I don't believe the finish or the Norwegian alcohol restrictions have been robustly evaluated and I think that would tie in with what other witnesses have mentioned today with regards to the evidence needing to be more robust before we can be fully sure of a ban being either for or against and I think the Cochwyn review reflected that as well. Thanks and Colin. Thanks convener. I've just been sort of putting down some notes here and are we not in danger here of trying to produce something without the thought that this is really we're not as isolated shall we say is perhaps in years going by we have instant access to television screens for channels all over Europe and just looking down at some of the major sports events we've had Rugby World Cup heavily influenced by Heineken Guinness Pro 12 Rugby League the Ryder Cup with Johnny Walker and even to product placement having just been to see the James Bond spectre film of Heineken being prominent in one of the scenes there now given that this is all available at this minute how effective considering the markets that Rugby World Cup how do you actually say this this so much of a percentage is aimed at adults and the rest of these kids this sort of thing are we not getting into a really technical area that really we have no control over it's really just a case of it's there it's international it's available for all to be seen and let's face it the Rugby World Cup down in England and Wales it's just been a spectacular success and every time there's an interview somebody's got a big sign of Heineken at their back so do we have to be a little bit more realistic here and actually sort of you know I can see the point of maybe a hundred yards from a school and that sort of thing but we have a a cultural thing with alcohol is really quite predominant in our lives and if we end up going down the road of over-regulation do we end up just looking at touch hypocritical when it doesn't work Mr Roberts should we treat alcohol the same way as we treat the Michael yes I think we should and the fact that we can see things through international sports events doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to cover areas that we're responsible for and reduce marketing within our own jurisdiction so yeah I acknowledge that there is powerful marketing going on through international sports events which we we can't do much about but I think that the the advertising and industry is quite powerful and I think was it the case that in Brazil in the World Cup that the government's forced to change its policy because of FIFA wanting advertising to take place so you know even even when governments have regulation in place there can be overpowered by the strong lobbies against them so there are powerful forces out there and I would just say that shouldn't stop us trying to do within Scotland what we feel it's possible to do to take the steps that we can we just I was just giving them a second column but I'll certainly let you go back in if anyone else wants to pick up on that no guy just very quick we we don't think that that tobacco and alcohol are the same thing and should be treated in the same way when it comes to protections societal protections and I think the key difference between them is that you can and most people do drink responsibly but you can't smoke responsibly Colin I know very short question really is given the list of events I've just read out there multi multi million pound investments obviously and from the drinks companies in major international events has anyone had the actually looked at the effect that say a ban an international ban on alcohol at these events how much money would go missing from the sponsorship of sport Sarah we don't collect sort of details we don't have a big single figure as such I know Ireland I know have been looking at the potential impact of what they ban on sports marketing would mean for sports and grass roots going forward and I think have delayed any decision on that as a result and there are there are a couple of very interesting reports out there and one of which I think is was done by Sports Scotland about the value of sport to Scotland and and I think there was talking about sort of two billions worth of value and fifty thousand pounds of jobs and also obviously the hospitality sector and there was an oxford economics report I believe around the the value of the hospitality sector to to Scotland and the gva and so they again may be worth looking at and the beer sector and it's a shame and Mr Ty's not here because I think he'd be able to give you more detail on that and I'm sure he could follow up but I think they looked at some of the sports sponsorships around beer brands and that was something I think there was a sort of 300 million of which 50 million was being reinvested back into grass roots sport so so there is that investment back to and so I'm sorry I don't have a really a single detailed figure but in terms of value there is some quite significant finance there. The point I add from the advertising agencies in Scotland benefit from having contracts with alcohol producers who work in that field and so that expertise enables us to help them and to compete globally so with events such as some of the events that you mentioned or with some of the brands which are working internationally they're able to draw on that expertise from agencies in Scotland so without that experience it will make it more difficult for us to compete and reduce the ability of agencies to contribute to the creative sector in Scotland and I think it's worth remembering the creative industries as one of the most important sectors in Scotland and counts for I think 68 000 jobs and advertising as a real driver of that sector so it certainly helps to generate a positive income for the economy in Scotland. If I remember rightly this question was raised at the previous session and it was Dr Rice I think who responded so I would refer you to his answer which I think was along the lines of there are plenty more companies out there non alcohol companies which are willing to sponsor and when you I think you pointed to the English Premier League to say there's only one team that's being sponsored by an alcohol firm now and that's from the Far East so there are plenty of firms wanting and willing and with the capacity to sponsor it doesn't rely the industry doesn't the sport doesn't rely totally on the alcohol industry in it but I think he also said that he would agree that there would need to be some analysis done as to the impact but he didn't feel it would be a totally negative impact. I think the reason I came up with the competition is not necessarily the club's focus appears to have changed. Support from an international level and right club level in it I think it is actually challenging to find sponsors to replace those sponsors I don't think it's a straightforward saying that there are lots of other companies who will take up that take up their place it's not necessarily the case I'm not particularly from agencies based in Scotland who are able to have a proximity to some of the alcohol brands who are based in Scotland to offer those services but it's not necessarily the case especially at a lower level and smaller events where community clubs benefit from the support of alcohol brands everything from Highland games and mentioned earlier the mountain rescue so there are a number of ways that alcohol sponsorship is supporting local and international level. Sorry it's very much Brian's point really that we do often we focus often on the big sort of absolute blue ribbon events but we must remember how much how many layers of sponsorship write down to local smaller teams and pub teams and less popular sports which is much more difficult to attract funding for as well so that was very much Brian's point. I think we're going to we'll just one area I suppose that we haven't covered this and we've got it in the next session it's a question of criminal sanctions that would in sanctions in general which would be brought about by the bill and I think I'm going to set you up Mr Robertson and say that you believe that in terms of marketing and that you've suggested that additional sanctions would be necessary if the provisions of the bill were to be taken seriously and suggested that organisations breaching the rules should face a ban on future marketing activity for the appropriate time period. If you could speak to that then we'll get a response from some of the panel members and then we'll quickly go to Richard Simpson. Yes I think our feeling was that this is such a serious matter that stronger sanctions need to be in place to deter people from to deter the industry from from marketing as they do currently and so the £5,000 maximum fine yes and the fixed penalty notices are all well and good good good steps obviously but we would see something more effective in this 12 month kind of suspended sentence where if a breach took place within that period then there'd be a further 12 month ban on advertising so that's that would be the step that we we suggest. A stronger sanction I mean we it goes back to the idea of self-regulation again where we don't think the sanctions are strong enough to deter people from marketing inappropriately and so with statute regulation we would want the stronger sanctions to be there as a deterrent. I can't really comment on criminal sanctions that's not really my area I can't talk to you about sanctions in the airspace system because that's what I know about. I think compliance rates are really pretty high with the advertising codes that we police where companies are unable or unwilling to comply with the codes then there are various sanctions that we can deploy to bring them into line. In the alcohol area there's almost no non-compliance there's almost no need for us to go to sanctions and the fact that companies really do not want an ASA ruling against them is an extremely powerful deterrent and I know I can't invite you into an investigation because our investigations are obviously confidential but I would love to be able to to do that so you could see how how very hard companies like Diagio and Heineken fight to try and persuade us that in their judgment their ad is on the right side of the line. Now these are companies that are also with a long long-sighted fast-sighted hat on supporting the ASA system but when it comes to to to to battles about individual ads or ad campaigns they will fight like tigers to avoid an ASA ban because the the adverse publicity that that attracts is is really very bad for them. As a hearing a very serious step is a sort of a nuclear but if you are a breach and you're brought to a hearing where does your work take place is it confidential as an engagement with that company before it gets only when you can't get movement so how would the committee evaluate what sort of work is being put in there and what the scale of the problem wouldn't just necessarily be on the hearings would it I wouldn't say no you know saying that there's 10 hearings a year of 20 or 30 wouldn't give us any indication about the debate on the work it goes on to to to to confirm that regulation and get best practice is it. Well I don't know I think it gives you an indication the the number we last year we published around eight on 900 rulings against companies these are these these are the most formal these are the conclusions of the most formal investigations we undertake there's lots of other work we do as well that secures changes to ads and brings them into line that's dealt with in a different way but the most formal investigations result in ASA rulings which we publish weekly on our website and there's around 900 of them and if you look at the proportion of those that are that relate to alcohol ads it gives you an indication based on the number of complaints on on how well the alcohol sector is complying with the codes it's only an indication but it gives you an indication we also undertake surveys from time to time where we'll look at all the all the alcohol ads in across various media for a month normally the month leading up to Christmas so normally December and we will analyse them against the codes we will work out which ones look to us to be prima facie in breach of the codes we won't conduct five six hundred investigations for obvious reasons but we will get an indication of the compliance rate and the compliance rates tend to be high the area where we as a system are challenged when it comes to persuading companies who are unwilling or unable to comply normally unwilling is much much smaller companies online who are misleading people and they very often don't have a reputation to care about they just they just want to fleece people for money and they use advertising and marketing to do that that's that's the that's the area where in the last few years we have had to devote the most thought to our sanctions and happily due to a legal backstop arrangement of trading standards we've now got an increasingly successful legal backstop arrangement where trading standards is is is suspending the websites of these companies so even there where it is hardest for a self and co-regulatory system like the ASA to to make sure people stick to our rules even there we're beginning to get some really good outcomes and for the portman group I think the sanctions are are pretty fierce as well um not uh we have the sportable major retailers so if the if the lay panel that makes the rulings finds that product in breach um then instruction goes out across all retail the retail estate to remove that product until it's been changed or or adjusted um but but one of our biggest um in particular around sponsorship and and the other things is the cost of both repackaging and having to renegotiate a sponsorship deal are significant for a company and the best anecdote I can get is one of the very senior directors who's in charge of this actually has a personal kpi that if he had if he breaches one of the industry codes um his bonuses shot for that year so that's how important it is write down to individuals um have a responsibility to it as well for that Richard finally yes um the current regulatory framework in Scotland is that we have a 200 meter ban for promotions from premises and we have a voluntary ban in terms of 100 meters from schools and I want to ask the witnesses if there have been any problems with the current regulatory system and voluntary system I mean it clearly is something everybody's agreed should be there it's in law in the case of the promotions it's in the voluntary code in the terms of the portment agreement they if they they wouldn't have introduced it if they either hadn't been under pressure or had felt that it was something that was reasonable um so you know is there any problems with that because my village my proposal is simply to bring the 200 meter um advertising ban into line with the 200 meter promotion ban except in one case it's premises and in the other case it's schools it's a very very modest measure it's not going to solve our drinking problem but it is just to bring things into line and just one other thing just one correction on right okay I think you've asked a couple of questions there are there any any problems with the existing regulations say that I'm happy to go first it is a voluntary code I think I'm sure Jonathan will tell me quite quickly there's a few that do come under the radar I think as you can imagine it's a fairly complex system with them the number of poster sites every now and then and thanks to twitter actually can alert a brand quite quickly if it's slipped through the net I mean they do their best with their media buyers to ensure that that rule is upheld all the voluntary code is upheld together with the outdoor outdoor advertising association who I know have changed their names so I do apologize outsmarth perfect um but and the joy because it is voluntary if as soon as the company gets an alerts they can let their media buy I know very quickly and that poster can be removed everybody that's a robot yeah well sorry to disappoint you sarah but I can't actually point to any particular instances but I know that there have been anecdotally instances of the 100 meter voluntary exclusion zone being breached but on the general point of self-regulation I just come back again to to reports that have been issued for example the house of commons health senate committee in 2010 looked at advertising practices within the industry and communications organisations and concluded that self-regulation does not work that was that was their plain statement and again the european commission report 2012 which I alluded to earlier said we find potential violations of the portman code in relation to the display of instances that may suggest any association with bravado with violent aggressive dangerous or anti social behaviour suggest any association with sexual success or suggest that consumption of the drink can lead to social success or popularity so they were able to identify a number of breaches of the codes and concluded with the house of commons health senate committee that self-regulation doesn't work so that's a general comment on self-regulation which would apply to the 100 meter exclusion zone and to the other aspects that we've been looking at I think. We don't please either of the restrictions that Dr Simpson talked about so I'm afraid I don't know the answer to the question whether there have been any problems um with them on the point that um that Robert makes Andrew Roberts makes um Johnathan Roberts has made about self-regulation not working in that being the conclusion of the health select committee inquiry in 2009 2010 um I had the I had the the pleasure of giving evidence to that health select committee meeting I tell you it was a very different it was a very it was very different experience to the experience that I'm having today giving evidence to you um whilst giving evidence um during the hour and a half or so when I was interrogated I had no doubt that that was going to be the conclusion of that committee even though it was some weeks and months before it published its conclusion um I don't know why that was but but it it seemed to me to be interested in only one side of the argument I mean I obviously don't agree that the self the advertising self-regulation doesn't work I think advertising does work I think we've got we have a difficult job to do trying to strike this elusive balance between protecting people and allowing responsible advertising to thrive it is a difficult balance to to to reach it calls for fine judgments but generally I think we do it well I'm no defender of self-regulation across the board I think some self-regulation can be effective some self-regulation is not effective um I think it depends very much on the circumstances but obviously I think advertising self-regulation in the UK is effective so the evidence which the university of sterling published back in 2011 to sort of go through the various components of the bill with regards to posters and billboards 53% of the 12 to 14 year olds were aware of alcohol marketing that context although I do know it's not possible to say whether that was within the restrictions outlined in the bill 61% were aware of sports sponsorship and with regards to the relatively untouched part of the bill today that 55% of them were aware of in-store advertising for alcohol as well so just to bring those to the attention when you pick up your other questions no the advertising people have got any comments about problems they've had with this no I'm not aware of any problems we've had in terms of restriction I think the concern is that on outdoor if I understand the legislation correctly the extending it from 100 to 200 meters and also the scope to schools, nurseries, christians and all playgrounds that as I mentioned earlier I don't know if there is a analysis has been done of exactly what impact that would have taking the geography of all those locations and looking at what that would mean in terms of where advertising would not be allowed my judgment is that it would be a significant restriction and potentially lead to an effective ban on advertising in some urban areas but as I said clearly that would be a good bit of analysis to be able to do to actually accurately map all of the locations against where the ban would be imposed given that there's no real problems with 100 meter ban you're just concerned that 200 is just a bit too much I mean it would be easier for everybody if we actually just went along the lines of the Salvation Army and many others out there on the side of concern about the alcohol problem feel that we should just have a total ban on billboard advertising would that be the simplest solution I don't think that would be a so the simplest solution or I don't think a solution you think that what we would advocate is where advertisers are advertising responsibly then they should be able to do that and I think the codes that we've talked about are in place to ensure that they do the the other question really is if people feel I mean the discussion about the why of our was very interesting convener nobody is suggesting in fact you know WHO WHO are very clear in this that the main drivers of alcohol consumption are price and availability we know that but on the other hand the industry doesn't spend literally billions of pounds on advertising if it doesn't have some effect so the question is whether it is reasonable to control advertising in alcohol as opposed to other goods and services and have a more restrictive approach because if it is the case then we're really saying yes alcohol advertising is something that does have it does have an effect or is the argument being put forward that the the same as the tobacco industry it's not about consumption it's about the different brands which we know is a felitious argument but is that the argument that's been put forward? Thank you convener the the evidence the evidence shows that alcohol advertising has a small and consistent effect on consumption I think a lot of the money that that I don't know figures on this but I'm sure a lot of the money that is in companies advertising budgets is is there to try to get brand share of competitors rather than grow the market but it's not exclusively for that so like you I suspect I'm sorry to put words into your mind but I am very suspicious of the argument that advertising only encourages brand switching I don't think that's the case because sometimes there are new products that established new categories and those those categories grow so the the the evidence says that the question is are the rules and restrictions already in place a proportionate response to that evidence that's to me that's the big question the the the airspace system and the portman group but I'm obviously here to talk about the airspace system bit of it already polices alcohol advertising substantially more strictly than the vast majority of other products and sectors there are advertising rules in the broadcast and unbroadcast codes that cover all advertising for all products and sectors making sure that ads aren't misleading harmful or offensive in both in each of the broadcast and unbroadcast codes there are also quite detailed sections on alcohol that contain some of the rules that we've been talking about that further restrict alcohol advertising through placement and content rules and and the judgment that the airspace system has made over the years is that those restrictions are right given the potential harms that can result from people drinking irresponsibly yes thank you I'd just add to that I'm sure Brian and his teams know that the if you're marketing alcohol you're under much stricter rules and tougher codes than most are any other products really here in the UK I think we have to go back to first principles we are seeing a generational shift and a definite improvement that's going on and I think we must build on that and that's not being achieved through restricting the marketing it's about sort of it's about working together I think there's a real opportunity here to look at sort of local partnerships as well there's some great pilots that are beginning to go on around particularly things like best bar none and pub watches and working with street pastors and and all of those other things because alcohol and marketing is just one small part of people's propensity and the way they drink we know the peer influence is a huge familial background socio economic all those other factors are hugely important and they we can help to target down to those areas much more effectively while strengthening our pretty tough codes already and that sort of partnership approach I think we'll see another great shift down Mr Robots I'd agree as you'd expect me to with a guy that advertising does affect consumption and his question I think is right the next question is are we making a proportionate response to that and I would suggest that the current voluntary codes don't do that which is why we support the bill as far as it goes but we're wanting to go further of course and I think that the main point in saying that is that alcohol marketing I think this is the aim of Dr Simpson's bill is alcohol marketing normalises consumption amongst young people and the aim of the bill is to denormalise that because it's that whole culture it's not just the not just peer pressure of the family environment but the whole culture that's built around that which enables peer pressure and the family environment to be effective I think which is something that needs to be tackled and it's I think it's a proportionate response to say let's put these restrictions in place to denormalise drinking amongst children and young people and we're not we're not trying to stop people drinking you know we're not trying to ban alcohol totally for everybody we're just trying to say that marketing has a powerful impact on people's drinking habits in childhood and beyond leading to the kind of problems that we see in adults later in life the UK codes that we police are not voluntary you may have been talking about other other voluntary arrangements like the 100 meter poster restriction but the UK codes are not voluntary you can't opt out of them at one final cut out yes I think it's just it's almost a correction and that is that although it is true that the number of underage drink the people drinking at 13 of 15 in the south of study have reduced and that's very welcome and Sarah Hanratty quoted the very good figures that have occurred from that but we don't know why you know maybe the education stuff I introduced as the minister when I was the justice minister have been a help but who knows but I should point out that along with almost every other northern European country the ones who do drink are drinking more heavily in other words there's a bivalent approach occurring now which is is really makes life difficult and the question really I suppose is whether if we denormalise for and this is what the purpose of the bill is we we denormalise for primary school children by having nothing within 200 meters of schools they're less likely to be exposed less likely to be exposed to other advertising not totally but there will be less likely to be exposed to other advertising and I wonder if if the witnesses would agree that that that that may be a measure which will give a small but maybe maybe useful effect in terms of changing the perception of alcohol amongst the very young so that this group who heavily drink will actually be slightly less affected and will continue the downward trend that's already welcome Mr Parker I don't I don't yet understand how a UK wide advertising regime like the air system that we that we are responsible for can be a part a relatively small part I would argue of a context where alcohol consumption is decreasing but but also in part responsible for a minority drinking more and I would have thought you need to look much more closely and carefully who those people are and where they're based because I I think Sarah's right there's really very wide variation and there are some real problem areas around the whole of the UK and within Scotland I think you need to look at what's happening there and I think very local in in terms of interventions to try and change that picture I just echo that as well and I think the alcohol education together with the really tough clampdown on underage sales and and preventing alcohol sales to children it has been a huge success and I think a shared vision not just to I mean normalising alcohol but normalising the responsible consumption of alcohol should be the shared vision and I think we can all get behind that in a huge way and I think the next big challenge is around proxy sales to to underage because and this I think the pilots going on in them and a couple of local Scottish pilots that are going on been great success and I would commend those to the committee that really targeted this is like Google Earth stuff we need to get right down find out why that 10% and what's going on in their lives and that's what we need to look at anywhere else. Well that concludes this evidence session thank you all very much for the time you're written evidence in your attendance here today it's been very helpful thank you very much indeed suspend at this point until we set off for the next panel and next session. We now move to our second evidence session at today's meeting which of course is also on alcohol licensing public health and criminal justice Scotland bill and this session will primarily focus on justice matters which have been raised in the well sorry in the net I didn't realise you went back I was just waiting and then men came in back and forgot you sorry I'll just give you a moment to my apologies can I welcome our witnesses to this session Tim Brosch chief inspector police scotland welcome Robert Sanderman director of operations development scottish courts and tribunals service welcome and Bruce millon criminal justice social work development social work scotland welcome to you all and thanks for your attendance this morning and into the time we go directly to Richard Lyle for our first question. People who have to implement this bill or are basically work with the bill or have the effects of the bill I would like to know their views in regards to the drink banning orders adjustment to police processing relation to fixed penalties the clarity on and the operation of the approved courses and in particular to police I would like to know your view on the proposal basically to in some certain circumstances to mark in an individual shop mark the the items being sold so that it could trace back if there is underage drinking in the area. I think I think thank you Richard for that question I think none of the other committee members have got a question now but I mean if you could take some of that and allow the allow the other members to maybe develop and ask supplementaries on some of the issues. The last question about bottle marketing schemes there have been examples of bottle marketing schemes that have worked throughout different areas of Scotland in the past and this is quite an interesting proposal to see if you could formalise that by application to the licensing board. I think our experience in the past is that bottle marketing schemes have proved effective when they've been community based schemes with involvement of the trade and community in terms of trying to prevent drinking which of course is one of the aims of the bill. I think since we first started doing bottle marketing schemes and I think the first one I was aware of could now be 10-15 years ago the landscape around about licensing has changed quite a lot and in terms of what it would deliver for us or for communities in terms of preventing drinking I'm not entirely clear on it now in terms of we have different ways of enforcing things with test purchase with challenge 25 which perhaps have nullified slightly the benefits of some bottle marketing scheme. Nevertheless I still think that the schemes have their place certainly in a voluntary basis just in terms of reinforcing retailer responsibility and getting that retailer buy-in and perhaps then providing for a policeman enforcement perspective potentially providing better evidence to allow us to take further enforcement action in terms of some of the tactics that I just mentioned. I don't know if that's been too helpful but I think that these schemes are most effective when you do get that real community and local buy-in involved in them. That issue will allow some of the other members to maybe develop that because we did visit Newcastle recently and there are some good examples there. On the issue of the courts and the proposals for deferment and rather than fines except for an appellate, do you give any of that thought? Where we've really focused on is particular parts of the bill which require the courts not to do something and where the bill is asking the court to explain its reasons when it's not imposing drinking banning orders and I think it's more in that respect that we have a significant apprehension about those particular aspects but in terms of the general probability where it's putting a drinking banning order in the positive, based on the experience of England and Wales under the 2006 act there were relatively few of those actually imposed in England and Wales adjusting for population size in Scotland. We're not talking large numbers necessarily in the positive so those are absorbable within existing business. I don't think that we have a particular concern with those but we do have a concern and I can talk about it in a bit more detail if you'd like me to convener is. Both as I say the negative obligation on DBOs and also the GP notification scheme which is proposed in section 31 of the bill. The issue for us is really a numbers one and time. We did put in a return to the call for evidence talking about costings but since then we've been looking really at what would it actually mean in practice on a day-to-day court basis and to give you an idea of numbers that we're estimating around 53,000 cases a year may be appropriate or be in the sort of frame of mind of the Crown and Judge as being appropriate for drinking banning order which is about half of all cases or the basis that around about half of if around about half cases I have an alcohol element. If you translate that into time to explain why the court is not granting one of these and we're required to do that in section 217 and 8 of the bill where it says that the court decides that the conditions in relevant to banning order are not met it must give reasons for doing that in open court and then it goes on to say if it decides if the conditions are not met in relation to the offender at all so that the conditions you know it was up for consideration but decided on balance not to apply it at all those also must be explained if you're allowing for around about two minutes of consideration which is a fair estimate I'm probably taking much longer than that just explaining some of the background to this when you multiply that up by 53,000 it works up to around about just two minutes translates into around about 350 additional court business days a year just explain why you're not not doing something and so on that aspect I think whether I think an apprehension would be as neutral as it can be about that particular part but in the positive I don't think we're talking about necessarily alarming numbers of these things but maybe colleagues from police and social work may have a different view and obviously there would be an experimental period as the provisions are tested and bed in. In the evidence from the courts and tribunal service because it was covering areas that nobody else had covered in there I mean would it be fair to say in summary that your main concerns about the bill are actually costs concerns rather than issues of principle in the bill although I mean the section on I didn't totally understand it because I don't really know enough about court processes but I take it the jurisdiction for applications to vary and revoke is not particularly cost issue you might want to explain that one but would it be fair to say that the other ones are cost implications and presumably you would be arguing for more staff or whatever in order to do all that although I suppose the alternative in terms of your last point would be just to amend the bill so that you didn't you know you have to have to explain when you didn't and would that meet a lot of your concerns if you didn't have to explain why you didn't weren't issuing one? Certainly on as you say I mean the in terms of principle it's not an issue that the courts services are a particular position on at all I mean that I think that's a matter for for policy but in terms of yes as you say that the in terms of admin actually making this practical both and administering it those the particularly section 22, 7 and 8 which I was referring to there the not the negative obligations are are very significant for the courts in practical terms if they were to go ahead but the positive but you know removing them wouldn't affect the courts ability to pose them if they thought it was relevant to do so did I answer all the questions there? As I said I didn't quite understand we would suggest that further consideration is given to the application process and in particular to ensuring that a sheriff in a second court is aware of the detail of the original application but I just wasn't sure what the procedure was that was behind that statement really. I think a lot of those issues are probably issues that can be resolved in on implementation making sure that the relevant judge of the case of transfer understands what's going on to the proper background but I think those can probably be ironed out in on implementation rather than issues of you know that need to be ironed out necessarily in the bill it's a different subject if that's okay I haven't read the evidence that you were giving about GP notification and I think there were concerns about this but more concerns about the practice rather than the purpose and I think possibly most people would be signed up to the purpose in that intervention would happen people would get the support the need and you know that offending would not reoccur. How in practice could this work? I suppose I'm handing it back to you if the policy is good how could we make it work in practice? On GP notifications we were you know when we get some we get quite a lot legislation from yourselves and from the Parliament and we often have to you know work how we're actually going to do this but make it make it practicable and I think one of the issues around the notifications one is really just a practical one that how do you know how does the court find out sensibly and practically that a person is registered with a GP most people maybe or maybe not and we think that the best way to do it is to do it in open court if you don't have the background information in some report already which may not be forthcoming which would basically mean so I would be up and say Mr Sanderman you know wouldn't find you guilty of these offences and we're going to impose some post orders and I'm also going to notify your GP about this can you let the clerk know please your name and address etc etc and then off you go now just rehearsing that and just now it will probably take about up to about a minute of time and again multiplying that by 53,000 because that's our number we work with that is a lot of time to add on to the court there may be other ways around it but essentially I mean the cost there are some costs which we've mentioned in the return in the in the evidence about recorded delivery making sure things are secure but they're not massive numbers that the bigger issue I think from looking at it again in preparation for this is a timing one and again proportionality has been mentioned and I heard that in the earlier session about whether that is this is whether that is the tool for the job and that obviously that's a decision for yourselves. The drinking banning orders and the initial question about enforcement them have you asked Mr Sandaman has said I don't anticipate that these would be massive numbers but we do support the introduction of drinking banning orders we see they could play a very useful role you know in the area that I work for example in North Ayrshire you might have relatively few people that we think the drinking banning order would apply to but it would provide a really useful tool in terms of trying to prevent those who engage in repeat drinking which then fuels alcohol fuel disorder or criminal behaviour and in terms of enforcement I don't think that present us with a particular problem resource-wise or what have you we do try to proactively police those that causes the most problems and these tools I think would be additional welcome tool. Mr Mittle do you? I guess from a social work point of view most of our consideration is really around about the effectiveness so again in terms of the drinking banning orders we still have some reservations in terms of what does it really give us that that isn't there already in terms of either the kind of anti-social behaviour legislation and or post conviction around about the community payback order legislation and again in terms of the notification of GPs that could a question that comes to mind is how effective will this be in engaging people in treatment so if people are voluntarily notifying of their GP and then the GP's are informed yet there's no expectation or requirement on GP's to do anything with that information our question is will it be effective I guess which is I guess up for up for grabs unless it was to be piloted in some way to see if it was actually going to be effective in engaging people in counseling or treatment or or education. Rhoda? About the court time can I ask how much court time is used by repeat offenders through alcohol misuse? I don't have those figures to hand I mean what a can see is we don't collect data as such on the number of convictions relating to alcohol so I'm not mislabeled to answer that I'm afraid. Okay so no figures are currently collected about offences committed while under the influence of alcohol? Not so far as I'm aware now. Okay so we don't know the figures and we don't know the repeat. So I've just furled up to that it's only in recent years that as police call we've started mandated taterally that word recording the involvement of alcohol and I agree there's a degree of subjectivity around about that but in the past it's not something we've been particularly good at necessarily having that statistic about the number of offences prompted by alcohol but it is something we do now and those figures should start to become available. Okay since when when did you start collecting? I think it was I'd have to remember because I think at least maybe 18 months ago to two years ago that would be a came in crime reports now when we raise a crime report there is actually a section for recording whether alcohol was a factor. Okay and would you be able from that to see what the degree of repeat offending was the people that were continuously getting into trouble because of alcohol misuse? Yes it would be it's quite easy to identify repeat offenders and repeat victims and we'll have you as well. Is it possible maybe for the committee to get that information if it's if it's I'm not putting you on the spot here but if it's possible to get it even a small amount of it would be really helpful? Yeah I'll look into that and report back on that if that could be do if we could do that. Thank you. John by Mr Rillan it was to ask Mr Ross do you think that a drink banning order would be any more effective than the existing antisocial behaviour order in coping with this problem? I think it's an additional tool that would be very specific for very specific circumstances and as a comment and I don't see it being used a massive amount but I think there are very specific cases where we do get people that engage in that kind of alcohol fuelled behaviour that it would prove useful for us. You think it's necessary? Necessary I suppose to useful. I suppose you would have to look at the process in terms of antisocial behaviour officers and how it offers antisocial behaviour orders and look at how effective they could be in that specific circumstance. I suppose it's really more an alternative and a similar type of order that might be useful for those particular kind of offending. You get to a situation where people can start to identify that they may have a problem and seek help. We recently visited Newcastle and they claim to have a scheme in place, which is no cost, which is in their words a no brainer that they introduce, which is in relation to fixed penalty fines for drink related incidents and criminality. You can defer some of that fine and go and participate in a four hour course. Do you think that there's a merit in these ideas to try and change people's habits? They claim success for it. I don't know if you're aware of it, but they do claim success for those types of initiatives in terms of reducing repeat offending. Absolutely. I think that there is merit in it. We all know that intervention prevention is far more effective and cost effective than trying to enforce things retrospectively. If we could influence behaviour, it would be very effective in terms of delivering alcohol brief interventions is one of the key things that many alcohol and drug partnerships and health services pursue because it's seen as being an effective way of trying to influence people's behaviour. I suppose that this is perhaps a similar kind of thing if we could identify people that are involved in alcohol-fuelled offending and having the awareness course as an alternative to fixed penalty, then it makes absolute sense. Particularly when we're looking at young people who perhaps sometimes aren't the best place to pay fines and things then escalate and by non-payment a fine, then because we're more mentioned in the criminal justice system, which we're the best while in the world doesn't always provide the best outcomes for them. Absolutely. I think that's a very positive option. I would agree in principle as well that it's a good idea again the kind of questions that come to mind is particularly around about what form the alcohol education and prevention would take and how that would fit in with the remit in terms of the community justice reforms around about community justice Scotland in developing practice and quality assurance in those areas. It would be hopeful to see that being joined up in some way that we've got a consistent approach across the kind of whole system. Any other members? Richard? Can I come to the Scottish Courts Tribunal Service? Data from which an order takes effect—we're talking about a drinking banning order—in your submission it's quite confusing, can you explain it? Basically you're concerned about the factor that a time, a banning order, can simply place or in fact it's specified when the court will make the decision or when the person is released and it's quite a confusing paragraph, can you explain it? Essentially it's about again my evidence days tends to be around about timing and it's around about timing when does the thing start and particularly in release information that's not something we will necessarily regularly have to hand but again I think that one is another one which can be ironed out in our implementation that we can work out a practical way of resolving that. Do you have concerns about it? No, not particularly. Some of the evidence here that we responded to is about a rhoffor in the way of refining particular elements of the bill and others are more substantive. Can I do a scenario? Okay, a person's just been released, he had a drinking banning order but he's time's up yet and he goes down to the pub and has a couple of jars—he or she goes down to the pub, sorry—and has a couple of jars and the police lift them and then someone comes back and says, oh, you had a drinking banning order? No, no, it finished at four o'clock. No, no, it didn't finish at four o'clock, it actually should have been six o'clock. Do you see where I'm going with that? Yes, and I can see in that now, explain it to me, I can see that there may be practical issues there where timing again literally will be critical and that's something that I suppose police colleagues as well will need to think about how that would be practically approached because you would need to know obviously that all the justice— I presume that they know the timing of the police car, but do you do that? I mean, confusion does arise sometimes. There are a number of time-limited measures that people have against some bail conditions, for example, a number of things and there are occasions when people get arrested who are quite adamant that that condition is no longer applicable to them, but the criminal history system or whatever it says it is and we have to have that discussion around about when it is, but these are relatively few and when they do arise, they can generally get sorted without too much issue. It's about putting the proper systems in place to try and make sure that people are aware of exactly what the restrictions are and what the timings of them are. I would never be in that position. Sorry, I have to just ask before I finish. Is someone given a slip or a paper that says your bail condition is—I used to be a justice to the peace many years ago, but is someone given a paper by the courts to say here's your condition and your bail is up at X, Y or Z? What the bill itself requires us to do, requires the court to do, I mean, I think from memory, you know, you have to explain at the time, the nature and effect of the order and obviously one of those things that will need to be obviously nailed down and that's where guidance and discussion with partners on implementation will say, well, where it's absolutely critical that it will expire at, you know, 12 o'clock on a Tuesday on blasts there after you can go back to the pub, you know, but again, I mean, there's probably sort of, there's more, there are issues there which are more, not so much legal of us, they are legal, but more about sort of cultural changes that Dr Simpson's talking about his policy now in the random here that when you come up to the end of these things, how do you, you know, what happens after that? Does life go back to normal or, you know, or is that person monitored after that? And those sort of issues, I think, are not so much for the courts really, but I'm offered as I thought. I think that's what it's important that we do have the approved courses as part of this measure as well because ultimately this must be about trying to influence future behaviour. And if the effect of the orders is only that we get to the end and then is back to normal and back to the pub, then really there hasn't been a huge amount of gain from them. So the approved courses are a very important part of this and they have to be something that would come in and make a difference. And that's really difficult to measure, you know, it's a long-term measure and it's such a, I listen with interest to some of the debate about advertising, it's such a complicated picture with so many influencing factors, but I think that the approved courses is a vital part of this in making it work. Thank you, Cydian. Particular type of individual, I mean I think you mentioned people who are particularly problematic, violent or whatever. You were supportive of that type of action for particular groups and particular individuals. Do you keep them safe and the community safe? Yeah, I mean it is. I knew the drinking bank. There is legislation, for example, the deal of people who are violent on premises and you restrict their access to premises in the future. So this is perhaps at a slightly lower level on that. So what we would hope is that what percentage of that number is, I don't know, but even if I suppose you could say, well, you know what, in 20 per cent of cases, we were able to influence future behaviour and reduce their drinking, which then has a knock-on benefit in terms of criminal behaviour, in terms of health, in terms of all the expenditure that we have, then that would probably be a success. In the reduction in court time and expenditure? Absolutely. Malcolm. A couple more questions about the written evidence. I thought I'd exhausted the Scottish Courts on Tribunal Service, but you referred in your last answer there, I think, to having to explain the order, including the effect of the order and the consequences of not complying with it. Then you said that we would consider this to constitute legal advice. I was rather surprised by that. I mean, surely, if you don't comply with it, is it not just a factual, there'll be a factual consequence, which is, you know, it's not really going to be legal advice, is it? It's just going to be stating the facts of the situation. I think that's a fair comment, and I think there are ways to deliver this in a way that is more neutral, and I think we are getting more into, I suppose, the issues around about when you're asked to explain something, how far you go beyond just saying, well, this is what this means, the X, Y and Z, where you go beyond that, and you do find that sometimes in court practice that you've been asked to go a bit beyond that, that that is starting to stray more into the realms of advice. But, you know, within the sort of middle bit that is possible to do that, so yes, I mean, can you adjust that? The police just briefly welcome your strong messages on drink, vanning orders and approved courses, but the other subject you covered is fixed penalty, and you say, Police Scotland would require some adjustment to our current processes to facilitate fixed penalty. I mean, I thought you already do fix penalty, so I didn't totally understand that. We do, but at the moment, taking a course as an option to paying is not statistically available to us, so we don't have processes for monitoring how that would work, for example, when the penalty is issued and it goes through our processes and then goes to the court for notification of payment, how exactly we would work around that administrative process of being notified that the person had indeed taken up the course as an alternative to payment. It would just be a case of putting a process in place, and there might be some cost involved in that. It's difficult to put a figure on that just now, but there would be some administrative implications for it. Okay, thanks. It was mentioned in the last session about, and I think we've recognised it in other sessions, about the proxy purchase and being, you know, one of the ways that, underage, people can get access to alcohol and we've got the container marking proposals that you mentioned general support for. Do you think that, and some, you know, maybe give us some of your thoughts about whether there's other measures, but with that, the container marking, do you feel that that would help to tackle that issue of proxy purchase? It's a difficult one. Of course, the issue with proxy purchasing is that the sale of alcohol itself is not illegal. You know, it is selling alcohol to somebody who is of age, so whether bottle marking would have an effect on that, potentially not, because from a retailer's point of view, they wouldn't be doing anything wrong. If the bottles are marked or unmarked, it really doesn't make much difference as long as they're selling legally. It's then what happens to the alcohol thereafter. I don't see bottle marking have a huge effect on that. You're right, it is a big problem, for as we know. Again, I think it was mentioned in the previous session about the influences on drinking and that can appear pressure. Older people buying drink for younger people is a real issue and it's a difficult one to tackle because you really have to see that transaction between the older person and the younger person to take successful action about it. Bottle marking would have a limited effect on that, I think. I'm going to give you a couple of ideas. This might relate to maybe your earlier experience and maybe in the community, but the police that we spoke to in Newcastle and you referred to earlier about reinforcing retail responsibility, they claimed certain instances where they could eliminate certain off sales by using the marketing system. It's not a good target to target proxy sales because when they were finding young people, it wasn't the marked product that they had, so they were getting it from somewhere else. Also, they believed help to police and their suspicion about poor retailers who were prepared to sell it and that it helped discipline them. It helped to support vulnerable staff members who come under peer pressure, younger people within a distinct community and when they had the markings and when they had the posters and they had the campaign and the camera installed and things that they took confidence from that and it was easier to deal with younger people who were putting a lot of pressure on them to sell alcohol. They may have been younger themselves and they felt it was easier to sell them alcohol and avoid any implicate. They lived in the neighbourhood or whatever. They listed a number of positive outcomes in the Newcastle area, in the city and in the sounding area that this was a helpful scheme for them. Those are potentially the benefits of the earlier schemes that I referred to previously. When they have most effect, they get that trade or buy and a real locality about it, where we identify premises that we suspect are getting targeted by youths for various reasons, in terms of being easier to get alcohol from. Yes, potentially. I would like to think that, in many instances, we can do that voluntarily just now. Would it be good to have a legislative power? I suppose there may well be occasions when it might be helpful for us to go to a board to say, listen, can you please ensure that our bottle marking addition is imposed in this area because of a particular problem, but anything that we can support, responsible retailers, is great. Those irresponsible ones, as I said, whilst the bottle marking in itself would rarely lead to enforcement action necessarily, what it does is provide good evidence that can allow us to take further, more targeted enforcement activity, for example, test purchase. Yes. Any other committee members? Richard, you've got lots of time. Can I first of all thank the witnesses today for the support in general on the principles and say that I understand the implications in terms of being very careful not to overload time for police and courts in that respect? The information from Mr Ross would be very useful to know how many cases there are. We know in terms of convictions out of the 45,000 admitted, you know, roughly 40 per cent of an alcohol problem higher in the youth offenders, of course, for 70 per cent. But I think the question I have is to Mr Milne, really, because you talked about treatment, and I'm actually not concerned about that. I think we've got that pretty well sorted. We've got the community payback orders. We've got the alcohol treatment requirement. Those things are in place for people who are dependent alcohol people. The thrust of my bill is to pick up people much earlier. It's the ones who are starting off on those cases, you know, when they're coming before the court with a relatively minor offence. And the question is, at the moment, do the courts identify it? Well, we've heard, I think, and asked Mr Sandman to confirm this on the record. At the moment, the courts don't actually know if it's an alcohol offence unless it's clearly something quite serious. So the question is, do you think the measures on the bill will help in terms of the find aversion in terms of reduction on the few DPOs we do have? You can reduce it by going through an education course. Do you feel that dealing with people at that level is something that is going to be helpful? Because I know that the probation service or the Scottish criminal justice services that are called nowadays actually deal tends to deal with a more serious group like DTDOs and things like that. Obviously support people getting access to alcohol education or whatever services that they require at the earliest point. Again, I think in terms of the community justice reforms is looking to widen that kind of scope and not just being that kind of statutory criminal justice involvement that people have had in the past. I suppose one of the crucial things for me in relation to it would be how that assessment process would be undertaken. So how would the assessment be that it was alcohol-related offending and what was the cause behind the alcohol use and therefore what are we specifically targeting in relation to our intervention? Is it purely educational or are there some other issues that we want to be looking at to address during that process? For example, is somebody drinking because of bereavement? Do we want to get them to access services in relation to that? So for me, I guess the devil would be in the detail about how it would be operating and how we would be assessing and also ensuring that we weren't including people who were alcohol dependent by mistake because I think one of the difficulties in relation to the use of the alcohol treatment requirement within the community pay back order is the measures that need to be done in order to assess whether there's an alcohol dependency or not. I think that that's one of the biggest barriers to the use of the alcohol treatment requirement is getting that assessment done by a medical person within the timeframe that we tend to have to write a court report and therefore there's potentially a requirement that we have some sort of assessment undertaken to ensure that someone's not alcohol dependent and that we're not imposing a banning order on somebody that's alcohol dependent that could have associated health concerns. The system is that the police are now recording if there's an alcohol involvement and that that doesn't at the moment have to automatically come to the court but if it begins to come to the court automatically and you see a couple of offences like that but you know relatively minor things that at that point that would be enough to say well at least this should go through an education programme. I mean the people don't know that alcohols are depressant and it causes you to have you know it can cause you to have problems that people don't really despite our school education system it's clear from the evidence that they don't know that so having that in place allows the police to say you know look this is this person's had a couple of relatively minor offences they've been fined a couple of times or they've been you know they get into trouble in this particular pub on a regular basis let's have a banning order but then they can ameliorate it. I mean I totally agree that I would support people being educated in the use of alcohol and I would support that within our education system and within the wider general population so absolutely if people are coming to the attention of the police in relation to offences that have occurred while someone's been under the influence of alcohol then absolutely. I guess for me there's a bit about digging a bit deeper and looking at the role that alcohol is playing within the offending so while I guess a standard alcohol education programme may impact on some people that are offending while under the influence of alcohol it may not be the magic bullet it may there may be something more that would need to be addressed at the same time. Having been an addiction consultant psychiatrist I do appreciate that there are many many different reasons for people getting into difficulty with alcohol. Can I ask the court service in terms of GP two things one is on GP notification the the bill suggests I think I hope that it would only be if the person actually gave you the GP I mean you don't have to do anything to try and find that out you don't have to go to the to the Scottish services to find out who the GP is it would only be they volunteer it because again we're dealing with the lower level of people so provided they volunteer it then GP notification wouldn't perhaps be a particular difficulty you already notify others presumably of the result of the offence the court's decision is notified generally or publicised in some way so it would be a small additional measure. I think I mean I suppose the issue is really how do you make it effective and if it is what it's appropriate to ask questions here but you know if you're thinking about a voluntary scheme and you're saying as part of your you know the criminal disposal here would you you know and put it in some form or citation or whatever or collect it some administratively that that will also you know if you give us your GP's details we will also get in touch with them as part of that part of the overall criminal process now you know psychology's overseer department but if if that's really to work how do you put more of a force onto that than just saying well if you if you want to you can tell us and if it is voluntary and this is not wearing a court service that this is wearing a just a civil service hat here if if you're um if it is voluntary in the spirit of the disclosure as voluntary would they do it anyway with the GP now you may say they wouldn't but and if it's to be something a bit more than that how do we just how do we eat that information out our thought was that we would you know you could do it in court and that would that would you know the sort of authority in the the theatre of the occasion would get more disclosure there but if it's to be something soft and that obviously we can look at that and do more modelling if you find that helpful but um those were our thoughts that's very helpful i mean we'll have have a think about that i mean the idea is to get people to say yes to if they start to admit you know okay i did this but actually i was drinking at the time and this is maybe the second time it's happened you know nothing happens to them at that point except they get a fine or they get you know there's no action whereas and certainly my experience when i was a minister getting the drug courts going and the the 80 to years going the consequences for individuals began you know they began began the court was taking a proactive involvement which they never did before and i think certainly talking to various members of the judiciary they found that extremely useful so but i accept your point that we need to be careful that we don't make an imposition onto the court that's too significant yeah and if i may i'm just thinking even there if we're thinking about something more proactive and it were to prompt a conversation in court and i'm all i'm only here thinking about numbers and time if that prompts a conversation in court of some kind some kind of voluntary disclosure by the person if you multiply that by the numbers that we're talking about here which you know a very high number of cases we at least got to consider the issue um that adds quite that you know a minute to two minutes times 50 000 adds a lot on to court time and pushes everything else out so it's whether there's another way of doing it or or there's a different you know whether the policy aspiration is it can be achieved in a different way okay i mean hopefully it would lead to a reduction of a few percentage points in the number of cases which is going to save a lot more time but because you wouldn't have a whole case on the question of the the dbo's uh the intention was that it would only be if the if the police or prosecutors actually did raise the question of alcohol if alcohol wasn't there if the courts wouldn't be required to actually ask the individual if they have an alcohol problem so it would only be the ones where it was notified um and the question is you know how often is that the case if it's not something that's really serious if the alcohol is not a central part of the problem but but a peripheral part or a you know a minor part of it but nevertheless something that was causing them to have more trouble how often does that go to the court as a notification and i would have thought not not a great deal but i don't know it really depends on the nature of the report submitted to to the procreter fiscal uh and i think what you might find is that quite often alcohol is mentioned but it might be in the general body of a report on my house so what we might have to look at is how effectively do we notify the fiscal that alcohol is actually a factor here so do we make that as a that as a discussion that has to be had do we have a you know a separate paragraph or a separate tick box or one for better word of how we actually notify the fiscal that alcohol is an issue you know it's similar to what we do just now in terms of we try to identify cases where early and effective intervention or it's a diversion from prosecution might be suitable for the accused person because we all appreciate that's a generally a better option for us than going into criminal justice systems you know so we do have paragraphs at the end of police reports that this may be suitable for some kind of diversion from prosecution and i see this as being similar in a different option which would be very useful okay thank you very much if there's no other questions for committee members just leaves me to thank our witnesses this morning thank you very much indeed for your time and repeated time mr ross another guy's today it's nice to see you back thanks very much indeed thank you and i think we're now going into private session as we have previously agreed