Drowning in alcohol ' in every way

A new study from the United States suggests that eating meals together as a family can significantly reduce the risk of teenage girls turning to drugs and alcohol.

In families that sat down together for at least five meals a week, teenage girls were much less likely to drink alcohol or smoke marijuana or cigarettes five years later. In fact, the odds were roughly halved.

The study by the University of Minnesota Medical School tracked teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18 and found that girls eating regularly with their families were also less prone to violence, eating disorders and problems at school.

So there you have it, a victory for good middle class, and for that matter traditional working class, values. Teenagers who are engaged and supported at home turn out better. The family can and does have a major influence on the behaviour of youngsters growing up.

This is hardly a blinding revelation, but in the current climate of alcohol hysteria, it is as pertinent as any of the other surveys being thrown at us. ' particularly by the Government.

It points to what we always knew. Problems of alcohol and drugs, and other disruptive behaviour are rooted in society and that's where the solutions, if there are any, will be found.

The positive aspect of this US study is that it does suggest answers. Admittedly, the results are not so good for teenage boys, but with the growth in problem drinking in the UK being largely fuelled by young females consuming more, teenage girls are not a bad place to start.

Supporting and encouraging families, not to mention schools, is where the Government should be focusing its efforts if it is really serious about addressing the alcohol abuse issue. But, of course, that is much easier said than done ' and clearly harder than banning happy hours or compelling pubs to sell wine in tiny glasses. How is that going to change teenage attitudes to drink? Difficult problems have difficult remedies ' and alcohol is a prime example.

The Government's latest initiative on alcohol has the veneer of toughness, but is really only a flimsy package of sticking plaster policies, with the drinks industry as the fall guy.

It is in a mess over alcohol misuse and all it is doing with its consultation process is putting off the day when it has to take real and difficult action. Even the now famous KPMG survey, commissioned by the Home Office to see if the drinks business has been adhering to its voluntary Social Responsibility Standards code, recommends that Government should be taking the lead.

But Government is not the only one in a pickle, so too is the pub and bar sector, as the KPMG research has highlighted. The findings might be only a snapshot of the market, as the researchers themselves admit, taken in a limited numbers of bars, in particular towns, at a particular time, but it nonetheless provides a disturbing picture of not just the voluntary code but the law of the land being broken by sections of the business.

Of course, the licensed trade is not perfect, and what the KPMG study doesn't show is how much worse it used to be. There is plenty of evidence to demonstrate that pubs and bars have cleaned up their act considerably, not least the latest test-purchase results. Serve Legal, which carries out test purchase operations for pub companies and retailers such as Asda, Waitrose and Thresher, carried out 5,000 site visits over the last nine months to test whether the Challenge-21 or Challenge-25 schemes were working and found that the off-trade had improved pass rates from 56% to 64%, while the on-trade improved even more from 43% to 67%.

But the Government, in particular the Department of Health, obviously doesn't think progress has gone far enough or been fast enough ' and probably neither does the wider public.

The pub and bar industry will be indignant about this latest attack, but it should remember that it is all about politics. The DoH has its own agenda and needs to placate the anti-alcohol lobby. Balance has nothing to do with it. Why else would Alcohol Concern be quoted in a government press release?

Meanwhile, the Home Office needs to be seen to be doing something about anti-social behaviour, especially among the young. Interestingly, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), which supposedly looks after alcohol licensing, has been conspicuous by its absence from this current round of activity.

The DoH believes it had an agreement with the drinks industry and its trade bodies, which they have failed to deliver on. As Public Health Minister, Dawn Primarolo pointedly observed: 'Some sections of the industry are sticking to the voluntary codes, others are blatantly ignoring them.'

This, of course, shows that there is nothing voluntary about what the Government wants. More importantly, trade associations, particularly those in the pub and bar sector, cannot deliver industry-wide adherence to any code ' they are not set up to do it, even if they wanted to. Policing their market is not their role.

So, a more stringent framework of self-regulation, which is one future alternative being floated, would appear to be a non-starter. All of which puts the ball firmly back in the Government's court. If ministers are not satisfied with industry advances, they are the ones that need to take the lead. The first step would be to invest more in seeing that existing laws are enforced.

Much of the KPMG report was taken up with evidence of bars serving to under-age drinkers and to drunks. That's not about breaking any voluntary code, it's about breaking the law, and those that ignore the legislation should expect to be prosecuted.

The Government is also making much of the link between price and dangerous levels of alcohol consumption. If it wants minimum pricing it is going to have to introduce legislation, because it is clear that neither the supermarkets nor certain bar chains are going to play ball in the current competitive climate and the threat of contravening competition laws.

Ministers are said to be threatening legislation, although probably no time soon. Despite its huffing and puffing, the Government will string it out, first with this next round of 'consultation', and then who knows.

The KPMG report concluded that there is a need for tighter controls, but doubts if self-regulation is the way forward. It proposes two alternatives for enforcing a new mandatory set of social responsibility standards for the drinks industry ' one a local government-led model, the other a new national regulatory body.

The report favours the latter. Bearing in mind the current experience of local authorities, drinks retailers would perhaps do well to support a new national agency, which, as the KPMG report suggests, could be a strengthen Food Standards Agency.

Whether any of this will make any meaningful difference to the nation's alcohol problems remains the unanswered question. To say it is society's problem is not a cop out, but to recognize the depth and complexity of the issue.

If the Government really is serious about changing cultural attitudes, particularly among the young, it needs to show leadership in the home, in families and in schools. Sadly, leadership and Labour no longer seem to go together.

First published in M&C Report, August 2008