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Reposted by Colin Angus

James Nicholls @jamesnicholls.bsky.social · 21h

Plans to rapidly overhaul alcohol licensing in England and Wales have just been published. They're being sold as ‘tearing up outdated licensing rules’, but could seriously undermine democratic accountability and local control. The devil (as ever) is in the details. www.gov.uk/government/n...

Cheers to Change: Red Tape Review Could Bring More Food, Music and Fun to Your Local

The Government is launching a fast-track review to tear up outdated licensing rules that have been holding back pubs, bars and local events and we want to hear from the people who know best: landlords...

www.gov.uk

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 22h

...but these reforms would do little to address them and would create *many* other problems.

If the government actually wants to help pubs, there are almost certainly more effective and less harmful ways to do it.

Le grand sigh.

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 22h

There are some sensible aspects to these new proposals around reducing red tape for temporary or 'pavement' licenses, but these are dwarfed by the bad bits. There are many issues with the licensing system (e.g. a total inability to sensibly regulate online sales)...

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 22h

...The results are slowly grinding their way through the academic publishing system, but *spoiler alert* they don't suggest this approach has worked for anyone.

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 22h

Finally, we know that increasing late night licensing hours for pubs and bars doesn't work. We've got a research project that has looked at the impact of increased late-night opening hours in Aberdeen and Glasgow...

www.stir.ac.uk/research/hub...

Research project | Evaluating Later and Expanded Premises Hours for Alcohol in the Night-time Economy (ELEPHANT) | University of Stirling

01/10/2020–31/12/2025. Funded by National Institute for Health Research. Collaboration with Alcohol Focus Scotland, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP...

www.stir.ac.uk

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 22h

We've seen this with George Osborne cutting alcohol duties alcoholchange.org.uk/blog/why-the...

And we're seeing it again here.

We wrote a whole paper about alcohol policies that wouldn't harm the hospitality industry if you want to know more about what those might be: doi.org/10.1016/j.dr...

Why the Chancellor’s freeze on alcohol duties is bad news for pubs | Alcohol Change UK

It is undoubtedly true that British pubs have faced unprecedented financial challenges throughout the past 12 months, but will a freeze in duties really help, and might there be any wider impacts of t...

alcoholchange.org.uk

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 22h

Or do more to address the huge increases in operating costs that pubs have seen during the 'cost-of-living crisis'.

It is a consistent pattern in this country to present alcohol policies as 'supporting pubs' while those policies actually just support shops (and harm pubs as a result).

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 22h

If we want to support the hospitality sector (which may well be a perfectly reasonable goal) then there are many other ways this could be done - e.g. making greater use of the new 'draught relief' in the duty system to narrow the huge price gap between shops and pubs

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 22h

Thirdly, the idea of using the licensing system to encourage economic growth is completely anathema to the purpose of the system, which is to restrict the sale of alcohol to try and mitigate the associated harms and protect the public.

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 22h

Pubs have been haemorrhaging their share of the alcohol market to shops for decades. We now buy 70-80% of our alcohol in shops (and ~70% of that in supermarkets).

The logic of how liberalising licensing for both pubs and shops will help pubs is a mystery to me.

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 22h

Secondly, the news coverage is all about increasing opening hours for, and supporting, pubs. But the licensing system equally covers the sale of alcohol in shops and supermarkets. It's hard to see how these reforms wouldn't also lead to more shops being able to sell alcohol and for longer hours.

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 22h

...the more deprived areas with the greatest levels of alcohol-related harm. So there is a significant concern about increasing health inequalities.

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 22h

So the effect of these reforms would be to force a more liberal approach to licensing on local authorities that many of whom clearly (by their actions) don't want. And it will have the biggest impact in the areas where local authorities are currently doing the most - which are typically...

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 22h

...in a series of papers led by @frankdv.bsky.social we found that the things that they can do *are* effective at reducing alcohol harms:
jech.bmj.com/content/70/3...
jech.bmj.com/content/71/2...
jech.bmj.com/content/71/9...
doi.org/10.1111/add....

Measurable effects of local alcohol licensing policies on population health in England

Background English alcohol policy is implemented at local government level, leading to variations in how it is put into practice. We evaluated whether differences in the presence or absence of cumulat...

jech.bmj.com

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 22h

In fact, the licensing system is one of very few ways that local government can do *anything* to try and address alcohol-related problems by influencing what kinds of places can sell alcohol, at what times and under what conditions. They don't actually have *that* much control, but...

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 22h

Firstly, a lot of what's in these proposals isn't new powers, it's a massive centralisation of the existing system taking agency away from local authorities and transferring it to Westminster. If a local authority in England wants to allow pubs to open later then they already can.

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 22h

Of course, there is a public health angle - making alcohol more available and promoting increased drinking as a mechanism to improve the economy at a time when alcohol harms are at record high levels has some very obvious issues.

But I think these proposals are bad for many more reasons...

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 22h

Lots of coverage today on these new government proposals to reform the alcohol licensing system.

I can see an inherent popular appeal to allowing pubs to stay open later, but I have a lot of thoughts about why these plans are an extremely bad idea..

www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Pubs to stay open until early hours in push for UK growth

Exclusive: Plans for England and Wales would help the ailing hospitality sector but have attracted criticism from health experts

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Colin Angus

SARG - SCHARR @sarg-scharr.bsky.social · 3d

📢 New paper published in @bmjtobacco-control.bsky.social Using electronic point-of-sales (EPOS) data, this study assesses purchase price of factory-made cigarettes and roll-your-own tobacco across neighbourhood deprivation and urban/rural status in Britain. #TobaccoResearch #PublicHealth

Purchase price of tobacco in small retailers in Great Britain: the relationships with neighbourhood deprivation and urbanicity between 2016–2021

Background Tobacco price is an important determinant of smoking behaviour. Using electronic point-of-sales (EPOS) data, this study assesses purchase price of factory-made cigarettes (FMC) and roll-you...

tobaccocontrol.bmj.com

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Reposted by Colin Angus

SARG - SCHARR @sarg-scharr.bsky.social · 6d

Here's more on the key findings from our report published earlier this week which uses the most recent available post-pandemic data to estimate the health and financial toll of alcohol consumption in Northern Ireland. #AlcoholPolicy #PublicHealth

New SARG report details alcohol-related health and financial burden in Northern Ireland - Sheffield Addictions Research Group

The Sheffield Addictions Research Group (SARG) has published new analysis estimating the substantial health and financial toll of alcohol consumption in Northern Ireland, using the most recent availab...

sarg-sheffield.ac.uk

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 7d

Per 100,000 people *in that age group*.

Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 8d

We also estimate that there are 7,426 hospital admissions in NI each year caused by alcohol, costing the NHS almost £19m, of which nearly 1/4 comes from the cost of treating alcohol-attributable cancers.

More details (and graphs) in the report.

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 8d

We estimate that over 2/3 (69.7%) of deaths caused by alcohol in NI are among men, with a particularly strong male bias for alcohol-related injury deaths, and 43.6% are in the over 65s, although alcohol-specific deaths are more common in 45-54 and 55-64 year-olds.

A bar chart showing the data from the previous post's bar chart separated by sex. The male bars are around twice the length of the female bars for all condition groups except for injuries, where the difference is far larger as men are much more likely to get injured while intoxicated.

She same chart again, but broken down by age groups this time. Cancers, CVD, digestive diseases and other chronic conditions follow a similar pattern, with many more alcohol-attributable deaths in the oldest (65+) age group. Injuries still have more deaths in the oldest age group, but relatively higher counts in all younger age groups. Alcohol-specific deaths are different, with the largest counts in 55-64 year olds and 45-54 year olds

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 8d

We estimate that 676 people lose their life each year in Northern Ireland as a direct result of their alcohol consumption. The largest contributor to this are alcohol-specific causes (largely ARLD), but we estimate 127 cancer deaths and 74 CVD deaths each year are caused by alcohol.

A bar chart showing the estimated number of deaths in Northern Ireland each year caused directly by alcohol broken downby cause. Alcohol-specific (341 deaths), cancers (127), cardiovascular disease (74), digestive diseases (35), injuries (74) and other chronic conditions (24).

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Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 8d

We've got a new report out today using new data from Northern Ireland to estimate Alcohol-Attributable Fractions (AAFs) and the number of hospital admissions and deaths each year in NI caused by alcohol. Plus, how these break down by age, sex and condition.

sarg-sheffield.ac.uk/wp-content/u...

A picture of the (not very exciting) front cover of the report: Estimating the burden of alcohol on the health of Northern Ireland. Dated September 2025 and written by me.

A lollipop chart showing the proportion of deaths from a range of causes related to alcohol (e.g. breast cancer, ischaemic heart disease, liver cirrhosis, fall injuries, lower respiratory tract infactions) in both men and women. The largest proportion is for liver cirrhosis and all conditions except breast cancer have higher proportions for men than women.

A bar chart showing the estimated number of annual deaths in Northern Ireland that are caused by alcohol from a range of different health conditions. The conditions are the same as in the previous plot, but with the addition of 4 conditions which are wholly caused by alcohol (e.g. alcohol-related liver disease/ARLD). ARLD is by far the longest bar with almost 250 deaths per year.

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