Why is Matt Hancock actively ruling out minimum unit pricing for alcohol?

It has been a week of mixed messages from the health secretary, Matt Hancock. In his statement to parliament on the NHS long term plan, he emphasised that at its heart is the principle that prevention is better than cure, and he highlighted the active role that the health service will take in helping people to cut their risk factors, including reducing alcohol intake. Yet in the same week he was widely quoted in the media saying that alcohol is only a problem for a small minority, perpetuating the myth promulgated by the alcohol industry.

While Public Health England (PHE) figures suggest that less than 5% of us drink one third of all alcohol consumed, they also show that “the combination of increasing risk, higher risk, and extreme drinkers accounts for about 25% of the population and consumes over 75% of the total self reported alcohol consumption.” That means one in four of us is putting our …