ONE of the UK’s leading campaigners for a minimum price for alcohol told a North-East audience yesterday that the Government’s proposals to ban alcohol sales below cost price would affect less than one per cent of drinks.

Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, a former president of the Royal College of Physicians and a leading advocate of minimum alcohol pricing, was speaking at a conference in Newcastle about alcohol control.

The event, organised by the Centre for Translational Research in Public Health, based in Newcastle, brought together campaigners, health workers and academics.

Prof Gilmore was reacting to an announcement by Crime Prevention Minister James Brokenshire yesterday of proposals to introduce a minimum price for units of alcohol, which will mean a can of lager will cost a minimum of 32p and a bottle of supermarket vodka will cost a minimum of £10.71.

The professor, who sits on the Government’s alcohol network, said the Government claimed to be acting in a bold manner, but said that less than one per cent of alcohol sales would be affected by the proposals.

He said the move was a start, but predicted that the issues of price, availability and marketing would have to addressed more robustly to curb social and health problems caused by alcohol.

He told the audience that rates of alcohol-related hospital admissions were now approaching a million a year.

He said: “It is the poor who suffer more from alcohol misuse.

This is a huge health inequality issue which is often overlooked.”

Colin Shevills, from the North- East alcohol agency Balance, described the Government’s announcement on minimum pricing as a missed opportunity that would do little to reduce alcohol- related health harm or affect crime and disorder.

Mr Shevills said community pubs across the region would continue to struggle and close as the Government continues to fail to address the discrepancy between prices charged by supermarkets and pubs.