Responding to calls for minimum pricing for alcohol to increase in Scotland, Christopher Snowdon, Head of Lifestyle Economics at the free market think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs, said: 

“Scotland’s temperance lobby has a tin ear if it thinks that making alcohol more expensive is a suitable response to the economy shrinking by 10% and unemployment rising.

“Minimum pricing is already taking tens of millions of pounds from Scottish consumers each year. It is almost obscene that campaigners with secure, taxpayer-funded jobs are trying to raise the cost of living for people on low and average incomes.”

ENDS

Notes to editors

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