Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his Department's policy priorities are for tackling problematic alcohol use.

As part of the NHS Long Term Plan, we have funded the implementation of specialist alcohol care teams in hospitals with the highest rates of alcohol dependence-related admissions. Local authorities are responsible for the provision of services to prevent, mitigate and treat alcohol-related health harm. We are investing £533 million over three years to support local authority commissioned substance misuse treatment services in England. This is in addition to local authorities’ expenditure on substance misuse services from the Public Health Grant. A cross-Government programme to support children of alcohol dependent parents is also underway.

The Department continues to promote the United Kingdom Chief Medical Officers’ low risk drinking guidelines through online platforms, local authorities’ public health duties and encouraging alcoholic drink producers to reflect the guidelines on labelling. The Government is also working with the industry to create more consumer choice in the low-alcohol and alcohol-free drinks sector, to support individuals to drink within the guidelines. We also provide the ‘Better Health’ and ‘One You’ adult health campaigns and the Drinkline service and webchat.