Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of excessive alcohol consumption on levels of prevalence of cancer.
The Department is aware of the impact of excessive alcohol consumption on the prevalence of cancer and the preventable pressure it places on the National Health Service. In 2024, there were 103,000 hospital admissions due to alcohol-related cancers.
Alcohol has been identified as a causal factor in more than 200 medical conditions, including mouth, throat, stomach, liver, and breast cancers. The Government is committed to reversing the trend on alcohol-specific deaths and to shortening the amount of time people spend in ill-health due to alcohol-related harm.