Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they consider that alcohol strategy is best administered by member states or the European Union, in the light of their agreement to a proposal at the European Health Council on 19 June that the European Union should adopt its own strategy on the subject.

Public health is primarily the responsibility of Member States. The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union gives the EU a role to support Member States in this area. The Government sees this as a useful role.

In seeking a new EU alcohol strategy to replace the current one, we are not calling for new competences for the EU, nor for new legislation, but for greater coherence in whatever the EU does now and some flexibility to allow effective national policies. There are, for example, aspects of a national alcohol strategy that cannot be pursued without change at EU level. This is consistent with our stance on EU reform.

The House of Lords European Union Committee published its report on a new EU Alcohol Strategy on 6 March 2015 (8^th Report of Session 2014-15). The Government will respond to the Committee’s recommendations in due course.