Supermarket Alcohol Identity Policies

EDM number 2024 in 2008-09, proposed by Greg Mulholland on 13/10/2009.
Categorised under the topic of Alcoholism.

That this House is concerned about policies operated in supermarkets whereby responsible adults are being prevented from buying wine, beer and other alcoholic drinks as part of their shopping, simply because they are being accompanied by teenage children who are there to help with and to carry the weekly shop; believes that whilst it is of course important to try to prevent underage sales of alcohol, such policies are misplaced and lacking in common sense, and will do nothing to prevent sales of alcohol to minors; further believes that if supermarkets were more serious about dealing with the problem of underage and antisocial drinking, they would instead finally agree to stop selling some alcoholic drinks at irresponsibly low prices and in particular would agree to outlaw below-cost selling of alcohol together; further believes that it is this alcohol that often finds its way into the hands of young people who then drink it in unsupervised environments; further believes that the way to tackle problem drinking is to have a more mature and commonsensical approach to alcohol which involves educating young people about alcohol, preventing underage sales, and promoting the responsible enjoyment of alcohol by adults in appropriate environments, including the home, pubs, bars, clubs and restaurants; and calls on the supermarkets who operate flawed identity policies to scrap them and come up with sensible ones that will actually assist in this kind of mature and commonsensical approach.

This motion has been signed by a total of 39 MPs.