Wendy condemns SNP on sale of alcohol to under-agers

In December 2008, Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill told Wendy Alexander:

“The police automatically notify local licensing boards of any reports that they make to the procurator fiscal about offences concerning the sale of alcohol to under-18s.”

On March 23rd he repeated this claiming, “It is standard practice in most parts of Scotland to notify local licensing boards of any reports they make to the Procurator Fiscal about offences concerning the sale of alcohol to those under 18.”

On March 26th he admitted, “Subsequent enquiries have shown that this is not the case with Strathclyde Police.”

Then on April 21st he finally admitted that in just 3 of Scotland’s 8 Police Forces do they automatically inform the Licensing Board of reports made to the Procurator Fiscal of offences.

Wendy said:

“I am glad we have finally dragged the truth from the Justice Secretary. I am disappointed he has not fulfilled his promise of December 11th to ensure that this problem is fixed immediately by guaranteeing that the Scottish Police Force automatically informs Licensing Boards of all offences.

I also regret that he repeated that promise that something was happening when it was not. He could have admitted that it wasn’t happening in Strathclyde when he replied to Parliament in his answer on 23rd March. Instead, he chose not to reveal which police forces were not passing on details of offenders.  Only at the end of April did he admit that in just 3 of 8 forces were the Licensing Boards being automatically informed of offences.”

As I said to the Paisley Daily Express back in October:

“To my dismay and anger I have discovered that in the past five years, not one retailer across the whole of Renfrewshire has had their licence for selling alcohol suspended or revoked. Yet we know that many under 18s find it easy to buy drink locally.

It’s time for more decisive action to be taken. I believe that any retailer who sells alcohol to children should know they will lose their licence and such rogue retailers should be ‘named and shamed’.”

Wendy added:

“The real difference between Labour and the SNP is that they want to criminalise all 18-24 year olds for buying any alcohol in off-sales whilst I want to seriously tackle the selling to under-agers.”