FactCheck: are we drinking less?

The background

Today the government launches its latest set of anti-drinking adverts and the Scottish government unveils an alcohol strategy which is expected to include plans to stop under-21s buying booze from shops and off-licences.

This comes in the same month that London mayor Boris Johnson banned drinking on public transport in the capital, and Children, Schools and Families Secretary Ed Balls announced parents would be given official government guidance on the age at which children should start drinking.

But yesterday, a drinks industry spokesperson said we are actually drinking less, overall.

This isn't the usual message. Compare it with an (admittedly unscientific) selection of drink-related headlines that have appeared since the start of June:

• "£115m a year, the cost to the NHS of alcohol addiction", Mail on Sunday
• "Store discounts 'fuel binge drinking'", the Daily Telegraph
• "Parents put children at risk with Chelsea-on-Sea binges", the Daily Telegraph
• "Parents could face court for letting children try alcohol", Daily Mail
• "Binge drinking 'crisis' warning", The Express

So which is right - or are they both?

The analysis

According to the government's Expenditure and Food Survey of 7,850 households, the average person got through 739ml of alcoholic drinks a week at home in 2005/06.

This is down from 763ml in 2004/05 and 792ml in 2003/04. But before this, the figure had been increasing fairly steadily year on year since before Labour came to power, up from 653ml a week in 1997.

Figures on drinking outside the home don't go back as far, but it has been dropping year on year since 2001/02.

Those are the average amounts; let's get a breakdown of the figures for individuals from the Office for National Statistic's General Household Survey, which samples around 13,000 households across Great Britain.

According to this, the percentages of men and women aged 16 and over who don't drink have both increased slightly over the last decade: from seven per cent of men in 1998 to 11 per cent in 2005, and from 14 per cent of women in 1998 to 18 per cent in 2005.

At the same time, the proportion of people drinking more than government recommendations (21 weekly units for men; 14 for women) also dipped slightly: from 28 per cent of men in 1998 to 24 per cent in 2005, and, less conclusively, from 15 per cent of women in 1998 to 13 per cent in 2005 - albeit with two wobbles from 15 to 17 per cent in between.

But in the case of men, those drinking between 22 and 35 units stayed at 14 per cent between 1998 and 2002, before a slight fall to 12 per cent in 2005.

Right at the top of the scale, seven per cent of men drank between 36 and 50 units and a further seven per cent drank more than 51 units in 1998; in 2005 the figure was six per cent for each.

Three per cent of women drank 26-35 units a week in 1998, the same proportion as in 2005. Two per cent of women drank more than 36 units a week in both 1998 and in 2005, although the proportion increased slightly to three per cent between 2000 and 2002.

So although drinking is dropping overall, there still appears to be a hard core of heavy drinkers at the top of the spectrum.

What about among young people?

Statistics based on a survey of 8,200 pupils in 290 schools in England, carried out for The Information Centre for Health and Social Care, show the proportion of pupils who have never drunk alcohol has risen from 39 per cent in 2001 to 45 per cent in 2006.

Similarly, the proportion of pupils who drank in the last seven days fell from 26 per cent in 2001 to 21 per cent in 2006.

Among these pupils, the average weekly consumption was 11.4 units, up from 10.4 units in 2000. Average consumption has varied year on year since 2000, but stayed pretty close to 10.4 units.

However, this figure is a hefty increase on 1990, when the average was 5.3 units a week. And contrary to the overall trend, average consumption among the youngest part of the group, 11- to 13-year-olds, increased from 5.6 units in 2001 to 10.1 units in 2006.

Still, the proportion of 11- to 13-year-olds who reported having a drink in the past week decreased from 14 per cent in 2001 to nine per cent in 2006, so the higher average consumption in 2006 being drunk by a smaller proportion of children than in 2001.

FactCheck rating: 1.5

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Every time a FactCheck article is published we'll give it a rating from zero to five.

The lower end of the scale indicates that the claim in question largely checks out, while the upper end of the scale suggests misrepresentation, exaggeration, a massaging of statistics and/or language.

In the unlikely event that we award a 5 out of 5, our factcheckers have concluded that the claim under examination has absolutely no basis in fact.

The sources

Information Centre for Health and Social Care, Statistics on Alcohol: England 2007 (Alcohol tables 22007: 2.4 and 5.5)
Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use among Young People in 2006 full report (pdf)
Alcoholic drinks: children, 12 June 2008, written answers

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