Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to paragraph 2.3 of the Government response to the Fifty-fourth report of Session 2022-23 from the Committee of Public Accounts on Alcohol treatment services, HC 1001, published on 21 July 2023, what progress she has made towards updating the estimated cost of alcohol to society; and what her planned timetable is for publishing that estimate.
Answer
The Department updated the previous 2012 estimate to reflect inflation based on the latest available data. In 2021, the cost of alcohol to society was estimated at £25 billion. The Department has also initiated a longer-term piece of work to refine this estimate, beginning with a review of existing evidence of the impact of alcohol consumption on the National Health Service and labour market productivity.