EDM 87: Alcohol harm

That this House supports the call from the Alcohol Health Alliance and leading public health professionals, made on 17 July 2024, for urgent action to tackle the escalating crisis of alcohol harm; realises that such action will help achieve ambitions to reduce NHS waiting times, crime and inequalities, and to grow the economy; notes with concern that over 10,000 people died due to alcohol in 2022, a record level and a 33% increase from 2019; further notes that alcohol-related illnesses account for one million hospital admissions annually; acknowledges that there are an estimated 4.2 million alcohol-related crimes each year, costing £14.6 billion; understands that more working years of life are lost to alcohol than the ten most common cancers combined; recalls that despite the Alcohol Charter, published on 16 October 2018 by All-Party Parliamentary Groups, the Commission on Alcohol Harm report, published on 14 September 2020, and the recommendations of the Public Accounts Committee's report on Alcohol treatment services, published on 24 May 2023, there has been no actual Alcohol Strategy published since 23 March 2012; and urges the Government to introduce a comprehensive Alcohol Strategy without delay, to address the escalating alcohol harm crisis.