The Responsibility of the Alcohol Industry

Abstract

The alcohol industry is large, well established and powerful. In 1986/87, tax revenue from alcoholic drink sales was £6,447m, and in 1987 the industry provided jobs for over 1 million people.¹ The structure of the industry is such that a few firms control the bulk of the market. Eighty per cent of the market share for beer, for example, is divided between just six companies (see Figure 10.1). This allows the industry to take up a consistent position and to lobby the Government with considerable success. It should also afford an opportunity for the negotiation of a common approach towards policies for the marketing and distribution of a product which causes society not only harm but also some benefit. This apparently straightforward national situation is complicated by the internationalisation of the industry. The advent of 1992 and an open European market will compound the difficulties of dealing with the industry (whether by negotiation or taxation) at a national level. Furthermore, the increasing corporatism of the large industries, with the industry having interdependent ties with other corporate interests, results in an ownership structure of such complexity that it is difficult to identify a simple set of alcohol industry owners.²