This report was commissioned in July 2024 by the Welsh Government to build on previous analyses, published in 2018, that modelled the impact of the initial introduction of a Minimum Price for Alcohol (MPA) in Wales.

The aims of this new analysis were to use the latest available data and the most recent version of the Sheffield Tobacco and Alcohol Policy Model to assess alternative options for the future of MPA and to answer the following research questions:

What is the estimated impact of increasing the current 50p/unit MPA threshold to thresholds ranging from 55p-80p/unit, reducing the MPA threshold to 40p or 45p/unit, or removing MPA entirely?

What changes in alcohol duties would be required to achieve the same impact on alcohol-specific deaths in the overall population, or in the most deprived quintile, as each of the alternative MPA thresholds modelled?

What would the future impact be of alternative options to uprating (or not) the MPA threshold beyond 2025 under alternative mechanisms for this uprating, assuming, for illustrative purposes, that the MPA threshold were raised to 65p/unit in 2026.

Conclusions:

Estimates from an updated version of the Sheffield Tobacco and Alcohol Policy Model for Wales suggest that:

Increasing the MPA threshold from its current 50p/unit level would lead to further reductions in alcohol consumption and harm, with the biggest impacts in the most deprived groups.

Reducing the MPA threshold, or removing MPA entirely, would increase alcohol consumption and harms, increasing health inequalities.

Significant increases in alcohol duty rates would be required to achieve the same reductions in alcohol-specific deaths as an increase in the MPA level and increasing duty does not reduce health inequalities to the same extent.

The implementation of a mechanism to uprate the MPA threshold in line with inflation is important to prevent alcohol consumption and harms increasing as the real-terms value of the MPA is eroded over time.