Full Fact today found that Home Secretary Theresa May was incorrect to assert that alcohol-related crimes had risen in response to ’24-hour drinking’ reforms instituted under the previous Government.

 

The statistics cited by her own Department in support of the claim clearly showed that the number had fallen since the policy became law in November 2005.

 

One thing that was clear from our research however was that there was no comprehensive recording of alcohol-related crime rates, which makes statements such as the Home Secretary’s hard to evaluate.

 

Instead, estimates on the matter are based upon disparate and often conflicting sources. Indeed the Portman group, which represents drinks manufacturers, has even suggested that any data on alcohol-related crime is “meaningless”.

 

So how do we measure offences related to drink, and what do they tell us about the impact of the 2003 Licensing Act?

 

 

Looking at Ministry of Justice figures for those cautioned or convicted of drink-related offences, a mixed picture emerges.

In 2006, the first full year of the new licensing laws, 2,238 people were cautioned or found guilty of the offence of drunkenness. By 2008, this figure had actually fallen to 2,183.

 

The numbers of people cautioned or found guilty of the more serious offence drunkenness with aggravation has risen between 2006 and 2008, from 19,273 to 24,666.

 

However this cannot be directly attributed to changes in the licensing laws, as there was actually a 2,923 drop in the number of offences committed for the first year of the new regime on the last year under the previous regulations.

 

Changes in these statistics actually fall well within the margin of error for a much more pronounced downward trend in drunkenness with aggravation figures, which have fallen from a high of 45,732 in 1998.

 

 

In 2008 the Home Office itself released a report looking into the impact of the 2003 Licensing Act on levels of crime, the only such study undertaken by Government.

 

This found that, contrary to the Home Secretary’s claim, “overall problems of crime and disorder did not increase” in response to the new regulations.

 

In fact, the report found, violent crime actually fell, although the extent to which this was statistically significant is unclear.

 

Whilst the study only considers the impact on crime between 2005 and 2006, Rachel Seabrook, Research Manager at the Institute for Alcohol Studies, sees the results as significant:

 

“It confirms a number of studies that have shown that the changes have made very little difference to crime rates. There certainly isn’t a clear story to tell about rising crime,” she told Full Fact.

 

 

The Home Office could point to a slight rise in alcohol-related offences since 2007 noted in its crime reporting. However how fair would it be to link this with legislative changes introduced two years previously?

 

The difficulty in answering such a question lies in the complexities of assessing the affect of changes to the licensing law on the number of the premises actually staying open later.

 

Licenses permitting 24 hour alcohol sales account for four per cent of premises.  Of the 7,400 24 hour licenses granted, 57 per cent were awarded to hotel bars, while 22 per cent were stores and supermarkets and 12 per cent were pubs and nightclubs.

 

As the British Beer and Pub Association told us, while the vast majority of licensed premises will have varied their hours following the law change, such variations are not recorded nationally.

This leaves little room for comparing the extent to which changed opening hours have affected alcohol related crime rates, raising further questions over the kind of cause and effect relationship suggested by the Home Secretary.

 

 

Whilst the Home Office has acknowledged to Full Fact that Theresa May’s earlier quote referenced the wrong statistics, there remains a much larger – and arguably more important – debate raging on the efficacy of these measures.