Minimum unit pricing (MUP) is here to stay, in Wales at least. Members of the Senedd voted on two measures – one to make MUP permanent in Wales; and one to increase it from 50p per unit to 65p to keep pace with inflation, as has already happened in Scotland. We’re pleased to say that both measures were passed.
Alcohol Change UK believes there are clear benefits from setting a baseline price below which one unit of alcohol – 10ml of pure ethanol – cannot be sold in any drink. Pricing alone cannot solve every alcohol problem, but by removing the cheapest, strongest drinks from the market, MUP makes a significant contribution to reducing alcohol harm.
By far the biggest impact of MUP in Wales – and in Scotland – has been the removal from sale of big bottles of the cheapest, strongest cider. These were often consumed by the most vulnerable people who were alcohol dependent and who experienced significant harm as a result.
Prior to the introduction of MUP in 2020, three-litre bottles of 7.5% cider were on sale in Wales for as little as £3.99, or 18p a unit. With MUP at 50p a unit, those bottles – which contained 22.5 units of alcohol – could not be sold for less than £11.25. At that price, they became unsaleable and disappeared from the shelves. Today in Wales, three-litre and two-litre bottles of 7.5% cider have been replaced in the shops by 500ml cans, making it harder and more expensive to consume a large amount of super-strength cider. Keeping the minimum price in place, and increasing it to 65p, will ensure that this continues.
MUP has made it more difficult for supermarkets to offer multiple purchase discounts on alcohol – where products get cheaper the more of them you buy. The minimum price does not ban these discounts, but it means that they cannot take the price of any item below the MUP threshold. Our own recent analysis of prices in one major supermarket found that a 65p MUP will increase the price of just 10.5% of wines sold as single bottles but will raise the cost of 39% of wine multibuy deals, meaning that fewer such deals are likely to be offered.
Importantly for many people and the sector, the Welsh MUP measure will not hurt pubs. A minimum price of 65p per unit means that the lowest possible price of a pint of beer in Wales will be £1.63, and a large glass of wine will not be sold for less than around £2.15. We can see straight away that this will have no impact on pub prices.
There have been some genuine concerns expressed about MUP, in particular that some people who are alcohol dependent have been going without food in order to afford alcohol. Sadly, this is not a new problem and was occurring long before the introduction of MUP. The answer to this is boosting support and treatment for vulnerable dependent drinkers to access food, rather than making high-strength alcohol cheap again.
That is why we are working to better understand the relationship between heavy alcohol use and under-eating; and why we published our Feeding Recovery Handbook in 2025 – jointly with Barod and the Nelson Trust – on how to support people with alcohol issues to eat more and better food.
Maintaining MUP in Wales is the right thing to do, alongside improving support for vulnerable people who are alcohol dependent. Through projects like Feeding Recovery, and our Blue Light Approach
to engaging with the most vulnerable drinkers, we are working to develop that support. Through our policy and campaigning work with others, we are working to make sure it is available when and where people need it.
