The House of Commons Library’s latest briefing –  May 2026-  Statistics on alcohol: England, ought to be read with care, not alarmism.

The headline figures are important. In 2024, 76% of adults in England said that they drink alcohol, and 51% reported drinking alcohol within the previous week. At the same time, 21% drank more than the recommended weekly limit of 14 units. The Library also records that both the proportion of people drinking alcohol, and the proportion drinking above the recommended weekly limit, have generally declined over time.

For those of us working in alcohol licensing, premises licence applications and the wider hospitality sector, the message is more subtle than the headlines may suggest.

This is not a story which calls for hostility to hospitality. Nor is it a brief for treating every pub, bar, restaurant, hotel or nightclub as though it were a public health problem waiting to happen.

It is, rather, a case for proportion.

Alcohol remains part of ordinary adult social life in England. But the culture around alcohol consumption has changed. The better operators in the licensed trade have not stood apart from that change. They have helped shape it.

Across the hospitality sector, responsible operators have invested heavily in the systems which sit behind a well-run Premises Licence: staff training, Challenge 25, age verification, refusals logs, incident logs, CCTV, dispersal policies, safeguarding procedures, noise management plans, door supervision where appropriate, and properly drafted licensing conditions.

These are not decorative add-ons. They are the practical machinery by which the licensing objectives under the Licensing Act 2003 are promoted: the prevention of crime and disorder, public safety, the prevention of public nuisance, and the protection of children from harm.

A well-run licensed premises is a managed environment. Alcohol is served by trained staff. Behaviour can be monitored. Service can be refused. Customers can be supervised. Problems can be recorded, reviewed and addressed.

That is very different from unmanaged drinking in private, in public spaces, or in environments where there is no trained operator, no operating schedule, no responsible authority engagement and no licensing committee scrutiny.

The latest alcohol statistics should therefore prompt a more intelligent debate about alcohol sales in England. The question is not whether alcohol exists. Plainly, it does. The question is whether alcohol is sold, supplied and consumed in environments which are responsible, professional and properly regulated.

On that measure, much of the hospitality industry deserves credit.

Pubs, bars, restaurants, hotels, clubs and late-night venues have had to absorb an ever-growing burden of regulation. They have had to respond to the expectations of licensing authorities, police, environmental health officers, trading standards, public health teams, residents and local councillors.

They have had to do so while facing rising costs, staffing pressures, changing consumer habits and, in many places, increasingly restrictive cumulative impact policies.

Yet the best operators have continued to adapt. They have made responsible alcohol retailing part of ordinary business practice.

It would be wrong, of course, to ignore alcohol-related harm. The same Commons Library briefing records 339,916 alcohol-specific hospital admissions in England in 2023/24, and 147,713 adult clients in alcohol-related treatment in 2024/25. Those are serious figures, and they deserve serious attention.

But serious attention is not the same as indiscriminate blame.

Indeed, the Government’s own section 182 guidance recognises that licence holders have responsibilities for the safety of those using their premises under the 2003 Act, while also drawing an important distinction between immediate public safety matters and wider public health issues, which are addressed elsewhere.

That distinction matters.

The Licensing Act 2003 is not a general public health statute. It is a licensing regime concerned with the promotion of defined licensing objectives. The proper task of licensing authorities is therefore not to punish hospitality for the existence of alcohol, but to assess whether a particular premises, with a particular operating schedule and particular conditions, can operate responsibly.

That is where good licensing still matters.

A responsible operator should not be treated in the same way as a careless one. A carefully conditioned premises licence should not be treated as though it were an invitation to disorder. A restaurant, hotel bar, theatre, pub or well-managed late-night venue should not be judged by the worst examples of alcohol misuse elsewhere.

The better conclusion from the latest alcohol statistics is this: England has not stopped drinking, but the culture of drinking has changed. There is now a stronger emphasis on moderation, food-led hospitality, experience, atmosphere, supervision and responsible management.

That is not a failure of the hospitality sector. It is, in many respects, one of its quiet achievements.

Good licensing is not anti-alcohol. It is anti-irresponsibility.

And well-run hospitality is not the problem to be solved. Very often, it is where the solution begins.