The UK's Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) suggests making workplace drinking more unaffordable to boost productivity. Photo / Getty Images
The UK's Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) suggests making workplace drinking more unaffordable to boost productivity. Photo / Getty Images
When things get tough at work, pause to be grateful that you don’t work for the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).
That influential think tank, whose former boss Carys Roberts and former associate director Rachel Statham, are special advisers to the PM, is calling on the Government to discouragepeople from drinking with their colleagues.
In a new report it suggests that young people aren’t able to cope with work-related alcohol consumption and so take time off work to recover. Its answer is to make drink more unaffordable. What fun it must be at their office in Westminster, an area thick with pubs. At the times when most people are taking a little refreshment with colleagues, I expect the IPPR lot are socialising over a nice kombucha or a Coca-Cola Zero, though in my experience it’s getting harder and harder to find anyone at a Westminster office on a Friday.
Dr Jamie O’Halloran, its senior research fellow, observes: “We often think of alcohol harm as a public health issue, but this research shows it’s a national economic problem.
“When nearly half of young professionals are calling in sick after workplace drinking, it’s not just a hangover, it’s a productivity crisis. If the Government is serious about growth, it needs to take alcohol harm seriously too.”
Really? My own response is that if people are calling in sick because of a simple hangover, it’s not a drink problem they’ve got; it’s a work-ethic problem. It is the sign of a committed employee that he turns up bright and early at the workplace even when he’s had a few the night before. And if they are not able to cope with drink, they may perhaps be unaccustomed to it, so perhaps should be encouraged to drink more often, following the usual simple rules… don’t mix drinks; line the stomach with something to eat at the start; and bear in mind that lime and soda is a perfectly nice option.
The IPPR spoilsports want to make the work drink unaffordable by reintroducing the alcohol duty escalator, standardising duty rates, and implementing minimum unit pricing in England.
“Higher prices means that people are less likely to consume alcohol and taxing arrangements are the number one determinant in making sure that people drink less,” said Sebastian Rees, head of health at IPPR. Look, a pint already costs over £7 ($16) in the pubs round me. We don’t need to force people to choose between drinking and eating, do we?
And what these people don’t seem to realise is the good effects of a workplace drink; it’s a chance to talk about non-work things; to sound off about the boss, unless it’s actually the boss you’re drinking with; to chat. It all makes for a little necessary bonhomie, and you know, you don’t actually have to drink-drink (i.e. consume alcohol) in every round.
The IPPR proposes measures like reintroducing the alcohol duty escalator and minimum unit pricing.
Trouble is, the Government doesn’t really know where it wants to go when it comes to alcohol consumption. Sir Keir Starmer’s latest genius idea is in fact to liberalise licensing hours to make it easier for bars and clubs to stay open half the night. That’s had a dusty reception from alcohol abuse groups and residents’ association. How does that square with the IPPR notion of drink as a menace to productivity? I say that if you have restricted drinking hours, the drinkers will congregate in the pub during opening time. They’ll have to go home after 11pm so they’ll be up in time for work. And they won’t spend their entire salary on £7 pints.
We don’t need longer drinking hours. We need more affordable drink. Is that too hard to understand?
