A north-west campaign group has backed MPs calls for drinkers to pay supermarkets more for their favourite tipple.
Alcohol awareness group Our Life believe proposals in a report by the Commons' Health Select Committee, for "a complete overhaul of the government's alcohol policy", would reduce Lancashire's drink-related health problems.
The report claims government policy is failing and a minimum price for alcohol should be imposed.
Our Life Chief Executive Dr Alison Giles said: "We fully support the committee’s calls for the introduction of minimum pricing, tighter and totally independent regulation of alcohol promotion, vastly improved alcohol treatment services, better early detection and intervention, a mandatory labelling scheme for alcoholic drinks, and much better use of expert advice.”
Her comments come after the committee claimed the drinks industry and supermarkets "...hold more power over government alcohol policies than expert health professionals.”
Our Life appeared before the Health Select Committee last year and said a minimum price of 40p per unit of alcohol would stop north-west supermarkets' super-cheap drink promotions.
"It is widely accepted that such a step would save lives and we are delighted that the select committee has recognised this fact,” said Dr Giles.
Drinks companies and supermarket retailers told the committee minimum prices would unfairly hit moderate drinkers, a charge rejected by health campaigners.
“We are also pleased to see that MPs on the committee have dispelled the myth that a rise in prices would unfairly affect the majority of moderate drinkers," added Dr Giles.
"The real issue here is the environment in which such harms are occurring and specifically the super-cheap, pocket money prices at which alcohol is being sold by the supermarkets.
"The government needs to take responsibility now, not delay any possible action until after a general election and not listen to the vested interests of the alcohol retailers who would rather the government did nothing.”
The report's summary gives a clear message about the impact of adopting mimimum pricing: "Minimum pricing would most affect those who drink cheap alcohol, in particular young binge-drinkers and heavy low income drinkers who suffer most from liver disease.
"It is estimated that a minimum price of 50p per unit would save over 3,000 lives per year, a minimum price of 40p, 1,100 lives."
According to the committee's report liver problems in the UK have increased five-fold since 1970, unlike continental Europe where more moderate attitudes to drink and better alcohol education have seen rates decline.
Aside from health risks, a recent survey by Our Life, for Lancashire county council, found more than half of respondents avoid town centres at night because of drunken behaviour and more than three-quarters were concerned about youths drinking in public.
The report also put the annual cost of alcohol misuse in England, estimated by the National Social Marketing Centre, at more than £55 billion.
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