Tesco Calls For Minimum Price For Alcohol

Tesco calls time on cut-price booze

In a surprising step, just before the World Cup, the UK's top retailer Tesco has welcomed a promise by the coalition government to ban below-cost sales of alcohol in England and Wales.The UK's biggest retailer goes further, saying it would back the more radical step of introducing a minimum price.

In an exclusive BBC interview, Lucy Neville-Rolfe, Tesco's director for corporate affairs, says in the absence of government action they have to compete on price."As a result there is lots of cheap alcohol, so we thought let's ask the government to look at should there be a minimum price for alcohol, or should there be a ban on low-cost selling.