NO HALF MEASURES FOR MULHOLLAND

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 12th Aug 2005

Greg Mulholland, Member of Parliament for Leeds North West and member of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Beer, has added his support to a national campaign to protect consumers from being served short measures, by defining a pint of beer as 100 per cent liquid. The campaign is organised by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). Greg has backed a motion in Parliament calling for government action to tackle a problem which leaves consumers £400 million worse off every year.

The current law fails to protect consumers from short beer measures, as a result:

• 9 in 10 pints are short measure

• 1 in 4 pints are more than 5% short measure

• Short measures cost consumers £400 million a year. That's more than one million a day!

Commenting Greg said:

"When someone pays for a pint they should get a pint. With 90% of pints short measure, the majority of people just aren't getting what they pay for."

"Supermarkets couldn't get away with advertising and selling pints of milk which didn't contain a pint so why should it be different for beer.

"This is the only piece of weights and measures legislation that is not on the statute book to protect consumers but it should be."

Mike Benner, CAMRA's Chief Executive stated that:

"The Government has promised to protect consumers from short beer measures, but the proposal for a 95% pint will have the opposite effect. CAMRA members will be lobbying MPs to get behind the campaign for an Honest Pint Law"