Ban the under-21s from drinking, say Blair advisers

In an astonishing report, it said teenagers should be banned from buying alcohol.

It also called for a vigorous campaign to prosecute landlords and shopkeepers who break the law.

The proposals amounted to an admission from the heart of the Blairite project that Labour's alcohol laws are a disaster.

Yesterday's scheme to criminalise teenage drinking came from the Institute for Public Policy Research.

Its leaders have close links with Number Ten and it is often regarded as a "display case" for potential Government policies.

Its report found that more 12-year-olds drink alcohol than don't - and that one in three teenagers is a binge drinker.

The organisation called for stringent rules aimed at reducing the level of drinking among teenagers and pre-teens.

It presented a series of ideas for curbing alcohol abuse among the young which owed more to the hardline attitude of some American states than relaxed European licensing regimes. The report's author, Jasper Gerard, said: "The adverse effects of binge drinking are now so overwhelming that we need to practise tough love.

"By raising the age threshold it is at least possible that those in their early and mid teens will not see drink as something they will soon be allowed to do, so therefore they might as well start doing it surreptitiously now. Instead they might come to see it as it should be: forbidden."

He added: "Society is increasingly reluctant to tolerate passive smoking, so why passive boozing, which is what innocent people experience when a drunken, clunking fist attacks them on a Saturday night?"

Labour's 24-hour drinking laws came into force in 2005 despite heavy criticism from police chiefs and the medical profession.

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell has stuck doggedly to her claim that longer drinking hours and increased availability of alcohol would encourage moderation.

But the research institute has produced a string of statistics which shred Miss Jowell's claims.

It said numbers attending hospital casualty departments after of injuries linked to alcohol had doubled to nearly 150,000 a year since 1997.

Among under-18s, it added, there has been a 40 per cent increase to 8,299 in just three years.

The report added that nearly a third of people in some parts of the country admit to regular binge drinking and that 367,000 violent attacks a year are caused by alcohol.

The first way to counter this would be to raise the legal age for buying alcohol from 18 to 21, it claimed.

Mr Gerard said: "No measure will stamp out youthful drinking. But we refuse to admit defeat in the war on drugs; should we not at least try to win the war on alcohol?"

If a drinking ban on under-21s is not imposed, the group warns, teenage drinking should be controlled by a smartcard system.

They would be banned from having more than three units - the equivalent of a pint and a half of beer or three small glasses of wine. The institute also called for higher taxes on drinks such as alcopops which are marketed to a youth market.

The Home Office dismissed the idea of raising the drinking age.

A spokesman said: "The majority of people drink sensibly and responsibly and the Government has no plans to raise the minimum drinking age. Instead, we are using a combination of effective education and tough enforcement to change the behaviour of the minority that don't."