Tories plan 7p a pint 'treatment tax' in blitz on bingers

The controversial move would add around 7p to a pint of beer, 15p to a bottle of wine and 25p to a bottle of whisky.

The long-awaited Breakthrough Britain study will conclude that spiralling levels of debt, drug, alcohol and gambling addiction and the breakdown of the family are creating a growing 'underclass'.

Scroll down for more...

It will recommend doubling the £400million currently spent on the treatment of drug and alcohol problems

The report by the Conservatives' social justice group will call for the cost to be met with a 'treatment tax' on wine, beer and spirits.

The study also recommends reclassifying cannabis from a Class C to a Class B drug and calls for a network of residential treatment centres, including an addiction wing in every prison.

The recommendations, from the group led by ex-leader Iain Duncan Smith, will carry great weight even though they are not binding on the party.

Although the final figures have yet to be finalised, any suggestion of raising taxes - rather than lowering them - is likely to prove highly controversial for the Conservative party.

Leader David Cameron is under massive pressure from traditionalists to push a tax-cutting agenda ahead of the next election. Earlier this year, his proposal to increase tax on flights in a bid to cut carbon emissions provoked an outcry.

The report warns, however, that alcohol has become too affordable.

It says: "The relationship between the affordability of alcohol and the level of consumption provides Government with an effective tool for controlling levels of consumption through a levying of a tax on the product."

The report also calls for heroin users to be forced to go 'cold turkey' rather than be treated with substitutes such as methadone. It also calls for a 'clean break' from the harm-reduction programmes such as exchanging needles.

The study contains 190 policy recommendations on family breakdown, personal debt, addiction, failed education and getting people to work. Included is a call for the age limit for all forms of gambling to be raised to 18. Mr Duncan Smith yesterday warned that "the fabric of society has crumbled at the margins" in recent years.

He said: "What has been left behind is an underclass, where life is characterised by dependency, addiction, debt and family breakdown. This is an underclass in which a child born into poverty today is more likely to remain in poverty than at any time since the late Sixties."

Recent research by the Institute of Alcohol Studies concluded that a 10 per cent rise in alcohol taxes would lower mortality rates by 7 per cent in men and 8 per cent in women.

However, the calls to raise tax on alcohol were last night condemned by the drinks industry, which warned that many pubs and retailers could be driven out of business.

Tony Payne, chief executive of the Federation of Licensed Victuallers Association, said: "It will do nothing because where is the cheap booze coming from - it's supermarkets where you can buy a pint for 50p. What will an extra 7p mean? Nothing.

"All you will do is drive more people to the supermarkets where the beer, wine and vodka is cheap and make more pubs close. It will do nothing to solve the problem at all but it will be another nail in the coffin for pubs."

Caroline Nodder, editor of The Publican, said the proposals would increase binge drinking by encouraging people to consume cheap supermarket alcohol unsupervised at home.

"When people are drinking at home, that's when you have got to start worrying about it," she said. "This will add to binge drinking rather than help it."