The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has called for the introduction of a minimum price per unit of alcohol in a bid to tackle binge drinking in the UK.

According to the health watchdog, a quarter of adults are at risk from physical and mental damage as a result of drinking excess amounts of alcohol. Minimum pricing is among a range of measures put forward by NICE to make it harder to buy alcohol, which also include a reduction in the number of licensed retailers within a specific area.

The Scottish Government has already confirmed plans to introduce a minimum price for a unit of alcohol as part of new legislation to tackle alcohol abuse in Scotland. Professor Anne Ludbrook, a health economist at the University of Aberdeen, said: "Alcohol is much more affordable now than it ever has been, and the price people pay does not reflect the cost of the health and social harms that arise.

"When it is sold at very low price, people often buy and then consume more than they otherwise would have done. It is a dangerous pattern which many people have unknowingly fallen into."