Setting a minimum alcohol price per unit in Britain would cut deaths and hospital time among heavy drinkers yet have virtually no adverse impact on the pockets of moderate drinkers, researchers said yesterday.

In a study that calls into question a government decision last year to drop plans to set a minimum price for alcohol, researchers found it would have the greatest effect on the five per cent of people who drink at rates classified as “harmful”.

The large impact would be on harmful drinkers

Petra Meier of the Sheffield Alcohol Research Group, who worked on the study, said the overall impact of a minimum price on moderate drinkers would be very small, while the large impact on harmful drinkers – men who drink more than 50 units a week and women who drink more than 35 – would lead to significantly lower rates of illness and premature death.

“Policy-makers need to balance larger reductions in consumption by harmful drinkers on a low income against the large health gains that could be experienced in this group from reductions in alcohol-related illness and death,” said John Holmes of Sheffield University, who led the study.

A unit is defined as 10 millilitres of pure alcohol. There are roughly two units in a pint of beer, lager or cider, nine to 10 in a bottle of wine and one in a 25ml spirit shot.

Officials said when they dropped minimum price plans in July they had not seen enough evidence such a move would deter excessive drinking.

But senior doctors last month accused PM David Cameron’s government of “dancing to the tune of the drinks industry” and failing to prioritise public health in its decision to back away from the plans.

The doctors cited data published in the British Medical Journal obtained by a freedom of information request showing the government had met with the drinks industry 130 times between 2010 and 2013.

This included two meetings after the end of a public consultation on minimum pricing, the journal said.

Yesterday’s research, published in The Lancet medical journal, used mathematical models to analyse how consumers of different income levels would change their drinking habits and spending if a minimum alcohol price of 45 pence a unit were introduced.