The Conservative Party has pledged to significantly increase taxes on alcopops, strong lagers and ciders as part of new measures to crack down on alcohol-related crime.

According to the Daily Mail, the Conservatives are planning "radical" changes to the Licensing Act, which could see an extra £1.25 added to the price of strong cider, £1.30 to the cost of extra strong lager and an additional 50p on a bottle of alcopops. Leader David Cameron said that 90 per cent of alcohol consumed in Britain would remain unaffected by the introduction of the new measures, which he believes are necessary to tackle alcohol-related violence in towns and cities across the UK.

The newspaper quoted Cameron as saying: "The licensing system has become far too lax. We don't want to go back to the situation where every pub shut at 11 o'clock and everyone poured out into the market square and beat each other up, of course we don't. "We want to encourage personal responsibility. People have to be held responsible for what they do, and if they behave badly having drunk too much they should feel the weight of the law, they should be prosecuted."