PLANS to introduce a minimum price for alcohol in Wales have been branded "a sledgehammer to crack a nut".

AMs signed off on plans to develop the policy, which the Welsh Government has said could save one life every week and reduce hospital admissions by 1,400 a year, in March.

But Ukip Wales presented a motion in the Assembly earlier this week calling for the policy to be dropped.

The party's leader Neil Hamilton said studies had shown increasing the price of alcohol would not stop problem drinkers from buying it, but rather push them into poverty.

"This is a very badly designed proposal," he said. "It is a sledgehammer to miss a nut."

Although the Welsh Government has not announced the level any minimum price would be set at, similar legislation which came into force in Scotland this month set a minimum of 50p per unit of alcohol.

But Mr Hamilton added: "These are all impositions upon people who are having a struggle anyway to make ends meet in life, and it's going to make it very much more difficult for very little, if any, improvement in public health or a diminution of the other social problems that excessive consumption of alcohol brings about."

But Newport East AM John Griffiths said he was fully in favour of the new policy.

"I think all of us would be familiar with the harm that alcohol does cause, or alcohol abuse causes," he said.

"It's very clear in terms of its toll of ill health, the effect that that has on the economy in terms of days lost from work, the problems in terms of crime and violent crime, some of that around binge drinking, which is a terrible blight still on many of our town and city centres, and also, of course, harm to families and marital breakdown."

And Plaid Cymru's Dai Lloyd, who is also a working GP, called the plan "an absolute no-brainer".

"The alcoholic is not being targeted here, and cannot be targeted," he said.

"As we've heard, the alcoholic carries on drinking. But the harmful and hazardous drinker who is not addicted will stop when the price gets too much."

Responding to the debate, health secretary Vaughan Gething recognised the policy would not be "a silver bullet", but must be introduced alongside other measures aiming to stamp out problem drinking.

AMs ultimately voted down the Ukip motion calling for the proposal to be thrown out.