Local authorities are to be given the power to ban happy hours and other promotions encouraging excessive drinking, the Government will announce today.

Jacqui Smith is also to give councils the right to curb the sale of large amounts of cut-price alcohol in supermarkets.

The Home Secretary will announce a mandatory code of practice to be imposed on the drinks industry after a decade of self-regulation which the Government believes has failed to curb the growth of alcohol abuse.

In his first speech on crime since becoming Prime Minister, Gordon Brown said yesterday that the Government had ruled out bringing in a minimum price per unit for drink as this would penalise the majority of responsible drinkers. But he added:”We are going to bring in a new mandatory code on the sale of alcohol ... to tackle binge drinking, targeting the kind of promotions like ‘drink all you can for a fiver’, which turn some town centres into no-go areas.”

Local councils will be able to ban happy hours and promotions that allow women free drinks all evening. They will also be allowed to impose conditions on groups of pubs in areas where there has been drink-related disorder.

The mandatory code will also include curbs on supermarkets offering bulk buying of cut-price beer, and a requirement that pubs and bars should label units of alcohol clearly on bottles and offer small glasses.

Dispensing alcohol directly into the customer’s mouth will be banned and pubs and clubs will have to offer free tap water.

Powers to introduce the mandatory code for the on and off trade are to be introduced next Tuesday in the Crime and Policing Bill, which is currently going through Parliament.

The move follows two reviews published last year. A report by the auditors KPMG found many irresponsible and harmful practices, including children under 18 being able to buy alcohol, promotion of drink through cheap offers, inducements by disc jockeys to consume greater quantities of drink and glamorisation of drinking through links with sexual imagery.

It said that the commercial imperative to get people into premises and to sell them drink overrode adherence to a code of standards designed to promote sensible drinking. “The standards are currently having negligible impact in either reducing bad practice or promoting good practice,” it said.

The Prime Minister called on more police forces to adopt a scheme under which people who feel unsafe walking home can ask police to accompany them on the final mile.

Police in Wanstead, East London offer to escort people home if they have taken money out of a cash machine and are fearful of being attacked.

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