SCOTLAND is starting to make progress in the battle against booze after new figures showed a dramatic fall in alcohol-related deaths.

A report by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found Scotland still had the highest alcohol-related death rate in the UK in 2013, but was the only country with significantly lower rates than a decade ago.

The decline is believed to be down to the impact of the recession and a number of initiatives to reduce alcohol consumption including the scrapping of multi-buy deals.

Barbara O'Donnell, deputy chief executive of Alcohol Focus Scotland, welcomed the decline in deaths, but warned there was much work still to be done.

She said: "It is obviously good news that alcohol-related deaths in Scotland have fallen in recent years, but the rate is higher than in England and Wales and higher than twenty years ago.

"Twenty-one Scottish people are still dying because of alcohol every single week and every alcohol-related death is a tragedy for the person, the family and friends they leave behind.

"We know what preventative action works - making alcohol less affordable, less available, and less visible. Minimum unit pricing is a really important measure which will increase the price of the cheapest, strongest drinks and ultimately, save lives."

The Scottish Government welcomed the significant decline, but also stressed the importance of the introduction of minimum unit pricing.

Plans by ministers for a minimum price for alcohol are currently on hold pending the outcome of a legal challenge at the European Court.

Drinks industry bodies have opposed the legislation, which would see a minimum unit price of 50p brought in north of the Border, since it was passed by MSPs in 2012.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "The reduction in the alcohol-related deaths figure in Scotland is welcome, but our figure remains higher than the rest of the UK.

"In Scotland we drink nearly a fifth more alcohol than our counterparts in England and Wales. That is why the Scottish Government continues to press the case for minimum unit pricing, as part of a concerted package of measures, to tackle the availability of cheap, high strength alcohol that does the most damage to Scottish communities."

The figures from the ONS show in 2013, Scotland had the highest alcohol-related death rate for males at 29.8 per 100,000 population, while England had the lowest at 17.8 per 100,000.

Although Scotland had the highest male alcohol-related death rates of the four UK countries throughout the decade from 2004, it was the only country with a significantly lower rate in 2013 compared with 2004 with rates falling by 34 per cent. There was no significant change in rates for England, Wales and Northern Ireland between these years.

In 2013, female alcohol-related death rates were highest in Scotland at 13 per 100,000 and lowest in Northern Ireland at 7.5 per 100,000.

Of the four UK countries, only Scotland had a significantly lower female alcohol-related death rate in 2013 than in 2004 with rates falling by 25 per cent from 17.3 per 100,000 in 2004 to 13 per 100,000 in 2013.

In December, it emerged that alcohol consumption in Scotland had dropped by the equivalent of 38 million pints of beer a year after the economy crashed and multi-buy deals were scrapped.

Alcohol sales declined by 9 per cent since their peak in 2009 - equivalent to about nine million fewer bottles of wine, three million fewer bottles of spirits or 38 million fewer pints of beer per year.

But despite the decline, sales remain 17 per cent higher than in England and Wales, mainly due to higher sales through supermarkets and off-licences - particularly of lower-priced spirits.

Clare Beeston, principal public health adviser at NHS Health Scotland, said at the time: "Alcohol sales are falling in both Scotland and England and Wales and it is likely that declining affordability of alcohol due to the economic downturn across the whole of Great Britain in recent years is responsible for some of these improvements.

"However, the ban on multi-buy promotions for alcohol and the increased number of people accessing specialist services are also likely to be contributing to the improvements seen in Scotland."