The World Health Organisation report, released last week, interviewed 11-,13- and 15-year-olds in 35 countries.
In England, a third of boys and one in four girls aged 13 drank alcohol every week, as did more than half of all 15-year-olds in Wales, the highest in both categories.
Eleven-year-olds fared little better - six per cent of girls and 11 per cent of boys in England, and marginally fewer in Wales, reported they had been drunk at least twice, the highest and second highest figures respectively.
Rankin Barr, manager of Lincolnshire Drug and Alcohol Action Team, which runs a youth service for under-19s, said that although the Healthy Schools initiative was showing signs of success, a more holistic approach involving police, parents and teachers was needed to ensure that alcohol misuse was targeted from all sides. This would ensure that licensing laws were being enforced alongside attempts to prevent the problem.
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