Mike
Penning: I completely agree with the Minister that we must
make every effort to help people who want to quit smoking. May I take
her back to what she said about display? I understood that the
Bill’s purpose was to prevent young people from seeing tobacco
advertised in a shop in a display, and then illegally purchasing it on
impulse. The Minister has just said that its purpose is to prevent
adults from seeing tobacco advertised in a display. That is an
imbalance. Is the purpose of the legislation to prevent under-age
people from smoking, or
not?
Gillian
Merron: Of course, it is both, and we will discuss that.
It is important not to ignore the second part, which is that we have a
duty to support those who want to quit, but we also have a huge duty
not to allow young people to be recruited into the ranks of smokers,
which is what the tobacco industry
wants. A
range of research studies has considered the effect of tobacco displays
on people who are trying to quit. Cancer Research UK’s 2008
report—I have placed a copy in the Library— summarised
some of the published papers. Based on previous research, Cancer
Research UK says that display
“stimulates
impulse purchases and undermines the efforts to
quit.” If
hon. Members want more evidence, I refer to the youth tobacco policy
survey, which was set up to measure the impact of restrictions on
tobacco advertising on children in the UK. The study began in 1999 and
took place five times over seven years with nearly 6,000 adolescents
with an average age of 13 taking part. Several papers have been
published based on the data collected. The survey showed a decreasing
level of awareness of tobacco among young people where tobacco
advertising has been
banned.
Mike
Penning: I referred at the outset of our discussion on
this part of the Bill to the work of Cancer Research UK, Action on
Smoking and Health and other contributory organisations that are
working so hard. However, it is obvious that they will be selective
about the evidence that they put forward and will choose what supports
their argument. They will not choose evidence that contradicts what
they are trying to do, which would be ludicrous. Quoting one side of
the argument does not give a balanced view.
Advertising
has been banned for a considerable time, and we do not want to go
through the Formula 1 debacle at the outset of the Labour Government.
The Minister is referring to evidence about advertising, which does not
exist in this country, unless the display of a legal product in a shop
is deemed to be advertising, in which case it is covered by existing
legislation.
Gillian
Merron: Perhaps I may make myself clear. I was referring
to studies by MacFadyen et al in 2001, who studied 15 and 16-year-olds
in the north-east of England, Grant et al in 2007, and a range of
others. Information is widely available, and I am happy to provide it.
The Cancer Research UK report pulls together a range of surveys. I
could refer to international evidence, but I thought it best to stick
to UK evidence on this
occasion. I
turn to the more general point about why we allow requested displays.
As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, tobacco remains a legal product,
and those who smoke should be able to see or handle the product before
they agree to buy it. The requested display provision means that
shopkeepers may show tobacco products to people who want information or
who want to buy the products. However—this is the
key—workability is important, and showing tobacco to one person,
as the hon. Gentleman has said, may mean that others catch sight of it.
I am well aware of the concerns about that. I reassure the hon.
Gentleman and other members of the Committee that we will use
regulations under new section 7B (3) to make sure that no offences are
committed when shopkeepers are selling, or showing, tobacco to a
customer and other people see it.
We are
working closely with retail organisations such as the Association of
Convenience Stores, the National Federation of Retail Newsagents and
others—for example, the local authority co-ordinators of
regulatory services—to develop practical and workable
regulations, which will keep the cost of covering up displays to a
minimum. It is quite appropriate for those details to be made through
regulations, because we need to work through them, and work with
stakeholders to develop regulations that will be both effective and
workable. We need to talk to the retailers and to the trading standards
officers about how the provision will work in practice and what
detail should be in the regulations for consultation later this
year.
The requested
display provision is needed to make sure that people can see a legal
product before they buy it, but it needs to be requested only to give
power to those adults who want to quit smoking. I hope that with this
clarification of why we need to cover up tobacco displays for everyone,
and why requested displays need to be part of the Bill, that the hon.
Gentleman will, as he indicated at the beginning, not press the
amendment.
Mike
Penning: I have listened to this short debate and suggest
that the debate on Report is going to be much longer than the Minister
expects. [ Interruption.] From a sedentary position I hear the
hon. Member for Bristol, North-West saying, “You can say that
again”. Yes, that will be from both sides of the argument, to be
fair, and I hope—hint, hint to the Government Whips—that
there is sufficient time on the Floor of the House to have a sensible
debate about the whole issue and the effects of the legislation on
law-abiding citizens who are going
about their lawful business. With that in mind, as I
indicated at the start, I will withdraw the amendment at this stage,
but will return to it on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn. Clause
21 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
22Power
to prohibit or restrict sales from vending
machines
Mike
Penning: I beg to move amendment 91, in
clause 22, page 26, line 3, leave
out ‘may’ and insert
‘shall’. Amendment
91 would flush out more of the concerns that we, or rather I—we
are on a free vote so I had better say “I”—have
with the legislation. The evidence published to date, and the evidence
produced by the Minister today, is insufficient to support a ban on
point of sale displays. It is also clear that children use vending
machines. I am not just speaking from the evidence produced by Cancer
Research UK and ASH in videos showing young people going into licensed
premises—close to where we are standing here
today—putting coins in the machine and buying the product. In
recent weeks, I, too, have seen young people come into licensed
premises and purchase tobacco from vending machines. The important
thing here is whether the existing legislation has been enforced
correctly, because many of the premises in which I saw this taking
place, and some of the premises in the recent DVD and video, were
licensed premises, so those young people should not have been
unaccompanied in the first place. We need to address that
point. We
encourage more and more young people to come into the family-oriented
pub or bistro. I am a keen supporter of the British pub industry and do
everything I can to support pubs. At the same time, it is the
responsibility of those running such establishments and providing
vending machines to do everything that they possibly can to preclude
young people from purchasing cigarettes. They clearly cannot get them
from anywhere else at that time, otherwise they would not be paying
such huge amounts for cigarettes through vending machines. There are
myriad premises where that
happens. The
legislation is already in place, and the assumption is that the
proprietor and those working in a bar or a pub should be able to see
the vending machine and whether a young person is approaching it. That
is fine if they are serving only one man and his dog occasionally. But,
in a busy, vibrant pub, which I am sure we all want our pubs to be, or
a leisure facility, similar to Jarman Park in my constituency, which
has myriad services from bowling to skating and swimming to nightclubs
and cinemas, it is physically impossible for the administrators and
owners to guarantee that every time under-18s walk to a vending machine
to purchase cigarettes they can be
stopped. After
considering the evidence, I have moved my position. I do not want
vending machine operators to go bankrupt. I used to be a smoker, and
given that it is so expensive I have no idea why anybody would buy
cigarettes from a vending machine. However, it is a choice that people
can make if they are over 18 and wish to purchase cigarettes. As is
suggested, in a lot of places there are no alternatives.
Proprietors of
public houses in particular do not want loose stock to sell across the
counter. If they lose one packet of cigarettes—stolen or
misappropriated by a member of staff or a customer—that is the
profit margin on about two packets of cigarettes gone. They do not want
that and we moved away from it some time ago. I want the vending
machine manufacturers to have an opportunity to sell their legal
product in such premises without young people having access to them.
That can be done in numerous ways, but I do not think that it is the
purpose of the Committee to stipulate to manufacturers and proprietors
of vending machines how it should be done. It can be done with a token
or an electronic key system, so a person has to go to the
bar.
You will be
surprised to hear me say this, Mr. Key, but I think that we
need to look at our European friends and take guidance from them. Some
22 countries in Europe do not permit the sale of tobacco from vending
machines at all. That is too draconian; it is a legal product and
people should have the right to purchase it, but it should not be
available to under-18s. The industry itself needs to come forward with
proposals.
Patrick
Hall (Bedford) (Lab): The hon. Gentleman referred to 22
European countries having banned tobacco sales from vending machines;
why is this country different from others? Clearly the conclusion has
been that devices to limit access by minors to tobacco products in
vending machines have failed.
Mike
Penning: The hon. Gentleman raises a good point. If you
look at the evidence, which we are all doing, you see that when those
bans were imposed there was not the technology to do it another way. I
was living in some of those countries when bans came in. When I was a
British soldier in Germany in the ‘70s, the vending machines
were still on the streets. That had been banned in this country years
before. Interestingly enough, they took them off the streets in places
where the British military were only because the old 5p was the same
size as the deutschmark and they were losing a fortune from British
soldiers spending 15p to buy a packet of cigarettes—that is the
gospel truth. Frankly, as cigarettes were 25p in the NAAFI at the time,
it seemed immaterial; I think that soldiers did it for the joy of doing
it. The
situation has changed, and other countries in Europe and around the
world have moved to the technology that we are talking about. We have
to address whether we are going to stop law-abiding businesses selling
their legal product to British over-18s. If we can do that, there is no
need for a total ban. If we cannot, I will be one of the signatories to
the amendment on a subsequent Health Bill, but I want to give
businesses the opportunity, with the technology that we have today, to
keep going and sell their legal products. If they cannot do that, we
may have to go down another
avenue. 4.30
pm Mr.
Andy Slaughter (Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush) (Lab):
Some hon. Members had the opportunity earlier this afternoon to see the
British Heart Foundation film that showed young children going into
pubs and buying cigarettes. It was clear in some cases that it was
done, if not with the active encouragement of the staff, with their
knowledge. They clearly did not think that it
was their responsibility to stop it. Even if there
are safeguards, they can be got around. As the example involves
machines, if the staff who are responsible for the machines do not feel
any responsibility, will that not stand in the way of the safeguards
the hon. Gentleman is
describing?
Mike
Penning: I have seen the video and think that the British
Heart Foundation is doing some effective lobbying. I did not need to
see it, however, because I have seen that happen in real
life.
Two aspects
of the hon. Gentleman’s comments must be addressed. First, it is
a criminal offence to allow that to happen. If people are allowing
children to purchase cigarettes, we should check whether they are also
allowing them to drink, because they probably are. Such people should
not have licences and should be dealt with by existing legislation,
rather than by passing more legislation. Secondly, the vending machine,
or a smaller version, could be behind the bar. That way, checks would
have to be made. Rather than saying, “Slap! Bang! You’re
out of business,” we should look at measures that were not
available when most European bans came
in. We
know that people do not want to ban tobacco sales altogether—we
should be honest about that. I agree with the Liberal Democrat
spokesman that we did not have an honest debate on the legislation on
smoking in public places. Other Committee members served with me on
that Public Bill Committee. Health and safety legislation was used as a
back-door method to ban smoking in public places. It was not designed
to preclude people from smoking, but to protect people from passive
smoking in their place of employment. We should be honest about
that.
Mr.
Stephen O'Brien: My hon. Friend is giving an important
introduction to this broad area that will be discussed again on Report.
For those of us who have both smoked and given up twice, the only thing
that keeps us from starting again is the prospect of having to give up
again. I started relatively late, but it is clear that vending machines
are an easy source for those who are too young to buy cigarettes. At
that stage, people are not fussed about whether they are getting value
for money; they just want access to
cigarettes. My
hon. Friend is making the important point that we should consider
measures to ameliorate the problem, rather than be draconian and impact
on the freedom to choose. Vending machines tend to be on the corridor
on the way to the gents, which is out of sight of almost everybody.
That means that people are able to get cigarettes without any kind of
penalty or
fear.
Mike
Penning: I thank my hon. Friend. I started smoking when I
was 16 years old, as did the rest of the battalion I was serving with
in the British Army. Cigarettes in the Army are still almost tax-free,
particularly when one is serving abroad. On the ships of the Royal
Navy, people are given a quota and still encouraged to use it. Under
the previous smoking legislation, we considered why we continue to
allow people to smoke in prison, even though there are already so many
public health risks and it is a place of work for prison officers.
There are a couple of other amendments on these issues, Mr.
Key, but I will not discuss them for so long.
The key is
accessibility. If people are breaking the law or ignoring existing
legislation, they are sure to get around this legislation as well. Such
people earn money when people purchase cigarettes because they get a
percentage of the profits. If people are happy to sell cigarettes to
under-18s, they will do so under the counter in future, if they do not
do so already. That would certainly be true in the part of Northern
Ireland that I come from.
According to
Government figures, one in five cigarettes sold in this country are
counterfeit or sold on the black market with no duty or safety
measures. Do we really want to drive that market even further before we
give vending machine manufacturers and operators the opportunity to
sell their products legally to people of the correct age? That is why I
have put forward this proposal. I stress that I will bring the
amendment back on the Floor of the House and push it to a
vote.
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