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2.1 pm
Mr. Burns: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall speak briefly to the Bill. We have had an extremely interesting and helpful debate and I am grateful for the support that my Bill has attracted from hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber, in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) and the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones).
I have listened with great care to the concerns expressed by a number of hon. Members. I respect those concerns and if the Bill is granted a Second Reading, I will be able, along with other hon. Members, to consider those issues in more detail in Committee. I urge the House to give this badly needed Bill a Second Reading so that it may continue its progress through the House and, if necessary, be improved during that process.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing OrderNo. 63 (Committal of Bills).
Order for Second Reading read.
Ms Chris McCafferty (Calder Valley):
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
It is a great privilege to be able to introduce a private Member's Bill, and I am grateful for the opportunity to present this Bill because the measures that it contains are urgently needed. I regret the lack of time available to debate the issues fully, but I hope that hon. Members will want to support the Bill's objectives and will allow it to proceed to a Committee stage, where it can be debated more fully, as is right and appropriate.
The Bill will create new barriers to children gaining access to alcohol. It has the backing of the Portman Group, which represents the alcohol industry, and it makes a number of proposals, including closing a legal loophole that allows courts to distinguish between the liability of licensees and that of their employees by providing that anyone who makes a sale to a minor would be liable to prosecution. It would create a new offence of proxy purchase when someone over 18 purchases alcohol for a minor, which is already an offence in Scotland. It would give police and trading standards officers powers to undertake test purchasing where retailers are suspected of making unlawful sales.
I first became aware of the legal loophole through the death of David Knowles, a 14-year-old from Pudsey, who was sold lager and alcopops and was killed as he ran across a dual carriageway. David died in the Easter holidays in 1997. He had been football training with his friends when one of them suggested that he go to the off-licence and buy alcohol. He bought lager and alcopops, returning for more lager shortly afterwards. On the way home, he ran down an embankment and on to a dual carriageway. David crossed two lanes before being struck by a car, and was killed.
David was a bright boy--in the top six at school for maths. His ambition was to be a bank manager. He could have been anybody's son. His father, John Knowles, described David has a serious young man who acted completely out of character. He said that David might have got away with looking 15 in a bad light, but that he was obviously under age.
Even though the police seized video footage which proved that David was served twice in the same off-licence, prosecution of the staff collapsed because the licence holder did not directly employ them. That has exposed a gap in the law, which allows people who sell alcohol to young people under the age of 18 to escape prosecution when, as is increasingly common in bigger chains, they are employed by the parent company and not the licensee. Thousands of staff in off-licences and supermarkets can sell alcohol to children without fear of prosecution because of that glaring legal loophole.
Mr. Paul Truswell (Pudsey):
Is not the crux of that element of my hon. Friend's Bill the fact that tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of staff can sell alcohol to children of any age--including perhaps even my son of six years old--with complete immunity from prosecution? Does she agree that the loophole is not simply wide but growing by the week?
Ms McCafferty:
Indeed, my hon. Friend is absolutely correct. The more supermarkets that stock alcohol and the
To tackle the problem of young people who have reached the age of 18 buying alcohol legitimately, and then passing it on to friends or acquaintances under the age of 18, the Bill will introduce a new offence to make it unlawful for someone to buy alcohol in shops and off-licences on behalf of a young person. That will also penalise passing adults who are prevailed on to make purchases for young people.
In Scottish law, an equivalent provision has been part of licensing legislation since 1976. The proposed provision for England and Wales is intended to target adults who, whether known to a child or a stranger, will agree, often outside or close to licensed premises, to buy alcohol to be passed on immediately to a child in the street.
A survey carried out by Professor Howard Parker at Manchester university in 1996 found that, of a representative sample of 13 to 16-year-olds in Greater Manchester, 53 per cent. obtained alcohol by asking older friends to buy it for them, and 26 per cent. by asking strangers to buy it for them. Among the 26 per cent. of children who asked strangers, there was a prevalence of girls and of 13 to 14-year-olds. The dangers inherent in such vulnerable young people approaching strangers for favours must be immediately obvious to hon. Members.
Many supermarkets and off-licence chains keep logbooks of refusals of service, with reasons for such refusals. Evidence presented to the task force on under-age alcohol misuse by the British Retail Consortium revealed that there were about 4.5 million refusals to serve alcohol to under-age customers in supermarket chains in 1992. In a recent survey of 100 off-licences by the police in Salford, rigorous compliance with the law by licensees was found to be the norm, and a willingness to serve under-18s the exception. It is the minority of licensees who bring the reputation of the majority into disrepute whom the Bill will target.
The schools health education unit found in 1997 that 19 per cent. of 14-year-olds, 10 per cent. of 13-year-olds and 6 per cent. of 12 to 13-year-olds all claimed to have purchased alcohol during the previous week. A more recent survey by the Health Education Authority found that, by the age of 11, more than three quarters of those questioned had already tried alcohol, and that that proportion increased to 95 per cent. by the age of 15. More than 20 per cent. of the youngsters surveyed said that they had been "really drunk" at least once. The Health Education Authority estimates that about 190,000 11 to 15-year-olds drink the equivalent of seven pints a week.
There have been many calls for the greater use of test purchase operations, to ensure that retailers comply with the law. Such operations obviously have a useful and legitimate role to play in tackling abuse by cynical
licensees. They already uphold the laws preventing the sale to minors of a range of inappropriate substances, such as tobacco, videos, fireworks and lottery tickets. Some agencies have expressed uncertainty about the current legality of test purchase in respect of alcohol, which differs from other products because it can be an offence to buy it when under age as well as for retailers to sell it. In the case of other products, only the retailer is committing an offence.
To put matters beyond doubt, I propose to amend the law to make it explicit that test purchases may be applied to the sale of alcohol in England and Wales, and to exempt young persons involved in supervised test purchasing from prosecution. In the case of other age-restricted products, test purchasing has proved to be a convincing and effective deterrent against under-age sales. In his evidence to the task force, Peter Mawdsley, head of trading standards for the city of Liverpool, said:
Ms McCafferty:
The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I accept that it is extremely difficult to prove the age of a young person who is determined to purchase alcohol--or any other product that it is illegal for a minor to purchase--and it is correct that the Government do not have a national ID scheme. However, I suggest that the new photo-ID driving licence will ultimately be carried by every young person, and there is the Portman Group's "prove it" card, which is available to anyone. In my constituency, nearly 3,000 of those cards have been issued, and every month 5,000 to 10,000 are issued nationally. Should my Bill become law, retailers may be more cautious, and more anxious to identify the age of consumers who wish to purchase their goods.
Peter Mawdsley, giving his evidence, has said that, remarkably, no shop in Liverpool has ever re-offended. I believe that all hon. Members would like that success to apply to alcohol sales, too.
As the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) remarked, it is difficult for reputable traders to establish the age of people who want to buy alcohol, especially when they are determined to do so, but the law that makes it illegal to serve alcohol to under-18s already exists. The prohibited sale of alcoholic drinks to under-18s is not a new law, and the legalisation of test purchase will act only as an aid to enforcing the existing law; it imposes no additional legal restrictions on retailers. I believe that the introduction of test purchase will give greater impetus to one or more of the identity schemes that are coming into existence, and that retailers will be much more likely routinely to ask for proof of age.
The vast majority of those who make and sell alcoholic drinks in the United Kingdom welcome the Bill. The call for test purchasing and for an offence of proxy purchase has been supported repeatedly by the trade and industry-related organisations.
The work of the Portman Group--whose member companies are the nine leading drinks manufacturers in the UK--is generally supported throughout the industry,
and the licensed trade as a whole. The group recently submitted a paper in response to the Department of Health's consultation on alcohol strategy, in which the group called for all the legislative changes offered by the Bill. The group made the point that the measures would complement the progress that the industry itself is making towards tackling alcohol misuse.
There is a great deal of evidence that illegal alcohol sales to minors leads to unsupervised drinking and alcohol abuse, reaching down to primary school level. I am extremely concerned, as are many health professionals, about the potential adverse health effects on physically immature children, who are often drinking beyond levels recommended for adults. In my view, this demonstrates a serious social problem, and there is understandable and well-justified public concern. I have had many complaints from all over my constituency about the problems caused by a minority of youngsters who are getting into trouble due to drink.
Recently, the Health Education Authority commented that because drinking was such a central part of our social life, many parents did not realise, or underestimated, the harm it can do. While parents are understandably worried about illegal drugs, it is important to realise the range of problems that alcohol can cause to children. The main problem is that it is too easy for children to get alcohol, and urgent action is needed.
2.2 pm
"Test purchasing in Liverpool has significantly reduced the rate of illegal sales of tobacco, fireworks, videos and lottery tickets."
Mr. David Maclean (Penrith and The Border):
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way; I am conscious that I may not be able to speak in this important debate. In the absence of national identity cards, what proof can a retailer get from a young person that that person is over 18?
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