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Mr. Forth: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for introducing the ghastly subject of the internet, to which I have no doubt hon. Members will return during the debate. If I were to catch Mr. Deputy Speaker's eye, I might even attempt to say something about it as well. My hon. Friend raises a wider issue that I would define as the point of responsibility. Does not a similar argument apply to supermarket check-outs, for example? I assume from reading the Bill that responsibility might lie with the person manning a supermarket check-out. Who else is there to take responsibility for such licensed premises? The problem is even wider than that which he has addressed.
Sir Patrick Cormack: I accept that and of course understand why my right hon. Friend wants to bring the debate back from cyberspace to his supermarket check-out. His point was touched on by the hon. Member for Reading, East, when she said that, very often, those manning check-outs are themselves under the legal age for consuming or selling alcohol.
Such people are supposed to summon somebody of the appropriate age, but how many of us have seen, when canvassing in our constituencies, the extent of the pressure of the Saturday afternoon supermarket queue? Vast numbers of people become increasingly agitated as they want to pay for their purchases and get out of the shop, putting pressure on the young people at the check-out. Do all those young people summon somebody? I do not know.
There is the problem of identifying ages. In her admirable speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden talked of the need for some form of identification. A photo-identity card is the only sure way of verifying someone's age, although you would rule me out of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I talked at length on that issue. Nevertheless, it is relevant.
Mr. Boswell:
Does my hon. Friend agree that, however admirable a photo-identity card system might be, it would break down in the case of electronic shopping, because such cards would not be available to the person making the sale?
Sir Patrick Cormack:
My hon. Friend has it in one. The point that I was seeking to make is that, even with a photo-identity pass, one cannot be certain. How many people checking our credit card slips look at the signature? We have all read ridiculous examples in the press of people who have signed Adolf Hitler or Karl Marx and had purchases accepted. One must recognise that those who conduct the sale are often under great pressure, doing a job that is so constantly repetitive as to be infinitely boring. They have a problem.
In the best traditions of the constituency Member of Parliament, the hon. Member for Pudsey has rightly been deeply moved by a shocking and terrible tragedy, and has sought to do something about it. That is admirable. In doing so as a good constituency Member, he has the support of colleagues in all parts of the House.
If I may say so--I hope that this does not sound flattering or patronising--in my 30 years in the House, I have not heard a better presentation of a private Member's Bill than the hon. Gentleman gave us this morning. He was admirable in his lucidity and did not go in for hyperbole. He stated the case and said what he was seeking to do about it. He deserves our support but just touching on some of these issues makes one realise that there are many other problems that will remain unresolved when the Bill becomes law, as I hope that it will.
In discussing the Bill, we are right to examine carefully the issue of parental responsibility. That is where it all begins. As I said in an intervention, the last thing that I want to do is to cast any aspersions on Mr. and Mrs. Knowles, who I am sure, from what the hon. Gentleman said, are not only anguished but admirable parents.
Many parents, however, are far too cavalier in the way in which they treat their offspring and lavish money upon them. There are many parents who see financial generosity as a substitute for being a proper parent. They claim to be very busy, so they give their children a lot of money and tell them to do what they like and go where they want. As a consequence, the clear moral--I use the word without apology--guidance that many of us were privileged to receive in the parental home is not available to many of today's generation of children.
Mr. Swayne:
I suspect that the absence of moral guidance is less of a problem than the opportunities available to younger people now, which were not available even to my generation, such as alcopops, income to spend and time in which to spend it. Those are new pressures.
Sir Patrick Cormack:
Those are indeed new pressures, and my hon. Friend is right to underline them. They make the job of being a good parent all the more difficult. My sons are 28 and 30, so they have been away from home for some time. It was easier for me to be a good parent than it is for today's parents, because of the opportunities and pressures to which my hon. Friend alluded, and the opportunity for on-line shopping to which I referred.
Mrs. Spelman:
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; I shall not detain him. On the topic of parental responsibility, I am sure he is aware that there is often a correlation between drinking among under-age children and the drinking patterns of adults. In households where heavy drinking is a feature of the life style, that may well be reflected in the behaviour of youngsters. As a result of the tightening of the drink-drive laws, many parents now consume more alcohol in their own home, in front of their children, and that is a factor in conditioning the attitude of young people towards the consumption of alcohol.
Sir Patrick Cormack:
That is a factor, of course, but providing a sensitive and sensible education in the moderate use of alcohol is part of being a good parent.
Our sons were brought up to have a glass of wine with the evening meal--from before the age of 16, I have to say. I do not believe that they suffered as a result. I believe, rather, that they accepted it as a natural part of social eating together as a family, but something that should not be indulged in to excess. Because it was part of the natural family scene, they did not succumb to the temptation to do it away from the parental gaze.
I accept that there are some parents to whom the very notion of alcohol is repugnant. I respect those who are total abstainers, but those who are not have an added responsibility to be sensible and sensitive in the way in which they bring their children up. My hon. Friend is right to point out that, when some parents treat the matter in a cavalier manner and drink as much as they want whenever they want, their children see getting sloshed, as they vulgarly call it, as being part of the parental life style.
Mr. Tim Collins (Westmorland and Lonsdale):
My hon. Friend is developing an important series of points on the issue of responsibility. Does he agree that there is also an issue of corporate responsibility, with respect to some of the advertising campaigns, the products--we have heard about alcopops--and aspects such as what happens at supermarket tills? We should not try to transfer the entire responsibility to parents, although some of it undoubtedly lies with them. Big corporations, which should know better, are making the problem worse, rather than trying to improve matters.
Sir Patrick Cormack:
I could not agree more. A child who has a loving, concerned home, with parents who are sensible and give of their time to their child, is much less likely to get into any sort of scrape than children whose parents are careless and merely lavish money on them.
Of course the corporate sector bears a large degree of responsibility. I find some of the explicit advertisements for alcohol on television deeply disturbing. Although I am not by nature a banner--if one has a conservative philosophy, it does not come naturally to ban here, there and everywhere--I believe nevertheless that the advent of alcopops has been almost wholly bad.
If the hon. Member for Pudsey had introduced a Bill to ban the sale of alcopops, he would have found me a willing co-sponsor. Alcopops were an unnecessary product. Many of those who dreamed them up were seeking to exploit certain teenage views. I am strongly opposed to them. My hon. Friend makes a cogent point.
The Bill is a small piece of legislation, as the hon. Gentleman was at pains to point out in his opening speech.
Mr. Oliver Heald (North-East Hertfordshire):
On corporate responsibility, does my hon. Friend accept that there have been some rather helpful moves by the industry--for example, the Portman Group produced the Prove It! scheme with the identity card for young people, which most colleagues would agree was a useful initiative. Also, excellent training has been given to staff, to try to avoid some of the problems about which we have heard. The picture is not entirely of the corporate sector showing no responsibility; some constructive measures have been taken.
Sir Patrick Cormack:
Of course. Frequently, in responding to an intervention that contains a salient point, we tend to generalise. We are all guilty of that from time to time. I would not want my remarks to be interpreted as an attack on the corporate sector and all who operate in it.
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