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Mr. Swayne: I am not convinced that my hon. Friend is correct. I share his distaste for alcopops, but that is a personal distaste. I wonder what evidence there is that the advent of alcopops has expanded the market in under-age drinking, rather than simply dividing it up. I believe that lager is as pernicious as my hon. Friend suggests alcopops are.

Sir Patrick Cormack: Alcopops may not have expanded the market to an enormous degree; I am not aware of the figures. However, they expanded the opportunities in a way that is peculiarly seductive to young people and more difficult for their parents to identify. That is the indictment of alcopops, and I do not retract a sentence of my condemnation.

Mrs. Spelman: Research undertaken by the schools health education unit at Exeter university in 1998 established that alcopops were associated with heavier drinking in under-age drinkers. A survey of 8,000 young people aged 12 to 14 found that

"'alcopoppers' were more likely than others to drink in pubs, discos and at parties"

rather than purchasing alcohol from an off-licence. I hope that that information shows the risk that those alcohol products present.

Sir Patrick Cormack: That underlines my point about the expansion of opportunity. I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing the survey to the House's attention. We should return to the subject. I would consider promoting a Bill on alcopops if I obtained a high position in the ballot. That has never happened to me but, if it did, I would consider such a measure.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. As the hon. Gentleman said, he is talking about a separate

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matter. It may be related to the Bill, but it is a separate issue. I have allowed some leeway, but we must keep to the subject of the Bill.

Sir Patrick Cormack: In a sense, alcopops are the subject of the Bill because it was their purchase that led to the terrible accident that we are discussing. As the hon. Member for Pudsey explained, the first drinks that David Knowles purchased were alcopops. However, I accept your strictures, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We must not expand too much on that subject, except to say that it is relevant and that we may revert to it on another occasion.

Mr. Malcolm Savidge (Aberdeen, North): One of the unfortunate aspects of alcopops is that, while they were clearly designed for the teenage, and, one suspects, the pre-teenage market, they are much stronger than lager or beer.

Sir Patrick Cormack: That is another point. My hon. Friend the Member for Meriden said in her speech that children as young as eight were consuming those products.

The Bill's scope is narrow and its motivation is important. Its results could be wholly beneficial if it made everyone in every retail premises aware that selling alcohol was a great responsibility, which must never be taken lightly, whatever the alcoholic product. It is especially important that those charged with the sale of alcoholic beverages have regard to those to whom they sell the products. Just as the responsible pub landlord will refuse to continue serving drinks to someone who is obviously inebriated, the most scrupulous attention should be paid to the age or apparent age of the potential customer.

The Bill will ensure that the responsibility for deciding to sell rests on the person who conducts the transaction, however that person is employed. The hon. Member for Pudsey has revealed a loophole, which has existed in law for at least the 30 years to which he referred. He has introduced an effective measure to tackle it. He deserves our congratulations, and, in the case of a Division, our support. He certainly has mine.

10.44 am

Mr. Tony Clarke (Northampton, South): I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell). However, beyond that, as other hon. Members have said, we owe him a debt of gratitude for several reasons. I do not want to cast aspersions, but if hon. Members examine the list of private Member's Bills, it is apparent that the majority of subjects are chosen because they are populist, because they engender good media coverage for the promoter, or because an organisation assisted in drafting a measure. Today, we are considering a Bill that has been tabled by an hon. Member on behalf of his constituents: a family who visited his surgery in tragic circumstances. Although my hon. Friend said that he was honour-bound to promote the Bill, the House and the country are in his debt because the story of David Knowles has been repeated throughout the land, and families have lost loved ones through alcohol abuse at an early age.

I support the Bill. I agree that it probably deals with only the tip of the iceberg and that we shall have to reconsider modernising our liquor and public

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entertainment laws. I risk ridicule when I say that it will not be too long before we have to reconsider whether 18 is a sensible age at which to begin purchasing alcohol. Yesterday, we discussed a different matter, but we may need to modernise the law on the purchase of alcohol and consider lowering the age to 16 so that we can properly enforce the law, rather than having legislation that cannot be enforced. That view is borne out by earlier interventions about the way in which teenagers gain access to drink and their attitude to alcohol.

When I was 14, several friends and I went on a school trip to the continent. We went into a cafe bar with some new-found continental friends. They were easily able to purchase alcohol, but they did not. We were amazed, and, unfortunately, we behaved like children in a candy shop. We decided to take advantage of the new opportunity and drank too much. We can learn from countries on the continent that have less strict rules on the sale of alcohol to minors and teenagers and have less of a problem than this country.

Mr. Heald: Does the hon. Gentleman believe that the age of majority should be the same for a range of issues? Does he believe that the age of consent for sexual activity should be the same as that for alcoholic purchase, voting and so on, or is he making a less general point?

Mr. Clarke: I do not want Mr. Deputy Speaker to pick me up on straying from the Bill. However, I believe that we should take a more level view on what constitutes adulthood. The hon. Gentleman's points are therefore relevant, and I agree that perhaps we should examine the age for purchasing alcohol in the light of the age of consent for sexual activity and voting. For many years, 18 has been considered the age at which teenagers become adults. However, times have changed, and that age should be kept under review.

Mr. Savidge: I do not wish to detain my hon. Friend for too long on that issue, but does he believe that if we had clear methods of identifying age, it might be easier to decide whether lowering the age to 16 was reasonable? At present, children who are not even teenagers can pretend to be 18 because of the difficulty of identifying age.

Mr. Clarke: I agree. Age is only a number and does not necessarily measure the individual's maturity. We could long debate many associated issues, but they are not connected with the Bill.

Mr. Swayne: We need the Bill because under-18s are being sold alcohol in circumstances in which they ought not to be and that needs tightening up. If that is the case, I see no logic for reducing the age at which they can buy drinks.

Mr. Clarke: The key age of 14 has been referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey and by Conservative Members. David Knowles was 14, as was the young girl mentioned by the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman), and we have heard of similar cases of 14-year-olds who drink. The issue is not only what we do to close the loophole, but why teenagers drink and why 14-year-olds seem to be most vulnerable. I hope that those

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comments and my suggestion of lowering the age at which drink can be purchased from 18 to 16 assist the hon. Gentleman and answer his question.

We need to consider why young people--those aged between 11 and 15--involve themselves in under-age drinking. The Bill closes the loophole by ensuring that any person who sells alcohol to under-age drinkers will be brought to justice. The issue of off-licences, local stores and who serves whom is important, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Jane Griffiths) that young people selling alcohol to young people in community stores is a problem. In some cases, they are peers and school friends who are well known to their customers so the issue is not only whether they are breaking the law, but peer pressure and whether the seller would feel comfortable with refusing. We need to consider how much impact that might have on the problem, particularly in tight-knit communities.

With that in mind, a few years ago in Northampton we started to consider why and where children were drinking and why a problem had suddenly arisen around community stores, off-licences and supermarkets. The results were interesting. Everyone in society is affected by under-age drinking. It is not, as some may think, more prevalent in areas of social deprivation. One of our first findings was that some children from the more affluent parts of town were drinking under age. The comments about the availability of cash to feed a new-found habit may be relevant there, but we also found that many children drank outside shops because they felt vulnerable. In some strange sense, the activity and light from the shop acted as a defence mechanism and although they were causing problems and drinking illegally they wanted other people around in case anything went wrong. They wanted to be safe and did not want to drink in dark corners and alleyways.

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