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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mike O'Brien): I join many colleagues in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell) on his success in the private Members' ballot and warmly commend his decision to introduce this Bill. I share his deep and heartfelt concern about the unlawful sale of alcohol to young people. I am glad to support the Bill's intentions. As he has said, we cannot bring back David Knowles, but we can try to reduce the number of such cases. I join all Members in extending our condolences to the family of David Knowles, who will obviously be concerned to ensure that the Bill is passed. We will do all we can in the House to ensure that it is.
The hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack), who has considerable experience of the House, praised my hon. Friend's speech as one of the most cogent, lucid and effective to introduce a private Member's Bill. My hon. Friend did well and deserves our support. Indeed, throughout the debate, he has had that support. My hon. Friends the Members for Northampton, South (Mr. Clarke), for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound), who made an entertaining and academically thorough speech, for Shipley (Mr. Leslie), for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross), who described the experience in Scotland, where the law is, it appears, much more effective, for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins) and for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Savidge) have all supported the Bill.
Support has also come from the Opposition--from the hon. Members for South Staffordshire and for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman). The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) made a thoughtful speech, and we heard a well-argued, not to say revealing, speech by the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne), as well as a helpful contribution from the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) and interventions that were helpful, in this case, from the right hon. Members for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) and for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean), which we respond to with gratitude. We are grateful for their assistance and concern.
The Government have repeatedly made clear their concerns about the potential manipulation of young people by cynical traders. Our prompt action on taking office demonstrated the strength of that concern. In May 1997, we set up a ministerial group to look carefully at those issues. The group contained ministerial representatives from a dozen Whitehall Departments and was one of the earliest examples of our ensuring that Government joined up to make an effective difference.
A statement of the group's conclusions was published in July 1997. We set out the action that we considered necessary for all concerned parties to take. In the statement, we made clear our determination to tackle alcohol misuse by young people under 18. Alcohol abuse often leads to crime, under-achievement, damaged lives, poor health and poor employment prospects. The evidence then available showed worrying levels of drinking, reaching down even to primary schools.
Hon. Members will recall that, in the immediate aftermath of that debate, media attention focused on alcopops, which had recently come on to the market.
However, they have never been the only alcoholic drinks illegally obtained by children in this country, as has become clear during this debate. Some suggest that the action taken in respect of alcopops was a knee-jerk reaction to a passing fad, but they are wrong.
I agree with the hon. Member for South Staffordshire and my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North that alcopops represent a worrying trend. Their strength can be masked by fruit and other flavours that are especially appealing to children and that diminishes both awareness of alcohol content and children's traditional taste threshold. Our concern was that many of the drinks were fashion items, packaged and marketed in a way that made them attractive to teenagers and even younger children.
Our view was that several such products had been marketed irresponsibly and that some producers and retailers had lost sight of their duty to their fellow citizens. We all noted that some of the items bought by David Knowles were alcopops. We worked closely with the Portman Group and called on producers and suppliers to discharge their social responsibilities with regard to the problem of under-age drinking. A range of additional controls within the industry's code of practice is a vital outcome of that work and has had a significant impact on the merchandising and packaging of alcoholic drinks.
The additional controls included: appropriate names, packaging and promotion of alcoholic products; avoiding artificially bright colours in either the product or the packaging; ensuring that the taste and texture of products do not mislead about their true alcoholic nature; ensuring that steps are taken to remind sales staff of their responsibilities; ensuring that alcohol is made less accessible to children in shops; ensuring proper staff training and introducing suitable sanctions for breaches of the code; arranging pre-launch clearance of relevant products; ensuring swift compliance with decisions of the independent panel; and requiring compliance with the spirit as well as the letter of the code.
We have monitored progress made by the industry and have been encouraged by its positive response. The number of complaints made under the new code has continued to decline, which is a good sign. Where complaints have been made and upheld, swift compliance with the independent panel's decisions has become the norm. That all helps to ensure that under-age drinking is not encouraged by irresponsible marketing of alcopops.
I join the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) in paying tribute to the Portman Group and the alcohol industry. It is inevitable that, during consideration of the Bill, harsh comments will be made about the liquor industry and examples given of its irresponsible behaviour in the past. However, we can point to examples of the industry's responding positively and responsibly to concerns; it deserves credit for what it has done right, as well as criticism for its failures.
The industry has been responsive to our concerns. Addressing the issues raised by the Bill does not put the House in conflict with the industry--it is not us against them. The progress that the Government have made in the past three years in protecting young people has been achieved by co-operating closely with the industry, encouraging it to put its own house in order, providing it with leadership and direction, and ensuring that it is brought along with efforts to make changes and protect young people.
The industry has shown a willingness to do that. A reflection of its new approach can be seen in the British Institute of Innkeeping's social responsibility initiative. That important initiative involves the industry in several courses of action: first, identifying areas of social responsibility that are relevant to the licensed sector; secondly, developing, co-ordinating and promulgating best practice approaches to social responsibility issues; thirdly, agreeing an agenda for action, especially at local level; and fourthly, publicising the work of the industry to the public and the licensing trade. All of that feeds into the agenda expressed in today's debate.
The Bill is only one element of a wider strategy. One of the main issues to which the industry has started to respond positively is the need for training, which is vital to that broad strategy. In the context of a comprehensive strategy, I cannot emphasise strongly enough the importance of effective training for staff working on premises that sell and serve alcohol--not only licensees, but all staff. They must know the law, and they must understand their responsibilities for doing all in their power to ensure that off-licences, pubs and clubs prevent disorder and crime. For pubs and clubs, that includes not only under-age drinking, disorder and drunkenness, but drugs penetration.
The initiatives represent crucial support for the provisions that we introduced in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. However, such initiatives will be wasted unless the industry as a whole commits itself as a body to the reduction of crime and disorder. It will be action taken in local pubs and off-licences and in local communities that really makes changes and that counts in achieving better long-term results.
I believe that the industry is ready to make that type of commitment. The Minister of State, Home Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), recently hosted an important seminar that was attended by leading figures from the alcohol industry, and work was begun on development of a comprehensive national strategy for dealing better with the impact that alcohol has on crime and disorder. The work has included an examination of the case for further action to combat under-age drinking and its impact.
I, too, regularly meet representatives of the industry. They have been keen to assure me personally that they are keen to play a full part in combating the impact of alcohol misuse.
As hon. Members have said today, there has also been good progress in expanding proof-of-age card schemes, such as the Portman Group's card. Other cards have emerged, often in a broader context than that of alcohol sales. The schemes, which include the CitizenCard and the validate card, are important in helping to prevent children from unlawfully obtaining alcohol. We continue to monitor and support their development.
The hon. Members for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) and for North-East Hertfordshire mentioned the Department for Education and Employment's young people's card and its youth support service, and asked whether that might be a way of supplementing the work done by the Portman Group and other organisations with cards. The Department for Education and Employment and Home Office officials are exploring the possibility of using the new card in that manner, but I can give no guarantees now, as it depends on how events develop. The idea is a
good one in principle, but it remains to be seen whether we shall be able to develop the technology and the administrative back-up to ensure that it is a reliable basis on which to determine the age of young people.
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