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Baroness O'Cathain: Would this Bill not actually prohibit any hospitality tent for corporate sponsorship by a tobacco company? Therefore, you would not have the problem of three companies with three tents: you would have only the two which were not tobacco companies.

The Earl of Erroll: I am not sure at all. I am only trying to respond to what I have been hearing. I shall be corrected if I am wrong, but a tobacco company could take a tent at some event as long as it was not trying to plaster its name all over it, advertising a tobacco product. The challenge then comes because there is a degree of sponsorship of the event involved. Money has been contributed by the company which helps to support the event. The moment the company serves free cigarettes in the tent at the end of a meal, it has actually supplied a tobacco product, which might be seen to be a promotion whereas, next door, British Gas can quite happily light up and set the world on fire.

Lord Peston: There is a misunderstanding here. This has nothing to do with giving free brandy or cigars at the end of a meal. The Bill has no connection with that whatever and I cannot imagine any rational person thinking that it did. When I was at the annual dinner of the Institute of Directors a few weeks ago people were offered cigars—I immediately refused—and it did not occur to me that the Institute of Directors was promoting tobacco products. Even if the organisation had not been the Institute of Directors, I do not see

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that it was promoting tobacco products. It was doing something for which I certainly not care, but that is not a problem at all.

The only issue is sponsorship, which is another matter. In this case, sponsorship is very clearly and simply ruled out, as it ought to be.

I am a little puzzled by the "private" issue. The Lords and Commons Tobacco Group, or whatever it now calls itself, has not yet declared its interest on this amendment, although it has on earlier ones. I take it for granted, however, that members of that group do not receive free pipe tobacco and free cigars from tobacco companies, so that they have no interest to declare on this matter. I make the point just to be entirely sure that I know where I am.

Lord Monson: It would be extremely helpful if the Minister would confirm that the noble Lord, Lord Peston, is right that it would be quite legal for a tobacco company to dish out free cigars and cigarettes as well as some brandy and coffee at the end of a meal.

Lord Peston: My point is that it is a complete irrelevance whether they dish them out. The question is whether their activity is a sponsorship activity. People at these sponsorship events may find other things more attractive than cigars, such as bags of sweets, which would be just as illegal as anything else at a sponsorship event. In this case the essence is sponsorship; it is not to do specifically with free cigars or cigarettes. That is not what the provision is about, and I am rather keen that we should at least debate what it is about.

Lord Monson: That makes it all the more important that we hear from the Government precisely how they interpret the situation. May I put it to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that the recipients of corporate hospitality are very unlikely to be teenagers or even in their 20s or 30s? Those who accept cigarettes or cigars at the end of a meal in a corporate hospitality tent are likely to be confirmed smokers, who are not those whom the Bill seeks to protect. It is an important point.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, will undoubtedly wish to respond to those points. Surely, however, the essence of the issue is addressed in Clause 10(1) which deals with purpose. If the sponsorship purpose is to promote a tobacco product then it falls within the terms of the clause.

Lord Clement-Jones: We may well have come across one or two interesting highways and byways in considering Clause 10, but, as the Minister said, the clause's intent is utterly clear. Although I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Peston, that the provision is all about sponsorship, I think that the interpretation of the noble Earl, Lord Liverpool, is probably correct. It may be something that tobacco companies will have to live with. If a tobacco company places cigarettes on the table at an event that it sponsors in its corporate name, that may well constitute promoting a tobacco product.

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It is something that they will probably have to live with. I do not think that allowing them to do so will serve the purposes of this Bill in any shape or form.

Lord Monson: Would it be in order for them to place on the table a rival company's tobacco products?

Lord Clement-Jones: I have never thought that the tobacco companies were that naive.

The point on corporate events and younger people will not wash. Younger people are the target audience at some of the events sponsored by tobacco companies, whether they are beach parties, polo matches or many other events of which your Lordships are aware. The age groups concerned do not start at 25.

I am slightly baffled why the noble Earl, Lord Liverpool, felt it necessary to table Amendment No. 63. Provided that it is not promoting tobacco products, sponsorship of trade association activities in the corporate name seems to be a perfectly legitimate activity in terms of Clause 10. If a tobacco company wishes to have a knees-up for its employees, or even for the employees of another company through the trade association, the provision would not, so far as I can see, prohibit it. In promoting Amendments Nos. 62 and 63, the noble Earl, Lord Liverpool, has rather made out that Clause 10 is more restrictive than it truly is. If he re-examines the wording, he might find that it is rather more benign than he thinks.

Lord Faulkner of Worcester: Before the noble Lord sits down, would he comment on the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, about the people at whom the Bill is aimed? He said that the Bill is not aimed at confirmed smokers. My understanding is that it is aimed at the 70 per cent of confirmed smokers who are desperate to give up smoking but do not have the will power to do so and who are irritated by the existence of sponsorship and advertising.

Lord Clement-Jones: Absolutely. We are trying to prevent not only new smokers but relapses by those trying to give up smoking. The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, is entirely right about that.

Lord Naseby: Amendment No. 63 does not seem as clear as the noble Lord suggests. As I read it, although one can advertise and give away products and coupons within the tobacco trade, a tobacco company cannot sponsor an event that is exclusively for the tobacco trade. If my interpretation is wrong, I very much hope that the Minister will tell me. On my reading of the Bill, it would be impossible for a tobacco company to sponsor an event exclusively for the tobacco trade. Amendment No. 63, however, seeks to make it clear that such sponsorship is possible, just as it is possible to advertise within the tobacco trade.

Lord Skelmersdale: I had not intended to intervene in this discussion, but as it has been shown—we have had discussions on the matter—that advertisements

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circulating within the tobacco trade are legal, it seems a nonsense that corporate entertainment purely for the tobacco trade is not, if that is the case.

Lord Clement-Jones: I do not believe that that is the case. Provided that they are not intended to promote tobacco products, events such as employee knees-up or whatever they may happen to be are entirely legitimate.

Lord Naseby: The noble Lord says "provided that they are not promoting tobacco products", but advertising within the tobacco trade is promoting cigarettes or other tobacco products albeit within the trade. Coupons can be used within the trade. All such activity, which may deal with new developments and so on, is by definition promoting tobacco, albeit just within the trade. The question that my noble friends and I are asking is that if the Bill makes such activity legal—I very much hope that the Minister will confirm that it is; it has certainly been the interpretation all the way through our consideration—why should the tobacco companies not be allowed to sponsor, exclusively to the tobacco trade, a session that is about promoting tobacco? I am not talking about employee knees-up and that type of thing, but a session that is exclusively for the tobacco trade. By definition, such sessions are bound to have some information about the tobacco trade.

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff: I may be naive about the provisions' legal aspects, but I am concerned about the amendment. The spirit of the Bill is to prevent sponsorship, particularly as it affects young people. Amendment No. 63 might create a loophole whereby any student who has ever sold a packet of cigarettes during their holiday job in Spar could be deemed as one who had been,


    "engaged in the tobacco trade (even if they are also engaged in another trade)",

which may be studying, or working in Spar, or Tesco—I do not intend to advertise a specific supermarket.

Students are notoriously short of cash for social events and they would be quite keen to take up an invitation to any event. It seems that Amendment No. 63 would enable a tobacco company to lay on and pay for a social activity such as a ball that could include just about every student in the National Union of Students, almost all of whom have had a holiday job in some of those outlets.


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