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Lord Campbell of Alloway: If it is convenient to the Committee, I should like to reply to the noble Baroness's two points quickly. I take her first point. I had been worried about the drafting too. The amendment must be redrafted.

The noble Baroness's second point was about endless arguments. There will be a vast case—maybe two cases—but once the basis has been decided, as with the restrictive practices legislation which produced three key cases, there will be no more. There will be endless argument, but the issue must be resolved. It will never be resolved below the level of the Appellate Committee of this place. I accept that. However, once the principle has been established, the issue will narrow down to a matter of the facts in each case.

Lord Peston: I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, but I think that the matter is much more serious. I am genuinely surprised that my good friends the noble Lords, Lord Brougham and Vaux and Lord

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Campbell of Alloway, have associated themselves with an amendment that is totally destructive of the basis of the Bill. The amendment should not be before the Committee. We are talking about a noxious product that does massive damage to people. That is the basis on which we are dealing with the Bill. We are not going over the scientific evidence. The suggestion behind the amendment is that those matters are still in doubt, but they are not. We are not legislating on the basis that this is still an open question. I do not remember exactly when the original research on the dangers of smoking was conducted, but it was 30 or 40 years ago.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: The noble Lord says that it is not an open question, but I say that most assuredly it is. This is the dimension of the dispute on fact. We have to face up to it.

Lord Skelmersdale: My noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Peston, seem to be at cross purposes. We all know about the effects of smoking. Nobody in the Committee disagrees with that. However, we do not know what the effects of the Bill will be. That is why I put my name to Amendment No. 90. We would be far better off waiting until the Bill has been in force for six years, 10 years or whatever, and then deciding whether it should remain on the statute book. That seems the sensible way to proceed.

Lord Peston: I should like to finish my remarks. I thought that we were debating Amendment No. 88A as a separate amendment, not as part of a group. That is the amendment that I am objecting to extremely strongly. We shall come on to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale—if we get a move on and I do not take too long—in a few moments.

The amendment is destructive of the Bill and I repeat that I am genuinely surprised that it is before us. I hope that it is withdrawn and we do not waste any more time on it.

Let me add two points now rather than later. First, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, implied that noble Lords could not legislate in this field: that we had to wait for the European Courts and lawyers to decide matters that I thought—we are still a sovereign Parliament—we could decide ourselves.

Secondly, my experience of almost all legislation and everything else is that we do not know for certain what will happen. To make a nasty point, when we privatised the railway industry we did not know for certain what was going to happen. Those of us who opposed the legislation thought that bad things might happen. But the Government did not automatically introduce a six-year clause, saying that they would nationalise the railways again if the legislation did not work out. We legislate in this Chamber on the assumption that we are doing the right thing and with confidence—it may not be 100 per cent—that it will work out. We do not need to add specific six-year or three-year periods, with appeals to all kinds of other courts, in order to legislate. I hope that we shall go

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ahead with the Bill without the additional provisos. Having said that, it enables me not to speak when the noble Lord moves his amendment.

2.30 p.m.

Lord Skelmersdale: I hope that the noble Lord will listen because I shall respond to that amendment and not now.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: Perhaps I may dare to say that my noble friend was a little unfair to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell. My assumption is that the noble Lord raises the amendment in the light of the discussions of the Joint Committee on Human Rights of which he is a member. My honourable friend Ms Yvette Cooper, the Minister for Public Health, wrote a letter responding to the points raised by the committee, a copy of which has been placed in the Library. I have no doubt that that might inform our debate if we return to the issue on Report.

The issue is whether there is clear enough evidence to support the contention that only a comprehensive advertising ban would be sufficient to bring about the desired reduction in tobacco consumption. I suspect that that takes us on to the next amendment. I have no doubt that while there may be disagreements about that from the Government's point of view, in the letter that Yvette Cooper sent to the Joint Committee on Human Rights the Government state firmly their own belief that there is clear evidence and that, therefore, it passes the test posed by the Joint Committee.

I fully accept that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, raises the matter as a way of getting that debate on to the Floor of the House. Perhaps I may suggest that if we return to the issue on Report we have the benefit of the response on that matter from the Department of Health to the Joint Committee.

Lord Clement-Jones: That is a constructive way forward. The wonderful thing about having the Minister speak before me is that my speech then looks extreme compared with his moderation.

I resent the attempt to introduce the notion of fundamental human rights into the issue of tobacco advertising. The banning of tobacco advertising is in no shape or form a breach of fundamental human rights. If we believe that we have evidence, it is perfectly respectable and responsible to pass the Bill in its current form without caveats in the form of sunset clauses, and so on. I have no doubt that we shall be talking about that.

The noble Lord, Lord Peston, made a splendid point about privatising the railways and why we should not add sunset clauses to such legislation. One can cite dangerous dogs legislation. What evidence was there that banning dangerous dogs was going to be useful? I think that probably the evidence is against that now. Let us discuss that in another debate. It will be helpful if we have all read the letter in the Library, as the Minister suggests.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: Having got on to dangerous dogs, one has really no option but to

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withdraw the amendment at once. I am grateful to the Government Front Bench for having realised the importance of what I was trying to do, which is always helpful because it is so rare that anybody in this House—and certainly not the noble Lord, Lord Peston—ever understands what I want to do. But at least I am grateful for small mercies. With a "goodbye" to dangerous dogs, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 16 agreed to.

Clauses 17 and 18 agreed to.

Clause 19 [Transitional provisions: sponsorship]:

On Question, Whether Clause 19 shall stand part of the Bill?

Baroness Noakes: I have given notice, together with my noble friends Lady Anelay of St Johns and Lord Luke, that I wish to oppose Clause 19. This is in order to explore the Government's position regarding the transitional provisions on sponsorship, as they will affect sports such as darts.

Clause 19 allows the Secretary of State to make regulations to specify when the ban on sponsorship in Clause 10 should take effect. We know the latest date on which it could take effect is 1st October 2006 and we also know that the Government intend to give preferential treatment to Formula 1 and to snooker. They will be allowed to escape the effects of the Bill until 2006: other sports will not.

I have nothing whatsoever against either Formula 1 or snooker but I object to the Government treating other sports unfairly. It is perverse to say that these two sports are global and therefore can have until 2006 to sort out their sponsorship deals whereas other sports like darts have to face a cliff-edge drop in sponsorship by 2003, even though it has players from across the globe and has global appeal.

The Government have said in the past that they would set up a taskforce to help sports adjust their sponsorship deals, but to suggest that sports can find replacement sponsors easily is a misunderstanding of the commercial marketplace. The current shortfall is estimated to be £10 million, with an additional £10 million for marketing sporting events.

The secretary-general of the British Darts Organisation, Ollie Croft, wrote to my honourable friend in another place, John Greenaway, to make this point about the taskforce:


    "The taskforce was simply a gesture to give the impression that we were being given assistance. In truth, there probably is not a business out there which can replace the funding we receive from Imperial Tobacco. Our main concern is that we have only until 2003 to save our sport. What would help enormously is an extension to 2006, like Formula One and snooker. We can fulfil the Government's criterion of being a global sport. The number of countries which are members of the World Darts Federation or associate international members of the British Darts Organisation shows that this claim can be justified".

When my noble friend Lady Anelay raised these points in the Second Reading debate last March the Minister stated that he did not wish to prejudge the

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consultation process during which the British Darts Organisation would be able to make representations. Will the Minister give the House details about the progress made by that consultation process? Do the Government recognise that darts is indeed a global sport?

The Minister will no doubt be aware that the England team recently won all the gold medals in the Darts World Cup in Kuala Lumpur, and in the 2002 Embassy World Professional Darts Championship 13 of the 54 playing nations were represented. Indeed it was won by an Australian, Tony David, who is a non-smoker. The Embassy is a high-profile TV event enjoyed by millions of viewers, and flies the flag for the UK. I am told by the British Darts Organisation that just last week BBC TV Sport signed a new three-year contract to continue screening the world championships. Surely it would be in nobody's interests for this event to be dropped because the British Darts Organisation would be forbidden to obtain sponsorship from the tobacco industry.

Is the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, aware of the social benefits of darts? When youngsters play darts, they learn discipline and basic mental arithmetic. It is not expensive as a hobby and it has no language or cultural barriers. It is indeed a sport for all.

I hope that the Minister will tell the House today that the Government have reconsidered their position and that darts will be treated in the same way as snooker so that its deadline for tobacco sponsorship is extended to 2006.


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