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Baroness Finlay of Llandaff: I support what the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, has just said. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, for having referred to my previous comments. I should of course welcome anything which promotes objective research into any topic. I certainly would have no objection to increasing funding for research.

However, I have a problem with the timeframe put on the matter. If there is to be an allowance for sponsorship to continue in some sports—I do not want to revisit that argument—until possibly 2006, that is six years from when this Bill may be enacted. We are now in 2002. That will take us to 2008. It will give us only two, and not six, years in which to collect evidence. It is practically impossible to collect the kind of evidence of changes in behaviour and changes in patterns within two years, particularly because of the confounding variables which have just been referred to by the previous speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Jay.

The Earl of Erroll: I have listened to the debate with interest. I wonder whether we should take the two things separately. Obviously, from the point of view of the promoter of the Bill, Amendment No. 90 is unacceptable because he will be desperate to make sure that the legislation stays on the statue book for as long as possible.

Amendment No. 89 has a great deal of merit. As I listened to the fact that it may not even be possible to measure the difference that the legislation will have—and it may have no effect—I suddenly thought that for the last I do not know how many years the advertising of cigarettes has tried to promote the fact that smoking kills. There has been nothing saying that it is healthy—and that has not had any effect. One begins to think, "Well perhaps this will have less effect than one would think". It would be useful to know whether or not it will work, because this Bill could be used as a precedent to attack other legitimate forms of business and so on when there is not sufficient evidence to prove that it will do any good.

It frightens me that we are passing a Bill which may have no effect. In doing so, we shall probably be destroying certain businesses, possibly certain sports and all kinds of things which have worked perfectly well. I am not saying that we should not do that. I am going along with the matter because that decision has been taken. However, I think that it would be quite wise to sit back and to find out whether the legislation will be effective, so that in six, eight or 10 years' time if it is found to be totally ineffective, people will not start saying, "Well, this is a wonderful example for doing the same thing to something else to which someone else

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objects". Alternatively it may be that Parliament decides that the legislation should be reversed and introduces a Bill to repeal the legislation.

Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen: I speak briefly to my Amendment No. 93, which is self-explanatory. Some noble Lords will know that I have spoken on the issue of employment in particular in the tobacco industry during previous debates.

I must declare an interest. Before I came to your Lordships' House I was a national official of MSF which has had the new name of Amicus since 1st January. Amicus has members who work in the tobacco industry. Rightly or wrongly, they believe that if this Bill is carried—it may be that it is carried with other provisions as well—they are in danger of losing some jobs in the tobacco industry. I remind your Lordships that we are talking about skilled workers. Thanks to those who have been negotiating in the tobacco industry, they are also among our better paid jobs. Those jobs are throughout the country, including in Northern Ireland. I have itemised the areas previously in your Lordships' House. They include areas which already have high unemployment. I have spoken particularly because I have a knowledge of the tobacco industry, but the question of employment could apply also to printers and those involved in advertising.

I hope that by raising this matter today I can have an assurance from the Minister that, if the Bill is passed, an eye will be kept on what is happening with regard to employment.

3.15 p.m.

The Earl of Listowel: I want to draw the Committee's attention to Amendments Nos. 89 and 90. They seem to reinforce the idea that the House should have some form of post-legislative scrutiny, to see that legislation passed in the House is effective.

Lord Skelmersdale: I have been a fan of sunset clauses, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Peston, judging by what he said earlier, ever since I had the opportunity to go to Wellington for a parliamentary conference on statutory instruments in the mid-1990s. I was educated in sunset clauses by the Australian contingent who scatter—there is no other word for it—sunset clauses around their statute book like confetti.

I promised to answer the noble Lord, Lord Peston, at this point, rather than earlier. I would be the first to say to him that such clauses are not always appropriate. That is not because the outcome of the Bill is unclear and therefore it needs a sunset clause; it is because, as my noble friend Lady Noakes said, we are banning the advertising of a perfectly legal product. If it does not work, we should not continue to do it. It is as simple as that. However, governments always rely on the difficulty of finding time to get new legislation—banning legislation, for example—onto the statute book. That is why, in this case, I believe that a sunset clause is important.

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The noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, and I were both Health Ministers, she much more recently than I. There has been a successful package of measures to persuade people to give up smoking, and this is an extra—to mix my metaphors—arm to that package. I hope that it will continue to be successful, but, as far as one can tell—the evidence is by no means conclusive—banning the advertising of tobacco and tobacco products has, in other European countries, had, to say the least, an erratic effect. For example, consumption in Finland has almost halved, since legislation was introduced on the subject; in Sweden, it has gone done significantly, but not nearly as much; and, in Norway, it has gone up by a small amount.

I do not know what the effect of the legislation in this country will be in six years' time. Nor, to return to what the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, had to say, do I know what effect the total package of measures that will then be in force will have. However, I believe that there is no guarantee that smoking levels will continue to go down. That is why I support the idea of a sunset clause.

I do not think that the lead amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Noakes is very helpful. I am all for the Secretary of State making an informed decision, but I am not entirely sure that the rolling commission that she suggests will help to inform that decision. Perhaps I should say to my noble friend that I am agnostic on that amendment.

Lord Peston: I do not want to speak about sunset clauses, as I have already expressed a view on that, but I would like to say a word or two about research.

I very much support the view of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, that we want more research in this area. However, research into behavioural areas is immensely difficult. In my normal cynical mode, I would say that if someone gives me a problem such as this one, I will find an economist, a data set and a statistical method that will come out with answer "A". I will then find a second economist and data set that will produce answer "Not A"—possibly, its reverse. Then, I will find a third one who will not decide between "A" and "Not A".

This is a difficult area. My noble friend Lady Jay was right to say that not only will there be research—the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, pointed out that it is a fascinating area—but it will require study over an enormously long time period. We need to study several cohorts of young people, starting when the Bill becomes an Act and carrying on more or less through their lifetimes. Only then could we even begin to believe that we can reach an answer, let alone know that we would do so.

With all due respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, she may be a little naive as regards how quickly any light could be thrown on to this subject. I can say only that I would take a similar view about monetary policy and the Bank of England. Much as I support the Bank's monetary policy, we could be just as difficult about how clearly research-based it is. I might go further and say that if all legislation had to

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be evidence-based, I doubt whether we would pass very much legislation at all. That might not necessarily be a bad thing.

That leads me to my second remark. Why do we not occasionally use our common sense? I realise that I am not wearing my professorial hat, as I do when I am in the business of promoting research, but if we use our common sense with regard to what the tobacco companies are up to and what they think that they can achieve, it defies belief that they do not consider that they sell more cigarettes as a result of advertising and promotion. Perhaps that undermines the social sciences, but a little common sense in this area is also worthwhile.

I was delighted to hear from my noble friend Lady Gibson that her former union has been renamed. I have learnt at least one new thing today. I congratulate the union on choosing the marvellous name of Amicus. I have devoted my life to supporting full employment as the main objective of government policy and we must never move away from that. However, we have to be realistic. If the Bill is passed and it succeeds, then we hope that fewer cigarettes will be sold, not only in this country but also abroad. There is therefore a genuine threat to the employment of my noble friend's former members. My heart goes out to them because that is something I never want to see. However, that tells us that on another occasion we should consider the whole question of employment policy. We should put in place policies that will help those workers.

Before I resume my seat, perhaps I may make a political point. We do not need any lessons from the other side on the creation of unemployment. They were willing to destroy the coalmining industry and ruin the lives of large numbers of people. It is good news that they seek to defend the position of tobacco workers, but I do not feel that there is any moral weakness on our side if some jobs are put at risk. The route to solving the problem is to look at the whole question of employment rather than to consider tobacco advertising.


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