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Lord Geddes: My Lords, with apologies to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, I intervene to ask guidance from the House, having been "barred"—if I can put it that way—from speaking on the previous amendment.

As I understand it, anyone who is not a proposer of an amendment, is not the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, whose Bill it is, and is not a Minister, will need to intervene between the comments of the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. Either that or he has to intervene before the Minister speaks. If that is so, then it is impossible to make any comment, other than as the proposer of the amendment, on what either the Minister or the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said. I find that curious. But if those are the rules of the House then I shall abide by them. I should like guidance on that point.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention. Standing Orders say that only the mover of an amendment or the Peer in charge of the Bill speaks after the Minister on Report,

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except for short questions of elucidation to the Minister or, where the Minister speaks early to assist the House, in debate. Standing Orders also go on to say that arguments fully deployed in a Committee of the Whole House should not be repeated at length on Report.

Lord Peston: My Lords, that is most helpful.

Lord Lucas: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Peston, would doubtless say what I want to say rather better, or perhaps not.

I quite agree with what is being said. We have a forum coming up on this point, which is a review of the procedures of this House. If we are going to deal with Bills much more in the Moses Room then we need a Report stage where we can debate things and make comments when we know what the Minister thinks about what is being said. I find it to be a real problem with Bills. On my amendments I shall speak at length, perhaps half an hour, whereas if I were able to ask the Minister a question I might be able to take half a minute. It is a time-consuming process and I quite understand my noble friend's frustration.

Lord Peston: My Lords, I was not going to comment on that but on the amendment, which may fill people with great horror. However, I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that, as someone devoted to this House, I am a firm believer in sticking both to our precise rules and to our conventions. In particular, I draw the noble Lord's attention to remarks in the Companion regarding the length of speeches. But his approach to the House is up to him.

I support my noble friend Lord Faulkner and, being an extremely naive person, thank him for one remark that he made. I have been approaching the Bill purely at its level; in other words, taking it seriously. But my noble friend reminded us that the people that we are dealing with—I hold no one in this country in lower esteem than the people in the tobacco industry and those who associate with them, as noble Lords are aware—will seek to undermine everything that we seek to do here. I hope that that colours all noble Lords' contributions to the amendments. Noble Lords should ask themselves in all cases, "Should we be absolutely certain that the one thing that we do not do is give them any opportunity to undermine what we are seeking to achieve in the Bill?" So I particularly want to thank my noble friend for introducing that thought under the heading of this amendment. But I must say that I think that it applies to a great many of the other amendments to the Bill.

I take it for granted that we are bona fide people. I wish that the people out there for whom we are legislating were equally so.

The Earl of Liverpool: My Lords, my Amendment No. 40 has been grouped with the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner. I shall therefore speak to it now, although it relates to a different issue from the ones that he raised.

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I would not have tabled the amendment were it not for my concern about remarks made during consideration of the Bill regarding private hospitality. I really cannot believe that it is being suggested that it would be an offence for a tobacco supplier to offer his guests cigarettes or cigars after a meal but it would not an offence if the offer was made by a drinks company. The implication would be that the tobacco supplier for the purpose or effect by so doing was promoting a product. That is ridiculous because we are talking about hospitality on a private occasion. None the less, from what was said in debate in Committee and in another place in the previous Parliament it seems that that is what is intended by the supporters of the Bill.

I should like to suggest that we must not forget that the tobacco industry is an industry going about its legal and lawful business, and, incidentally, generating in excess of £7 billion per annum to the Exchequer. It would be extraordinary for it to be discriminated against in this way. Hence I make no apology for this amendment. It would not be called for if that was not the opinion of the promoter of the Bill.

In Committee, the principal discussion on the offering of tobacco products at private hospitality occasions took place in the context of Clause 10—sponsorship agreements. I believe that it would be more properly dealt with under Clause 9; hence the amendment in my name. I hope that by speaking to the amendment I shall receive an assurance from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that it is not necessary because an offence would not be committed in the circumstances I have described. If he is able to give that assurance it will surely be proof that the amendment is fully justified.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Peston, said that the tobacco companies would do anything to undermine the Bill. In fact the position is, whether that be true or not, that the Bill undermines itself if it is drawn up in a manner which is not proportionate to the object—to protect public health—or if it is in restraint of trade, as contrary to the European treaty. So that, far from looking at it in the way in which, with respect, the noble Lord was looking at it, I merely intervene—as a result certainly of the International Transport case in the Court of Appeal, judgment of which was delivered on 26th of last month—to point out that there is a strongly arguable case on either score if the Bill undermines itself on either of those accounts. One must look at the Bill very carefully to try to ensure that it is not disproportionate.

The Earl of Erroll: My Lords, I rise briefly to support the noble Earl, Lord Liverpool. I spoke on this issue in Committee, so I heartily support the amendment. It is quite a ridiculous state of affairs that one cannot do in one tent what is being done quite legally next door merely because one happens to be a tobacco company.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, is quite right in his

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comments that the terms of the Bill need to be proportionate. We shall in due course come on to matters that the noble Lord addresses in a later amendment.

Having listened to my noble friend Lord Faulkner, I believe that he helps the Bill to be more proportionate by being much more specific as to what is meant by the term "the tobacco trade". It is worth stating that the purpose of Clause 4—and indeed of Clause 9—is to ensure that we get the right balance; that legitimate business is allowed to continue, but that the promotion and advertising of tobacco products is restricted. In that context, the wording put forward by my noble friend allows us to get that balance more nearly right. Under the proposed new wording it would still, for instance, be possible for trade magazines to be distributed to targeted individuals—namely, those responsible for making decisions on purchasing tobacco products as well as their managers—but it would ensure that trade magazines do not reach those who, say, work in supermarket kiosks and so on.

The same point arises in Clause 9. Its purpose is to ensure that legitimate business is allowed to continue, but that the promotion and advertising of tobacco products is restricted. From the Government's point of view, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, to be sympathetic to the amendments tabled by my noble friend.

I turn to the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Liverpool. I agree with him that it is perhaps somewhat surprising that the amendment has been grouped in this way as it relates to a rather different issue. But I hope that I can reassure the noble Earl on the matter. Clause 9(3) covers the giving away of products and coupons to the trade. We are at the moment discussing the amendment of my noble friend Lord Faulkner to narrow this exemption to what he considers to be acceptable. When we are considering free distribution, we need to be clear that we are looking at this on the basis of whether or not it has the purpose or effect of promoting a tobacco product.

I do not consider that the giving away of cigarettes or cigars at the end of a meal necessarily constitutes an act whose purpose or effect is to promote a tobacco product. It really depends on how and why it was done. As the Minister for Public Health said in the other place during debates on the earlier Bill:


    "The hon. Member . . . referred to the handing out of cigars at the end of a meal or as part of an entertainment. We want to stop the giving away of products or coupons for the purpose of promoting a tobacco product. We want to stop free gifts being handed out for the purpose of promoting tobacco products and encouraging people to buy them. Let us suppose that such a strategy includes making a big fuss about a particular cigar or cigarette; mention is made of how wonderful they are and details are given about where such products can be obtained . . . That is a promotion strategy. However, if cigars are handed out at the end of a meal to those who want to smoke them, that process is not about the promotion or sale of tobacco products".—[Official Report, Commons Standing Committee A, 6/2/01; col. 107.]

I hope that has made the Government's position clear to the noble Earl; I think that that meets his concerns.

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Noon.

Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, was right to remind us that of course we need to consider the proportionality of the Bill—whether it is proportional in achieving its aims. We have been conscious of the arguments in Committee, but we need to remind ourselves of the Bill's purpose. Its purpose is to save lives lost through young people, in particular, taking up smoking. The terms of the Bill are proportionate; that will become clear during today's proceedings.

The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, may be surprised to hear that I agree with him that on occasion it is appropriate to go beyond simply saying that the natural meaning of a word in a Bill is how it should be interpreted. On occasion, when it serves the purpose of the Bill, we should define terms more closely. The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, has done us a service by tabling the amendments.

The issue entirely concerns determining who is a genuine, bona fide member of the tobacco trade and who is not. At one end of the scale is someone who briefly worked for a supermarket chain selling cigarettes. I doubt that many noble Lords would class such a person as being in the tobacco trade. At the other end is the chief executive of, let us say, British American Tobacco, who is definitely in the trade. In between is a huge grey area that it is necessary to define if we are to give special privileges to people who are part of the trade. The point of giving a trade exemption in the Bill is that advertising to the trade is intended to influence shopkeepers over which products to sell, not which to smoke. Why, then, should everyone who works in a supermarket be targeted, when 99 per cent of them have no control over the products bought by the store?

That is why I urged noble Lords to support the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner. The amendments get the definition pretty much right. They would eliminate someone with a Saturday job in Tesco, but not, for example, Tesco's buyer of cigarettes or boss. I therefore agree with both the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, and the Minister that the amendments should be accepted. Not to do so risks leaving a large loophole, potentially leaving a large proportion of the population—more or less everyone who works in the supermarket sector—free to be targeted by the tobacco industry in its advertising supposedly aimed at the tobacco trade.

Turning to Amendment No. 40, I must confess that I have had cause to reflect since Committee entirely as a result of the amendments tabled then by the noble Earl, Lord Liverpool. The key issue is whether tobacco companies can distribute their products—or those of their competitors— to clients, members of staff or whoever, if they are doing so as part of some form of corporate hospitality.

Having carefully considered the Bill's provisions, I must agree that, for example, an Imperial Tobacco box at Wimbledon does not constitute a sponsorship agreement under the terms of the Bill. It is a different sort of commercial transaction. Imperial Tobacco

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would buy the use of a tent or box from the organisers of the event. That is different from sponsoring an event yourself. In addition, if the box is in the corporate name of the manufacturer—Imperial or Gallaher, for example—rather than the brand name of cigarettes, it cannot be said that the intention or effect of the commercial transaction is to promote a tobacco product. Rather, it is likely to be in order to further contacts with suppliers, clients or policy-makers, such as ourselves. Such activity is not intended to be caught by the Bill, and I do not believe that it will.

The difficulty comes if, in the course of that event, tobacco products are distributed free—for example, by the passing round of cigars at the end of a meal. Under Clause 9, it may appear at first glance that such distributions are prohibited. However, generally, as the Minister made clear, the purpose of such distribution of cigars is not to promote a product. Rather, they are provided for the same reason as are the rest of the evening's events: to try to influence opinion, reward successful staff, and so on. As such, I am confident that such activity is not covered by the Bill.


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