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A number of organisations have written to me and I was told about a Nottinghamshire trading standards response. It said that the orders in the Bill,
- “will in reality not prove much of a deterrent for retailers bent on selling tobacco to minors. At present, it is understood both by trading standards officers and retailers that the majority of magistrates do not treat this breach of the law particularly seriously when cases go to court”.
These comments worry me, as they suggest that the very people who are charged with tackling under-age tobacco sales—the trading standards officers—are seriously concerned about how much adherence to the law there is. We should remember that proper enforcement of under-age sales would protect retailers—we have heard a lot on behalf of them today—who abide by the law and would help to clamp down on the sale of smuggled cigarettes.
The lack of seriousness with which adherence to the law is taken is highlighted by the disparity between how licensing differs for tobacco products and other items with a minimum age of sale of 18, such as alcohol and fireworks, the sale of which are subject to licensing. Fireworks account for approximately 1,000 injuries per year, which is, of course, far too many. But in the UK, around 114,000 people die from smoking-related illnesses each year. There are strong arguments for introducing a similar licensing system for the sale
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Today, I seek the Committee’s support for a simple amendment to give the Government and Parliament the opportunity to monitor the success of their policy in discouraging underage tobacco sales. I beg to move.
Lord Monson: The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, and I have crossed swords over tobacco on many occasions in the past two or three years, so he may be surprised to hear that I have no quarrel, in principle, with his amendment—in principle, that is—although I wonder whether one year is sufficiently long to evaluate the success of the new legislation. Two years might be better.
However, I am puzzled by the wording at the end of the noble Lord’s amendment. It refers to,
Supposing that one were to substitute “alcohol” for “tobacco”; if you heard somebody talk about an alcohol offence being committed against someone under 18, you would assume that that referred to drunken yobs launching unprovoked assaults on innocent teenagers. Such wording would not, however, be used to describe somebody selling a can of lager to those teenagers. Would it not be simpler if the noble Lord’s amendment referred simply to preventing tobacco or tobacco products being sold to persons aged under 18?
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: As is so often the case, the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, has come up with an interesting and sensible idea that has merit. I was struck by the YouGov poll that showed such widespread public support—I think that it was 87 per cent—for the idea of a licensing regime for tobacco. That would be logical, as being licensed means that your staff are trained in requiring ID cards, assessing people’s ages and all that comes with that. When we think of the training in food handling needed for even a small shop to sell just a couple of food items—the certificates on food handling, and so on—it is extraordinary that when we come, as the noble Lord said, to selling a product with far greater health implications, one could walk in as a shop assistant and just sell it over the counter.
There are many implications behind what the noble Lord says. As for the retailers, if we are to move forward by working out the best way of doing this in conjunction with both them and trading standards officers, then this is a practical way to progress that argument.
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Baroness Finlay of Llandaff: I do not wish to prolong the debate, as the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, has most eloquently said most of the things that needed to be said. To emphasise his point, 82 per cent of adult smokers started as teenagers. It is during the teens that the addictive potential seems to be, physiologically, at its greatest, which is why all of the Government’s initiatives against teenage smoking are so important.
The amendment, and its idea of reporting back, would give the opportunity for trading standards officers and those in the law enforcement process, such as magistrates, to feed back formally. In your Lordships’ House, we sometimes feel that we could do with feedback on how some new legislation is working. Perhaps we should formally collect the data. At the moment we put down Questions only to find that people have to scurry around trying to pull data together from lots of different sources. If this amendment were accepted, it would allow prospective collection of data that would then allow reporting back. That would be much less costly than a series of parliamentary Questions put down in a year’s time, with people scurrying around to pull data together.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote: I also very much support the amendment. All of the briefing we have had from ASH and others makes the situation clear. We do not have the facts and figures. If we have those in a year’s time, we may want to extend it a bit longer than that. However, initially, it will provide a helpful check on what will have been achieved at that stage. Of all the figures on the age at which you start smoking and the damage it does to you, the one that sticks in my mind is that, if you start smoking before the age of 15, your risk of lung cancer is at least doubled. That alone should make us think twice, if not four times, about any of these areas. I backed the rise in the age for purchasing tobacco from 16 to 18 so I very much support the amendment.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: Above all, on this important problem, we have to change the fashion among teenagers for smoking. That will take time. It will not happen in a year but that does not mean that the amendment is a bad idea. Collecting the data within a reasonable length of time will be useful, although a year may not be long enough—I do not know enough about the technicalities.
However, it is the fashion that has to change. We all know that teenagers spread fashions among themselves and that it is still very fashionable to smoke among many of them. That is why our education process, although useful, is not the end of the story. The teenagers themselves have got to change their minds about what it is fun and cool to do. At the moment, it is still cool for many to smoke. I hope that, gradually—through government measures, what is said in Parliament and, above all, through what is written in teenage magazines—the fashion will change. Then, we shall scotch the problem, but not until then.
The Earl of Onslow: It is worth recalling how things have changed enormously in relation to tobacco over the past 50 years. When I went to Aden
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Lord Bach: I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Faulkner for his amendment and to all noble Lords who have spoken to it. I pay tribute to my noble friend for his constant work on this subject over many years. He talked about today being No Smoking Day. It is also Budget Day and measures have been taken on this that should also please him. He made a good point about retailers—quite rightly, we have had important debates on them. However, every time a retailer sells tobacco to under-18s, it is an offence to law-abiding retailers who do not. Therefore, it is for their benefit as well.
We recognise that noble Lords are legitimately concerned that this proposal should be delivered in an effective and fair manner. I remind the Committee that we take the problem of under-age smoking very seriously. Noble Lords should have no doubt that we are working hard to make this policy a success.
Before addressing the amendment itself, I should like to say a few words about positive licensing. The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, made some interesting points in that regard as did my noble friend in moving his amendment. Two years ago we consulted widely on this issue, and the majority of respondents supported a negative licensing system. While we agree that there would be some specific benefits in having a positive licensing system, as outlined by the noble Baroness, there would be additional bureaucratic burdens on local authorities and retailers that would outweigh those benefits. A positive licensing system would require prospective tobacco retailers to apply for a local authority licence before they could sell tobacco products, and retailers found to be persistently breaking the law on underage sales would have their licences removed either on a temporary or on a permanent basis. Under the negative licensing system that we are adopting, retailers are free to sell tobacco but can lose their right to do so under a court-imposed order.
This is not a closed subject, of course, but for the moment we think that we are right to go down this path. A negative licensing scheme creates a powerful incentive for retailers to comply with the law on the age of sale without requiring a new and extensive bureaucracy to support it. However, I have no doubt that this debate will continue.
This amendment would require the Government to report to Parliament within a year of commencement about the effectiveness of arrangements preventing the illegal sale of tobacco to persons under the age of 18. No doubt noble Lords would bring their customary thoroughness to scrutinising the effectiveness of this policy, but we are not sure that the amendment is an
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However, we understand very well the concern that lies behind the amendment. While we do not think that an inflexible statutory requirement to report to Parliament in a set period would be the best way forward, we believe that noble Lords should have access to full information about the success of this policy. I can therefore assure the Committee that the Department of Health intends to monitor these new measures carefully and report back to Parliament once their effects have become clear. Given that the period over which compliance is judged is two years, it is unlikely to report before 2011, but of course that does not stop noble Lords and Members of another place bringing up this subject in the mean time, which no doubt they will do.
The types of information to be covered by the report might include the number of restricted premises and sales orders imposed, the number of prosecutions under the 1933 Act and the number of fixed penalty notices for the sale of tobacco to people under the minimum age. It might include the prevalence of smoking among young people, the number of those under the minimum age who attempt to buy tobacco from retailers, and the difficulty they encounter in making a purchase. That is reported annually in smoking, drinking and drug use surveys, as well as the number of failed test purchases. So I hope that the information that my noble friend is concerned that we should discuss will be before Parliament, but a year from April 2009 is too soon for the data to be as useful as they might be. For these reasons, and thanking him for the amendment, I would ask that he withdraw it.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: I am a little overwhelmed by the degree of support for the amendment from all parts of the Committee, including from my old friend the noble Lord, Lord Monson, who quite rightly said that the wording is not perfect. I accept that immediately. If I were to continue with the amendment, I would talk to him about changing it. However, in view of the undertaking that my noble friend has given about a review after two years, I do not intend to do that.
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I would like to impress on the Government the importance of making it clear to trading standards officers and magistrates that the sale of tobacco to children and under-18s is a serious offence. It causes social mischief and creates a health hazard. The message has to go out from the Department of Health that this is unacceptable and that the department wants to see it stopped. Unless we can deal with the problem before people become addicted to this dreadful drug, the prevalence of tobacco will continue to be at a high level. In thanking everybody who took part in the debate and taking on board the assurances given by my noble friend, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 35 [Amendments to armed forces legislation]:
Lord Bach moved Amendment No. 177C:
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 177C, I will speak to a large group of minor and consequential amendments. They serve two distinct purposes. Amendments Nos. 177C, 177D, 177E and 177F to Part 1 of Schedule 35 and Amendments Nos. 180ZZA, 180ZZB, 180ZZC and 180ZZD to Part 3 of Schedule 37 are consequential on the removal from the Bill of Clauses 42 and 43 relating to appeals. The remaining amendments make equivalent provision in armed forces legislation to Parts 2 and 3 of the Bill and consequential amendments. I beg to move.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: The Minister may recall that I was involved in the passage of the Armed Forces Bill. I declare an interest as chairman of the Association of Military Court Advocates. During the passage of that Bill, we asked that military law be rather more comprehensible. The number of amendments here to an Act that is only a year or two old is such that any practitioner will find it very difficult to understand where military law now stands. Will the Minister consider what steps can be taken to produce a loose-leaf volume containing all the amendments that are made to the Act?
Lord Bach: That seems an extremely reasonable request. I would like to come back to the noble Lord when I have been able to talk to officials about what may be the best thing to do.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bach moved Amendments Nos. 177D to 177N:
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“3 In section 21 (appeal against finding of not guilty by reason of insanity), after subsection (1A) (as inserted by the Armed Forces Act 2006) insert—
“4 In section 25 (disposal of appeal against finding of unfitness), after subsection (1A) (as inserted by the Armed Forces Act 2006) insert—
6B Section 25B(3) (as substituted by the Armed Forces Act 2006) (effect of interim hospital order made by Appeal Court) is omitted.
(2) The Court Martial shall be treated for the purposes of section 38(7) of the Mental Health Act 1983 (absconding offenders) as the court that made the order.”
6D In section 36 (powers of Court under Part 2 which are exercisable by single judge), in subsection (1) after paragraph (h) insert—
(2) In subsection (1), at the beginning insert “For the purposes of an appeal or an application for leave to appeal,”.
“(1A) The power conferred by subsection (1)(a) may be exercised so as to require the production of any document, exhibit or other thing mentioned in that subsection to—
(6) In subsection (4), at the beginning insert “For the purposes of an appeal or an application for leave to appeal,”.
“(5) In this section, “respondent” includes a person who will be a respondent if leave to appeal is granted.”
6G (1) Section 43 (as amended by the Armed Forces Act 2006) (detention of accused on appeal by Crown) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1) for “may make an order under this section” substitute “shall make one of the orders specified in subsection (1A)”.
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