Alcohol Labelling Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support the Bill, as vice-chair of the Associate Parliamentary Group for Children and Young People In and Leaving Care and treasurer of the All-Party Group on Children. The noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, does a great service to the public by bringing this Bill forward and by his consistent pressure in this area. I listened with interest to my noble friend Lady Coussins. It is of great benefit to the House to have her expertise in this area brought to bear on this matter. I disagree with much of what she said, but I hope that the dynamic between support for the measure and a strong opposing voice will add value to the Bill as it goes through the House. I have been put in mind of the seductive commercials for advertising alcohol at Christmas. It is hard to reconcile the impetus from business to sell its product with the need to protect certain people from the harm that can arise. I am reminded of the work that Her Majesty’s Government have already done in introducing welcome measures to protect the public from the harms of cigarette smoking. I remember being horrified when I heard about the impact of tobacco smoking during pregnancy. I read about the likelihood of low birth rate, with all its associated risks. I learnt how exposure of the foetus to toxins from tobacco could lead to reduced intelligence and to the individual being of a smaller stature when he is fully grown. If the Government are to be consistent, they should accept this Bill, which should provide similar benefits for children. We are all aware of the increase in binge drinking and particularly of young women becoming less prudent in managing alcohol. I was grateful for the encouraging statistics from my noble friend on the number of women who have been listening to medical advice and reducing alcohol consumption while pregnant. I have a particular concern about those women who become dependent on alcohol; they need the strongest and most explicit message to ensure that they desist during pregnancy. Will the Minister say what the estimated level is of women who are alcohol dependent and what the trend has been in recent years with regard to those women? A year ago I had the opportunity to speak to some alcoholics and I was struck by two things. The first was the capacity of alcoholics to delude themselves. They would attempt to remain sober, but when they saw the opportunity for a drink they told themselves that to have one would not hurt—and then they would find themselves waking up in a park two days later. Secondly, I was struck when a woman said that when she was carrying her baby she reduced her alcohol intake, moving from spirits to wine and stout. She could see that in retrospect she had deluded herself and failed to protect her baby. I welcome the chance that this Bill offers to reinforce to women who are alcoholic or on the verge of being so the message that by drinking they are harming their baby. The more explicit one is about the risks to their child, the greater the chance that they may seek to desist from drinking. They may even approach an organisation such as Alcoholics Anonymous for help; it may even be the opportunity for them to stop drinking for good and spare their child the risks associated with being reared by an alcoholic mother. I would read to your Lordships some comments made during a conference on women and alcohol, led by Alcohol Concern—comments that were made by children on ChildLine—but I cannot find them in my notes at the moment. A significant number of those calls were associated with children talking about their parents’ alcohol problems. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I hope that she will lay out the timescale expected for the industry to implement what is proposed and that she will assure the House that the warnings coming from the industry will be as explicit and strong as possible.