Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

Although I understand that that is what the guidance will do, it is subject to consultation with all interested parties and I cannot guarantee what it will say. Certainly our view is that it should go close to saying that there should be early notification to retailers if it is thought that they have sold to underage children. We believe that working through guidance will allow time for consultation on the details of notification requests and provide for a more flexible process than a statutory notification requirement would. The amendment proposes an unrealistic and expensive obligation on trading standards that could divert some of their limited resources from their core functions, which is to prevent the sale of tobacco and alcohol to young people, one of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller. We think that an absolute duty to notify within 14 days would impose an obligation to trace and contact everyone performing a management function for a premises. That could be very difficult, expensive and impracticable to fulfil. It will not always be possible to identify and contact everyone working in a management position for a tobacco retailer within 14 days of an offence being committed; sometimes they are at one remove, but at big stores they could be much removed. We think that guidance is a much more appropriate way of addressing this issue. It is also not common to put this sort of amendment into primary legislation. I therefore hope the noble Lord will be satisfied with the offer and undertaking I have given.