Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

moved Amendment No. 177B: 177B: Clause 194, page 140, line 33, at end insert— ““(4) After section 17 (interpretation of Part 1) insert— ““17A Report to Parliament Within one year of the commencement of section 194 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, the Secretary of State shall lay a report before both Houses of Parliament on the effectiveness of arrangements for preventing tobacco offences being committed against persons under the age of 18.”””” The noble Lord said: With this last non-government amendment, we are very nearly at the end of Committee stage of this Bill. I must congratulate my noble friends on the Front Bench on timing the discussions of these clauses on tobacco control on national No Smoking Day. The fact that that has gone otherwise unremarked in this House indicates the success of the measures in the Health Act 2006. There are one or two veterans of that campaign—one on one side and a couple more with me—who are applauding the legislation which went through and which is proving to be such an enormous success. The indications are that the prevalence of tobacco smoking is generally falling. However, as we have heard in these very interesting recent debates, there is still a substantial problem of smoking by under-age children, which is what I would call them. They are certainly young people and the number of young people who have their first experience of smoking as a child is very high. We must remember that if your first experience of smoking is as a child, the likelihood is that you will stay smoking, because 82 per cent of adult smokers say that they started smoking as teenagers. We also know that there are huge numbers of under-16s who successfully buy cigarettes. Something like half of under-16s bought cigarettes during 2003. Yet—this is the reason for my amendment—there were only 117 prosecutions in England and Wales for selling cigarettes to under-age people. As we have heard, there are around 65,000 tobacco retailers and I have a concern about the measures in the Bill on this subject. If the number of prosecutions is so small, it will be difficult effectively to implement these very important provisions, which I wholeheartedly support. Unless we know what the impact of those orders is, how will the Government monitor how successful they are? 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 of tobacco as applies to alcohol or fireworks. A number of countries, such as Spain, Greece, Poland, Hungary, Belgium and Italy, have such licensing systems. It was put to me that perhaps we should discuss an amendment to introduce a positive licensing system of that sort. Certainly, organisations such as ASH, Cancer Research UK, the British Heart Foundation and the Royal College of General Practitioners—as well as, interestingly, a major tobacco manufacturer that has written to me—all say that they would prefer a positive licensing system requiring a retailer to apply for, and to be granted, a licence to sell tobacco. That, however, is for another day. 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.