Alcohol Labelling Bill [HL]

Briefly, I warmly welcome this Bill in Committee, the co-operation and work undertaken between many of the interests involved, and the work of my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, in bringing this forward. I do not intend to speak any further in Committee, but am grateful for the work that has been done. I share the disappointment expressed about the amendments. It should be as strong as possible. After all, we were recently reminded by a report from Alcohol Concern that 1 million children have an alcohol-dependent parent. Of course, we are particularly concerned about the foetus at this point. This is an opportunity to break some women and mothers from their use of alcohol when their child is at an early stage, so that the children do not experience their parent with that dependency. I want to quote briefly from a report from the mental health charity Rethink. Referring to what we have learnt from advertising on cigarette packets, it states: "““Large warnings on cigarette packets in the UK have had a dramatic effect. 12 per cent of quit attempts in 2004 were prompted by packet warnings. Packet warnings are the second largest source of callers to the NHS Stop Smoking Helpline. As the warnings have grown bigger, the number of people who said that the warnings had stopped them from having a cigarette doubled, and the number of people saying they have led them to consider quitting has gone from 25 per cent to 40 per cent””." These warnings are clearly important. I know that we are talking about the size, and the small warnings. I look forward to listening to the Minister’s response on this. In general and on principle, however, I welcome the Bill and the work done on it. I regret that it is not stronger, but recognise that compromises have to be made.