Alcohol Labelling Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 2: 2: Clause 1, page 1, line 2, leave out from ““carries”” to second ““the”” in line 3 The noble Baroness said: The amendment would remove the obligation to put the pregnancy advice on the brand label or the most visible surface. Amendment No. 29 is consequential on that. Amendment No. 28 concerns a related issue, which I will deal with at the same time. Amendment No. 6, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, to which I am sure he will speak, would do the same thing in relation to the pictogram or logo. I support that; I am sorry that I was not quick enough off the mark to add my name to the amendment. Under the clause, the advice in the text would have to be put on the front label of the bottle. That is what ““brand label”” is understood to mean. I suggest that this would be overrestrictive and possibly counterproductive. The assumption in the voluntary labelling scheme is that producers have flexibility, as we heard from the Minister, over where the information and advice go. The phrase ““the most visible surface”” in any case is arguably subjective. What is it in the case of a can, a soft tube or a foil pouch, all of which are containers of alcoholic drinks that are currently on the market? Producers need the flexibility to incorporate this pregnancy advice in the most practical way, subject of course to legibility criteria, which we will come to later. Another point that is worth making is that there is no case for separating the different elements of the sensible drinking message, which will be the case if the amendment is not accepted. The voluntary agreement deals with the five elements of the sensible drinking message, which go together en bloc on whichever place is the most suitable on the label. There is no case for separating out one aspect of the sensible drinking message. Placing them all together would have much more impact. Insisting on the front label creates a rather unfair, and certainly unscientific, parallel between alcohol and tobacco. The voluntary agreement, as I said, includes the pregnancy advice as part of the overall sensible drinking message. There is no sensible smoking message. It may well have been necessary—I am sure that it was—to have strong legislation in the face of the intransigence of the tobacco industry to change, but this is patently not the case with the alcohol industry, which is willing to engage in a partnership with the Government to try to achieve a culture change. In this way, it is absolutely different from the tobacco industry. Amendment No. 28, which applies to Clause 14 and is on a related point, would insert ““primary”” after ““sealed”” on containers. This is simply a pragmatic measure that would ensure that the advice appeared on the main consumer unit—in other words, the bottle, can, pouch or tube—and not on any outer or additional packaging such as the cardboard wrapper or the box of a multipack. It would be unreasonable to expect it to be incorporated on both, partly because of cost but mainly because it would be of little or no use to the consumer if it appeared on packaging other than the primary packaging. I beg to move.