Alcohol Labelling Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 9: 9: Clause 1, page 1, line 12, at end insert— ““(4) No advice as required by subsections (1) and (2) shall be required on any container if the producer of that container is in compliance with the voluntary labelling agreement between the alcoholic drinks industry and the Department of Health as expressed in the Memorandum of Understanding dated 24th May 2007.”” The noble Baroness said: This additional subsection would prevent the most responsible producer companies in the industry being penalised for their leadership by having to go to the trouble and expense of changing their labels yet again, in line with the Bill’s requirements, when they have already complied with the voluntary scheme which is nearly but not quite the same. The option of the wording or the logo is the same apart from the words ““Government Warning””. There is flexibility within the voluntary scheme to put the advice on the back label as part of a block of text which also includes the key aspects of the sensible drinking message; namely, the daily unit benchmarks for men and women, the unit content for the particular container, the Drinkaware website address and a responsibility message. The memorandum of understanding setting out the voluntary scheme deals with pregnancy advice as an important integrated aspect of the sensible drinking message and there is no good reason to separate it out, as the Bill requires. It would be a crying shame for the Bill to undermine the voluntary agreement which has been reached following detailed negotiations between the Government and the industry. It would risk sending out a negative message to the industry about how worth while it may or may not be in the future to work in partnership with the Government and, indeed, with other stakeholders in this way. As we heard from the Minister, the Government intend to review progress on implementation of the scheme towards the end of 2008 and they hope that the majority of product labels will be suitably amended by then. Compliance levels, or commitments to introducing the new production cycles required to achieve compliance, are already respectably high across the industry; I referred to some figures in the Second Reading debate which I shall not repeat here. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, by adding his name to the amendment, seems happy to accept that it would be fair and just to expect the provisions of his Bill to apply only to those who have not complied already with the voluntary scheme. I beg to move.