Health Bill [HL]

My noble friend and the noble Earl are right: we will be discussing the substantive issues on clause stand part. Amendments 82 to 84 would fundamentally change the legislation so that the prohibition on tobacco displays would apply only to those displays seen by children. Displaying tobacco products to children would remain an offence, but display to adults would not be. Although I appreciate that this appears to acknowledge our primary aim of protecting children, it would fail to tackle the secondary aim of helping adults who wish to quit. The amendments would create an unworkable and ineffective prohibition on tobacco displays. They effectively require that retailers who wish to display tobacco allow only adults on to their premises. That is clearly impractical, as many retailers who sell tobacco, whether corner shops or supermarkets, also sell other products, such as sweets, for which children and young people are major consumers, or are where the whole family shops, as was mentioned by the noble Earl. On the other hand, if the retailer made sure that no child were in his shop at the time, he could display tobacco products, only covering them once a child entered the premises. Clearly both those options raise practical difficulties in enforcement—we have acknowledged that. How could local authorities be sure that a shop was only accessed by adults? What about covering windows through which children could view tobacco displays? What about premises accessed by children but which, when no children are present, display tobacco products to their customers? That may sound like a more proportionate, targeted approach, but it would be totally impractical to implement or enforce. Our approach is proportionate and effective, only adding burdens to local authorities and business that can be justified by the gain to public health. For the reasons outlined above, I cannot accept the amendment. Regulations under new Section 7B(3) will contain the detail of when requested display seen by someone other than the individual who made the request is or is not an offence. We will cover that in more detail under the Clause 19 stand part debate. The Government are not seeking to humiliate smokers. It is surely only right—we will discuss this in more detail with evidence that we can present to the Committee—that we should protect children and young people and support adults who want to quit by removing tobacco promotion. We will discuss that further under Clause 19 stand part, so I hope that the noble Lord may feel able to withdraw his amendment.