Health Bill [HL]

I have immense admiration for the noble Earl, but I find it quite difficult to understand where he is coming from. I should like to challenge him on the issue of evidence, and I want to say rather more about this clause at some stage. If an environmental issue is so serious that it may cause lasting damage, everybody runs around and tries to gather as much evidence as possible to find remedies that might remove the risk. If sufficient evidence cannot be adduced to justify measures to reduce the risk because it simply does not exist, nevertheless measures that look as if they might help and make a contribution are put in place on the basis of the precautionary principle. There is an acknowledged global principle that says: if something is really so serious that one has considerable worries about it, one will try measures even if there is no cast-iron evidence—on the basis that you have to do something to try to tackle the problem. We are facing the real problem of children smoking, which is possibly made worse by point-of-sale advertising. Indeed, I find it difficult to understand why, in the face of something like this, we are demanding evidence that is so cast-iron that it is irrefutable when it is clear that the public and indeed many retailers, when asked about point-of-sale advertising, would be quite content for it to be removed.