Health Bill [HL]

The noble Lord, Lord Laird, asked why some of us in England were opposed to this legislation. I can tell him that we have had representations from the National Federation of Retail Newsagents, which is very concerned about the Bill because it will affect its trade, and it believes that many of its members will go out of business. We have also had representations from the Tobacco Retailers Alliance saying exactly the same thing—that this is going to hurt its business. We have had the same message from the Tobacco Advisory Council and from the British Brands Group about the plain packaging of tobacco products, saying that that is going to hurt the industry as well. I wonder where on earth we are going. As the noble Earl and others have pointed out, tobacco is a legal product. Certain restrictions have been brought against it over a long period of time, some of them unjustified, but it is a legal product. We are here saying to people, particularly retailers, "You may sell this but you may not inform people that you are selling it. You are not allowed to display outside your business and now you are not going to be allowed to display inside your business". That is going along a very dangerous road indeed. If you once establish a precedent, where do you go from there? Let us consider what is said in some of the newspaper cuttings that I have been collecting over the past few weeks. I am sorry to detain the Committee but we need to look at the road ahead. The first headline states: ""One drink a day raises cancer risk"." A few weeks ago they were saying that one drink a day helps to combat cancer.