Health Bill [HL]

I think that we forget too easily some of the basic facts of this market. The situation now is that we are down to 21 per cent of people smoking; we are down to the lowest level of young people smoking, at 6 per cent; those in the 21 per cent do not all die from lung cancer; and certainly the rest of us do not die from passive smoking. There are 5,000-plus direct employees in the tobacco industry; 80,000 jobs are dependent on that industry; government revenue amounts to £9.9 billion; the huge amount of illegal imports costs the UK Government somewhere between £3 billion and £4 billion; and 25,000 small shops will be directly affected by this clause. Therefore, in my judgment, anything that we do in this Bill has to be proportional, evidence-based and rational. I should like to pick up a few of the issues that, from my reading of Hansard, I do not think have been discussed already, and I have been here for the vast majority of this Committee. First, the powers to make regulations governing displays were provided in 2002 in the last Bill, in which many of us took part. There were consultations with trading standards following the regulations tabled by the Government, and in 2006 trading standards found that there was good compliance. There were also discussions about some amendments. However, what I do not understand, and perhaps the Minister will tell me, is why the Department of Health refused to take part in any of those discussions. Secondly, the consultation on product display was flawed. Three options were in the original consultation paper put out by the Department of Health, but the only two that were considered were numbers 1 and 3—that is, maintaining the status quo or total prohibition. I do not understand why option 2 put forward by the department—the making of regulations to restrict displays—was totally ignored. That seems to me entirely wrong, and it is not just me who feels aggrieved by it. The code of conduct on consultations put forward by the present Government says—and it should be adhered to by all government departments—that all options should be considered. The consultation was at further serious fault in not taking account of the large number of people likely to be substantially affected by the proposals on tobacco, particularly small-scale retailers, who, frankly, we all know are unfamiliar with the complexity and form of language in a consultation paper and did not find it accessible. Where accessibility is so limited, engagement beyond the printed word is considered by the new department of BERR to be a consideration to which departments should have regard. These serious shortcomings of the consultation paper and process were brought to the attention of the Equality and Human Rights Commission by the Tobacco Retailers Alliance. It agreed that this was wrong but, as yet, we have had no further response from it. In short, there were most serious omissions and shortcomings in the consultation process and the paper. Frankly, there is no satisfactory remedy to that situation other than to reject Clause 19. Thirdly, the results of the consultation, flawed as it was, seriously misrepresented the situation. I discovered that of the 90,000 responses, 49,000 came from Smoke Free North West and comprised written postcards or e-mails. Is anybody suggesting that that is real consultation? Perhaps we ought to look at who provides the money for these organisations. I further discovered that 79,000 out of 90,000 representations came from government-funded bodies. Therefore, it is not surprising that they responded as the Government wished them to. The Government provided the money for them to respond; they responded as the Government wished, and then they say there has been consultation. I do not believe that is genuine consultation. I do not believe that any Minister of any Government could stand up and say that that was genuine consultation. So far I have seen no relevant and convincing evidence to demonstrate that the banning of product displays would lead to fewer young people smoking. Certainly, a display ban would have a serious impact on retailers, particularly small community shops and stores. The situation is very different in Canada. Any of us who have lived in Canada will know that you get modular stores in Canada, whereas there are very few small modular stores in the United Kingdom. It may cost only £300—as converted from the dollar rate when the consultation was carried out in Canada—to convert a gantry in Canada. However, if I wanted to change my daughter’s shop—thankfully, it does not sell tobacco or sweets; it is a cookware shop—I would get a UK shopfitter to give an estimate for changing a gantry or anything else. I certainly would not use—