Health Bill [HL]

My Lords, with this amendment we move to perhaps the most controversial part of the Bill: Part 3. But I should like to bring us back—I hope briefly—to the debate that we had in Grand Committee on the provisions in Clause 18 relating to specialist tobacconists. Specialist tobacconists, as many noble Lords will know, are shops which, as their name implies, specialise in stocking cigars, pipe tobacco, snuff and other upmarket products for the connoisseur smoker. They are few in number: there are only about 50 such outlets across the country as a whole. My reason for tabling this amendment is very straightforward. Section 6 of the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002 includes an explicit exemption for specialist tobacconists from the legislation banning advertising. It does so subject to three conditions. These are that the advertisement has to be inside or fixed to the outside of the premises; it cannot be for cigarettes or hand-rolling tobacco; and—the part that concerns me most—it has to comply with regulations governing advertising in specialist tobacconists. As regards this last condition, the actual wording of the section is very clear. It states: ""(1) A person does not commit an offence under section 2 if the tobacco advertisement … complied with any requirements specified by the appropriate Minister in regulations in relation to tobacco advertisements on the premises of specialist tobacconists"." Clause 18 removes this explicit exemption by giving the Secretary of State the power to decide whether the exemption should remain. In other words, it removes the existing certainty for specialist tobacconists under the 2002 Act. Therefore, one very straightforward question needs to be asked. Why is this clause needed when Ministers already have a power under Section 6 of TAPA 2002 to specify requirements in relation to tobacco advertisements on the premises of specialist tobacconists? We have had an assurance from the Minister that the Government have no intention of removing the exemption for specialist tobacconists altogether; rather, they say that they intend to use the regulation-making power in Clause 18 to—and I quote the Minister— ""maintain the general exemption but … for example to prohibit advertisements outside specialist tobacco shops or in shop windows where these are in view of the general public, including children and young people".—[Official Report, 5/3/09; col. GC 352]." If that is the Government’s intention I have no problem with it. Incidentally, I hope the Minister can also confirm that there is no intention of preventing specialist tobacconists from displaying tobacco products inside their shops. I only ask why it is necessary to disapply Section 6 of TAPA, which already contains a regulation-making power, and replace it with another regulation-making power which would ostensibly enable the Government to achieve exactly the same thing. The Minister was kind enough to write to me on the matter but I would be grateful if she would briefly place her comments on the record. I beg to move.