Health Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, because I agree with every word that she has said. I am delighted also that she has brought us back to the fact that this is a health measure we are considering. This is not an economic argument about small shops but about whether the health of our people, and particularly the health of children and young people, is going to be enhanced by what the Government are proposing. I too was convinced by Professor Gerard Hastings; I shall say more about that in a moment. But first, I want to declare an unpaid interest, as a member of the board of trustees of Action on Smoking and Health. I shall answer the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, at the end of my remarks. I agree wholly with the noble Baroness about the tactics of the tobacco lobby. It is attempting to use smoke and mirrors in order to confuse us—and it is spending a fortune in doing so. A major part of its campaign is to cast doubt on the evidence base. To those of your Lordships who have received representations from groups such as Responsible Retailers or the save our shops campaign, I offer one sentence of advice: be aware of who is behind these bodies. I have received letters and e-mails from the Tobacco Retailers Alliance, to which the noble Earl referred, which is funded entirely by the Tobacco Manufacturers' Association. That association, in turn, is funded by three of the world's largest tobacco companies: British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco and the Gallaher Group. The same Tobacco Retailers Alliance also runs the save our shops campaign and Responsible Retailers. Hiding behind front organisations is something that the tobacco industry has done for years. Another favourite trick is to fund pieces of work by apparently respectable research organisations, and then—provided that the findings are what it wants to hear—trumpet the results. Many of your Lordships may have received from the Tobacco Retailers Alliance two reports from a body called the Centre for Economic and Business Research. I checked with the CEBR, which eventually confirmed in an e-mail to me that the reports were produced for and paid for by the clients—in other words, the tobacco industry. I think it would be in the research organisation’s interest, if in the list of clients that it publishes on its website—there are 33 of them—it would somewhere refer to the fact that the tobacco industry is one of those clients. I suggest that there are two questions that need answers. First, is there an evidence base for the prohibition of point-of-sale displays? Secondly, are the measures that the Government are proposing proportionate to dealing with the problem? I believe that the evidence does exist. It is rigorous and it stands up to scrutiny. There is an interesting report from Channel 4 called FactCheck, which describes itself rightly as: ""Impartial, empirical, reliable and dispassionate"." It goes on to say: ""Channel 4 FactCheck scrutinises the claims and counter claims of those in the public eye"." In this case it looked at the evidence base for the prohibition of point-of-sale displays and advised that it, ""points pretty firmly the government's way"." Also, on the evidence base, the all-party Health Committee in the other place stated in its report on health inequalities: ""Smoking remains one of the biggest causes of health inequalities; we welcome both the Government's ban on smoking in public places, and its intention to ban point of sale tobacco advertising, as evidence indicates that both of these measures may have a positive impact on health inequalities"." This issue of health inequalities is important, because the evidence points to the fact that smoking accounts for half of the differences in life expectancy between social class 1 and social class 5. It is imperative that we act to protect children; otherwise there will be a lasting legacy of inequality. I turn to the evidence from the research conducted by Professor Gerard Hastings. I, too, went to the presentation, which I know that the noble Earl went to. I am disappointed that he was not impressed by what Professor Hastings had to say, because I believe that every other Member of your Lordships’ House who was there—with perhaps two exceptions—was convinced by him. His research on point of sale is based on a long-term study called the Youth Tobacco Policy Survey. This survey has taken place five times since 1999, and over a nine-year period almost 5,900 children between the ages of 11 and 16 from a variety of social backgrounds have taken part. There have been a number of peer-reviewed papers from this work, and Professor Hastings’s report of last August on point-of-sale displays forms an extension of previous papers. Crucially, this report encompasses not just one but four separate survey waves, of almost 4,500 young people between 1999 and 2006. These are rigorous research techniques and, not surprisingly, the tobacco industry has tried to discredit them. In doing so, it has used exactly the same tactics that it used when it attempted to dispute that smoking causes cancer—Professor Doll’s original findings—that advertising increases tobacco use, that nicotine is addictive and, most recently, that second-hand smoke is harmful to health. It stuck to its script, which has been revealed in internal tobacco industry documents, that it would claim, ""that cause and effect relationships have not been established, that statistical data do not provide the answers and that much more research is needed"." It is simply attacking this research because the implications of protecting young children and preventing 60,000 child smokers from being recruited each year are bad for business if you are a tobacco company that is desperate to recruit new young customers as you kill off the older ones. There is more evidence. At the recent World Conference on Tobacco or Health, further evidence was submitted from New Zealand based on research with 25,000 young people. They found that 15 year-olds most exposed to point-of-sale displays are almost three times more likely to try to start smoking. It was identified that exposure to point of sale is a greater risk factor than even parental smoking. I will say one word on proportionality. The Government have already given ground on their original proposals and will bring in the prohibition of point-of-sale displays two years later, in 2013, for smaller retailers, compared with 2011 for the larger ones. This will give an adequate lead-in time for retailers to prepare. We know that low-cost solutions exist which are in widespread use in other countries, and these are entirely feasible in the UK as well. The recommended supplier to the Canadian Convenience Stores Association has produced a number of quotes—separately, not at the request of ASH, to ASH and to the Department of Health—for the cost of covers for a retail display gantry of the size found in a typical small shop in the UK. The covers are lightweight PVC, which the company stated should last a minimum of seven years. They are designed to fit behind the security shutters and be simple enough for the retailer to fit himself if he wants to. Something has happened over recent weeks since the company was willing to give evidence to the Department of Health and to anyone else who asked for it, such as ASH. It appears that the Canadian Convenience Stores Association has been putting pressure on it to attempt to get it to backtrack on the ease and the low cost of providing displays in the United Kingdom. Noble Lords must make up their own minds whether they think that such pressure has been applied. I have no direct evidence of it, but something very strange has happened. The fact remains that the displays are in use in Canada, they have been installed properly in retail outlets and they are working fine there.