Health Bill [HL]

My Lords, I, too, oppose the amendment for very similar reasons. I propose to speak very briefly because much of what I shall say has already been said. Under peer pressure, I began to smoke at the age of 11 in a mining village in Durham County. By the time I was in the Army in the 1940s, I was smoking 25 cigarettes a day. I remember very well the agonies that I went through when the health problems caused by smoking arose and I tried to get rid of that addiction. We do not want that to happen to our children today. Tobacco is the only product that if used according to what the manufacturers suggest, will kill one in two long-term users. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, asked why we are attacking the tobacco industry. We are doing so because it sells a lethal product. Tobacco remains the single largest preventable cause of cancer in the UK, and each year smoking-related diseases kill 87,000 people in England alone. I cannot forget a comment in the world tobacco industry journal which said, "If your brand can no longer shout from billboards or cinema screens, at least court smokers from retailers’ shelves". And that is what these gantries are doing. I am very much attached to my local convenience store in the village where I live in north Northumberland, and I have talked to the owner. He agrees that the provision would cause problems, but he believes that the problem is sufficiently important for him to go along with the idea of concealing his display. Two nights ago, fairly late at night, I turned on the television and immediately switched to Ceefax, if only to find out the county cricket scores. I saw a great line across the top of the screen which said: "News: Children say, ‘Please hide tobacco on the shelves’". Some of your Lordships may have seen the story. It was a very sketchy item, but it was obviously based on a study of children who felt that the display of cigarettes would attract them to smoking. That was the idea. I do not know its statistical validity, but at least it was an important contribution. People have talked about Canada and other countries. It is important to realise that the president of the Canadian Convenience Stores Association, who has been arguing that many stores have closed in Canada, is a former executive of the Canadian tobacco giant RJR-MacDonald, which may well have influenced his attitude. I support many of the things that the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, and others have said. We must oppose the amendment. This provision is a crucial public health measure to help our children not start smoking.