Health Bill [HL]

My Lords, in considering the amendments before us, we find ourselves in another somewhat unusual situation. Noble Lords will remember that when the Bill underwent scrutiny in this House during the early part of this year there was an outbreak of harmony between these Benches and those of the Government when we debated the provisions for cigarette-vending machines. I do not want to misrepresent the views of anyone in this Chamber but no noble Lord felt it was defensible that children and young people under the age of 18 should continue to have access to cigarette-vending machines. I am absolutely clear that Ministers were right to seek powers in the Bill to restrict access to such machines with that thought in mind. The exercise of the power would force vending-machine operators to come up with credible and workable systems that would have the effect of denying underage would-be smokers the means of buying cigarettes in that way. Furthermore, there was a wide measure of agreement that if, after a period of time, those measures were shown not to be effective—in other words, that children were still habitually gaining access to cigarettes from vending machines—Ministers should consider exercising the additional power set out in the Bill to ban the machines altogether. That two-step approach was, I believe, proportionate and sensible. I say that for two main reasons. The first is that vending-machine operators have not been slow off the mark in responding to the challenge that they have been set. A number of technologies exist which are designed to prevent underage persons from gaining access to vending machines. Not all of them give one confidence that they will deliver in the way that they are supposed to, but at least one technology that I have personally seen demonstrated, the radio frequency control system, not only convinced me that it would work efficiently and well but is successfully in use in a number of locations. The Department of Health recommended the use of that system in its recent consultation document. I am personally as sure as I can be that the Government were right to believe that there exists a workable means of delivering the policy objective that they have set themselves. The second reason why I support the Government's first approach is that to proceed immediately to an outright ban on vending machines would bring about disproportionate harm and damage. The damage would be felt by pubs, which stand to lose trade from people who, from time to time, wish to access their vending machines but, more seriously, it would have an instant and devastating effect on those who depend for a living on supplying and operating such machines. There are roughly 650 people in this country whose livelihoods are earned in that way, and several hundred more in the supply chain. I do not believe that any sort of case has been made for bankrupting those individuals and putting them on to the dole queue without giving the regulatory route a chance to work. Parliament should contemplate taking that drastic step only when all else has failed. It is not a step that should be taken lightly. The problem is that, unless we are very careful, that step will indeed be taken lightly. The Government have allowed themselves to get into the position of acquiescing in the result of a debate in another place that was arrived at not after a free vote, nor even after a whipped vote, but after no vote at all. The amendment in the name of the right honourable Member Mr Ian McCartney was agreed to by default after the Government Whips failed to produce tellers. That fact puts this House into a rather different situation from the one we normally face at Lords’ consideration stage. In moving that the House do disagree with a Commons amendment, we are usually saying we believe that the judgment taken by another place was wrong. In this case, however, the other place did not have a chance to exercise its judgment at all. We simply do not know what the collective will of the House of Commons would have been. For that reason alone, it is surely right that we ask the other place at least to go through the Lobby before we put 650 people out of work. Of course, we know one thing. We know that the Government have not changed their minds on the merits of the Bill as it originally stood. How do we know that? When the Division was called in another place on the McCartney amendment, Ministers were queuing up to vote against it. The Government had not given way at that stage. Indeed, I am sure that the Minister still believes in her Government’s policy. She has simply allowed herself to be persuaded that, constitutionally, it would be improper for her to carry that policy through. In moving this amendment, I am suggesting to her in the strongest terms that that view is misconceived and, indeed, that she owes it to the other place to send this matter back for further consideration. She certainly owes it to those whose jobs depend on the way that this matter is finally determined. I have no wish to be impertinent to the Minister or to overegg the case I am making, but if she does not give way on this, and if she were to carry a vote in her own Lobby, she and her colleagues will bear personal responsibility for the consequences that will ensue. There is still time for this matter to be sorted out before Parliament prorogues. If the other place is given another chance to determine the issue properly, and if it decides on a free vote that the McCartney amendment should stand, I will be in no position to argue. As it is, I argue very strongly indeed that the parliamentary process is in danger of being grossly subverted, which is why I beg to move.