Health Bill [HL]

My Lords, the noble Earl is, as always, immensely persuasive, and there are very few occasions on which I can claim to find myself in total disagreement with what he has said. There is no doubt whatever, as every Member of this House must accept, that tobacco is a potentially lethal product. It is also highly addictive, and there is clear epidemiological evidence that once children begin to smoke, they have great difficulty in giving up the habit, although many succeed. When this issue was debated fully and extensively in Committee in your Lordships' House, many of us, including me, strongly supported an amendment to abolish the sale of cigarettes from vending machines,. However, the Government did not accept that amendment and claimed that, as an interim measure and pending further consideration, they wished to impose stricter age-verification restrictions and supervision as regards vending machines. They did that despite the fact that I presented evidence that in the north-east of England, from where I come, a series of trading standards officers embarked upon an exercise in which they recruited significant numbers of volunteer young people below the age of 16 and took them round a series of establishments in which vending machines were installed to see whether they would succeed in buying cigarettes. In the majority of cases—60 per cent and sometimes 70 per cent—the children had not the slightest difficulty in purchasing cigarettes from vending machines, contrary to the existing law. In one establishment, the landlord gave the child change to put in the machine to purchase cigarettes. The British Heart Foundation has recently conducted a number of surveys. It found that test purchases consistently show that young people regularly purchase cigarettes from vending machines. In 2008, 12 per cent of children and young people who were regular smokers usually bought their cigarettes from vending machines. The British Heart Foundation estimates that 23,000 11 to 15 year-old regular smokers access their cigarettes in this way. It has also conducted a more detailed survey of landlords in establishments where vending machines are available. It found that the age-verification restrictions that the Government initially proposed were viewed as unworkable and as a burden by a large number of landlords. The survey showed that nearly two-thirds—63 per cent—of landlords said that, during busy times, it would be impossible to check IDs and operate a machine within their line of sight. More than two-thirds—68 per cent—of pub landlords said that current proposals would be a significant extra burden on their business. Eighty-two per cent of landlords describe the revenue they receive from vending machines as "unimportant". Three-quarters of landlords would rather remove the machine than risk prosecution for underage sales. Despite the potential deficiencies in another place to which the noble Earl referred, I think Ian McCartney did us a very good service by proposing the amendment that was accepted in your Lordships’ House. I trust that your Lordships will accept that amendment as tabled now by the Government and reject the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Howe.