Health Bill [HL]

My Lords, I have a little dilemma. I was present in Committee when the noble Lord, Lord Walton, was speaking to these matters and produced the very substantial evidence for the case he has just made again today. Since then, however, something has happened. In the Bishops’ Bar today, I was approached by my noble friend Lady Golding, who showed me a document describing a showing in the House last week of a particular piece of equipment, which I am not as yet satisfied that MPs were aware of when they took their decision. I dissent from the view of the noble Earl that, where a vote has not taken place, it is not necessarily an advised opinion of the House of Commons. The fact is that, where a vote was not taken, it was because the House did not object to the measure being put before the House. It could be argued that it has considered it, and there was shown a position of unanimity, even though it was the view of the noble Earl that there were some Ministers who wanted to vote against the McCartney amendment. The document shown to me by my noble friend Lady Golding should be brought to the attention of this House, because the noble Earl, Lord Howe, has alluded to it. It shows that there is available in the United Kingdom, in 600 public houses in the country, a piece of equipment that is managed and operated by a person standing behind the bar. I want to go through the sequence of events, because I believe that it actually deals with all the concerns that my noble friend has alluded to, and which Ian McCartney must have had in mind when he was moving his amendment. ""Step 1: customer requests for the machine to be enabled"—" in other words, to be made operational. ""Eye contact is made by the member of staff"—" that is, the person behind the bar, to the customer who wishes to buy the cigarettes— ""and if necessary identification is requested"—" in other words, if the person looks underage, then obviously the bartender would not respond in the way the customer would wish. ""Step 2: Once age verification has taken place, and the staff are certain that the person is over 18 years of age, the machine is enabled"." In other words, it is made operational. ""Step 3: The member of staff observes the sale, to make sure it is the person whose age they have verified making the purchase.""Step 4: The machine is then ready for use to vend one packet to the customer.""Step 5: After vending one packet of cigarettes, the machine reverts to standby"." In other words, it switches off automatically. Therefore, throughout the whole process of the cigarette packet being purchased from that machine, the person behind the bar is responsible for what has happened by having control over the button which enables the machine. I presume, therefore, in those conditions, that a person under 18 would not be able to purchase cigarettes. I am not against what Mr Ian McCartney has suggested, but what I want to know is whether the Commons knew about this equipment when the decision was taken. They should have been aware of a system that the Government would have tested in the event that the legislation in its proposed form prior to the Ian McCartney amendment would have been passed. Were Members of Parliament aware of this equipment, of which I suspect most noble Lords were completely unaware until the noble Earl, Lord Howe, referred to it in his contribution and I outlined it in greater detail in mine?