§ Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey)I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to protect children, young people and others from the harmful effects of tobacco by restricting the advertising, sponsorship and promotion of tobacco and tightening existing legislation on enforcement of illegal sales to minors; and for connected purposes.In the autumn, the British Medical Association produced data which clearly showed that, if one takes the top 10 brands of cigarette advertised and compares the smoking habits of children and adults, three out of the four most heavily advertised brands also figure in statistics of the top four brands smoked by children aged between 11 and 14. It is clear that adults are much less sensitive to tobacco advertising than children. Adults are much more affected by price.The other extremely pertinent figure showed that the top four brands smoked by children make up over three quarters of all the advertising done by tobacco companies within the United Kingdom. That is also more than those companies had advertised before.
It is now unarguable that tobacco advertising and smoking by children are linked. They are linked in a way which I hope that the Government will accept should be worrying for them. By their own figures, their "The Health of the Nation" targets are not being reached, and attempts to reduce smoking by children are failing. Indeed, smoking by children and young people is going up rather than down. For the first time in over 10 years, over 10 per cent. of teenagers are smoking. The increase in smoking by girls and young women should give the House particular cause to reflect on what we can do about it.
This issue has come before the House several times before, and as long ago as 1965 we agreed that there should be a ban on television advertising. Subsequently, it was agreed that there should be a ban on radio advertising of tobacco products. We should now ban advertising on hoardings or through promotion, particularly by sponsorship of sporting events.
I am happy to approach this in a reasonable manner and say that the legislation could be for a temporary and trial period in order to prove the case—five or 10 years, properly monitored by all those with an interest. The interest is not simply to make a case against the tobacco companies, but to win the argument about protecting the health of vulnerable young people.
It is clear that tobacco sponsorship of sport is a particularly insidious form of advertising. I am a keen follower of sport. I believe that sport should be well promoted and I support the Prime Minister's initiative to promote it, particularly among young people and across the four nations of the United Kingdom. However, research has shown that children as young as six associate brands such as—I will name them—John Player Special and Marlboro, both of which sponsor motor racing, with excitement and fast racing cars.
It is interesting that the images that young children associate with certain brands must have been gleaned from sponsorship of sporting events; that is increasing, with the growing amount of sporting sponsorship by tobacco companies.
545 Tobacco companies are honest about it. They do not pretend that it is a matter of selfless corporate generosity. Somebody from Gallaher said recently:
Sports sponsorship is a form of advertising which enables us to introduce glamour and excitement.A spokesman from Rothmans said:No one hands over big cheques just to give themselves a warm fuzzy feeling.There is not a huge amount of tobacco money involved in sports sponsorship—£10 million out of about £250 million. There is no real concern that sponsors could not be found elsewhere. When sponsorship has been sought among other sponsors for sporting events, it has been found and the market has plenty of people willing to take the place of the tobacco companies.Another unsatisfactory fact is that, although there is supposed to be a law banning the sale of cigarettes to those under 16, in reality it is not working. We all know that, and nobody deludes himself otherwise. A properly monitored and controlled survey carried out last year showed that almost two thirds of young people who had tried to buy cigarettes when they were under the legal age said that they had never been refused. Only 143 people were prosecuted in the last year for which figures are available, and only 85 were fined. In reality, there is very little monitoring or enforcement.
I am not naive about this. I know that three things significantly influence tobacco smoking by young people: adult activity, especially by parents; peer group pressure; and advertising. The second is largely the result of the third: peer group pressure often comes indirectly from advertising. Anyone with children who make demands for trainers and designer tops and clothes will know that demand is much more often led not by instinct but by advertising.
Yesterday, the British Medical Association published the British Medical Bulletin, which I commend to the House. It included a considerable number of expert articles edited by people eminent in their fields, which bear out my argument. In particular, it bears out the fact that advertising is one of the ways in which children with low esteem, who are often from backgrounds where smoking is more prevalent, pick up the habit early on.
I do not come to this subject from a nanny state view, or believe that there should be restrictions on adults who smoke. I do not shoo out of my house people who smoke. I do not take a purist or rigorous attitude. However, in respect of young people, for whom we all have a responsibility, the issue is different.
The reason why advertising is so important is because of the clear, unarguable impact on the young. Five out of six people who become regular, adult smokers have begun smoking by the age of 15. The tobacco industry spends about £100 million or more a year on advertising. Expenditure on health promotion to discourage smoking is under £10 million.
That imbalance produces young people who become hooked on what is—there is no dispute in the House about this—the largest single preventable cause of death in the United Kingdom. More than one third of middle-aged deaths are smoking-related, and in many places lung cancer has replaced breast cancer as the most common form of the disease, especially among young women.
546 Last night, we had an Adjournment debate in which the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) argued that there should be much better publicity for the health risks of Ecstasy; and so there should. Ten people are known to have died in the past year from Ecstasy; 100,000 people have died from tobacco-related disease. It is hypocritical and inconsistent to say that something should be done about Ecstasy, but that we are happy as a nation to go on allowing the tobacco industry, for its own benefit, to promote something to which young people become addicted and which could, or will, kill them.
I know that there is a benefit from tobacco revenues to the Exchequer. I realise that that is one of the reasons for the current position. There are people who regard that as a vested interest that they need to protect. However, I have never seen evidence that there would not be a greater benefit to the Exchequer from cutting the cost to the health service of trying to put back together the broken bodies and lives caused by tobacco-related diseases than from tobacco advertising, which has gone on for far too long.
Children say that they are influenced. There is the broadest support, in every corner of the House, from among Members from each of the countries of the United Kingdom, for the Bill. I pick up from where colleagues such as the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) have been in the past. I ask the House to allow the Bill a First Reading, and to pass it into law, even if only on a trial basis to prove that we are right.
§ Mr. John Carlisle (Luton, North)I oppose the Bill, although the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) has, as one would expect, put the argument in a plausible and reasonable manner. Nobody in the House would dispute the fact that every discouragement should be given to try to prevent children from smoking and people from taking up the habit in the first place. Having said that, the hon. Gentleman's Bill goes far wider. He failed to put forward his Bill in several of the examples that he used in regard to promotional activity.
What bothers me is that the Bill is the thin end of a wide wedge. I regret to say that, although the hon. Gentleman told the House that the Bill involved only young people, it is far wider—to the extent that he talks in the Bill about the effect on young people "and others". I must tell him that, plausible though his argument may seem, the facts do not justify the emotion of his argument.
In his Bill, the hon. Gentleman sets out the need to enforce the law against the illegal selling of tobacco. That measure would have the full support of the House. He is right to say that retailers must be urged not to sell cigarettes to people under 16, because that is against the law. He is right to urge local authorities to discourage, and to prosecute, retailers who sell tobacco products to children under the age of 16. He omits to say, however, that the Home Office report, which was published only one year ago, states that the local authorities' success rate in imposing fines and other penalties is more than 90 per cent. That success may not be sufficient in the eyes of the hon. Gentleman and others, but the existing system works.
The Bill bothers me, because it is yet another tranche of legislation intended to add additional measures to the existing agreements between Government and the tobacco 547 manufacturers, which, as the hon. Member knows, were fought over with difficulty for a long time. Most of the agreements are extremely strict—far stricter than those of the past—and have been reached with the support of all sides of the industry, and the argument.
I am also bothered by the hon. Gentleman's argument about drugs and their illegal use. I should remind him that the BMA report he quoted said that between 10 and 12 per cent. of children try cigarettes between the ages of 11 to 15. He is right to say that that 10 to 12 per cent. may represent too many children. He did not mention, however, that a report from Leicester university, which was issued on the same day as the BMA report, suggests that one in four children under the age of 15—or 25 per cent. —try drugs.
It does not befit the hon. Gentleman to use the drugs argument when, two years ago, his party conference suggested that cannabis should be legally used, inevitably by young people. Of course that embarrasses the hon. Gentleman, but I think that his Bill, his wrath and his indignation are directed at the wrong quarter.
The premise of the hon. Gentleman's argument is that advertising attracts young children to smoking. I am a non-smoker, although I will not say that I have never touched the weed, because I had the odd one behind the hedge at school, many years ago. It is a total mystery to those of us who are non-smokers how he can tell the House that 14 or 15-year-olds are influenced by cigarette advertising. It has been proven that those advertisements are used purely to attract existing smokers to different brands. That is a flaw in his argument.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned Marlboro cigarettes, and said that six-year-olds were influenced by those advertisements. I must confess that I did not know that six-year-olds have started buying cars—although possibly in a Liberal world they should be allowed to do so. I know that the Liberals want the age of driving reduced. The hon. Gentleman and his friends—apart from the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy), who I see is not in his place today, but who wrote an excellent article some three weeks ago decrying the hon. Gentleman's argument—are advocating a nanny state.
The problem with this Bill, as with any such intended legislation, is that it totally ignores the real world. The Liberals want to see the creation of a nanny state, which stops people doing something that they want to do. The Liberals are hiding behind the subject of children. The hon. Gentleman does not mention that, under the existing agreement, it has been agreed not to erect poster sites within three miles of schools; not to place advertisements in young people's magazines; and that there should be no such thing as glamour advertisements, which might attract the young.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that everything should be done to discourage young people from smoking. As he said, however, the pressure to smoke comes from peer groups and from brothers and sisters.
The Bill, should it receive the approval of the House, is totally unnecessary because of existing legislation. What a pity that the hon. Gentleman has chosen to take up the time of the House on something that is totally unnecessary, and based on pure emotion rather than pure fact.
I therefore urge my hon. Friends to reject this stupid and illogical Bill, not merely on the basis of liberty and fairness, but because the hon. Gentleman's remarks are not borne out by the facts—his Bill will do nothing to help to protect the young children of whom he talks.
§ Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 19 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business): —
§ The House divided: Ayes 158, Noes 39.
549| Division No. 23] | [3.54 pm |
| AYES | |
| Ainger, Nick | Harvey, Nick |
| Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE) | Hayes, Jerry |
| Alton, David | Heppell, John |
| Anderson, Donald (Swansea E) | Hill, Keith (Streatham) |
| Armstrong, Hilary | Hinchliffe, David |
| Ashton, Joe | Hogg, Norman (Cumbernaulcd) |
| Austin-Walker, John | Home Robertson, John |
| Banks, Matthew (Southport) | Howells, Dr Kim (Pontypridd) |
| Banks, Tony (Newham NW) | Hughes, Robert G (Harrow W) |
| Battle, John | Hughes, Roy (Newport E) |
| Bayley, Hugh | Hughes, Simon (Southwark) |
| Beggs, Roy | Hutton, John |
| Beith, Rt Hon A J | Illsley, Eric |
| Benton, Joe | Ingram, Adam |
| Betts, Clive | Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H) |
| Blunkett, David | Janner, Greville |
| Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon) | Jessel, Toby |
| Burden, Richard | Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side) |
| Callaghan, Jim | Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C) |
| Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge) | Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW) |
| Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE) | Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald |
| Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V) | Keen, Alan |
| Campbell-Savours, D N | Kennedy, Charles (Ross,C&S) |
| Canavan, Dennis | Kennedy, Jane (L'pool Br'dg'n) |
| Cann, Jamie | Kilfoyle, Peter |
| Chidgey, David | Lloyd, Tony (Stretford) |
| Chisholm, Malcolm | Llwyd, Elfyn |
| Church, Judith | Loyden, Eddie |
| Clapham, Michael | Lynne, Ms Liz |
| Clark, Dr David (South Shields) | McCrea, The Reverend William |
| Cohen, Harry | McKelvey, William |
| Cook, Robin (Livingston) | Mackinlay, Andrew |
| Corbett Robin | McMaster, Gordon |
| Corbyn, Jeremy | MacShane, Denis |
| Corston, Jean | Madden, Max |
| Cunliffe, Lawrence | Mahon, Alice |
| Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE) | Marek, Dr John |
| Currie, Mrs Edwina (S D'by'ire) | Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S) |
| Dafis, Cynog | Martin, Michael J (Springburn) |
| Dalyell, Tam | Martlew, Eric |
| Davidson, Ian | Maxton, John |
| Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral) | Meale, Alan |
| Davies, Chris (L'Boro & S'worth) | Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley) |
| Davies, Ron (Caerphilly) | Moonie, Dr Lewis |
| Dowd, Jim | Morley, Elliot |
| Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth | Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wy'nshawe) |
| Eagle, Ms Angela | Mudie, George |
| Eastham, Ken | Mullin, Chris |
| Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter | Nicholson, Emma (Devon West) |
| Etherington, Bill | O'Brien, Mike (N W'kshire) |
| Ewing, Mrs Margaret | O'Hara, Edward |
| Fabricant, Michael | Olner, Bill |
| Fatchett, Derek | Parry, Robert |
| Faulds, Andrew | Pearson, Ian |
| Flynn, Paul | Pickthall, Colin |
| Fyfe, Maria | Pike, Peter L |
| Galbraith, Sam | Prentice, Bridget (Lew'm E) |
| Galloway, George | Prentice, Gordon (Pendle) |
| Garrett, John | Purchase, Ken |
| Godman, Dr Norman A | Quin, Ms Joyce |
| Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S) | Roche, Mrs Barbara |
| Griffiths, Win (Bridgend) | Rooker, Jeff |
| Grocott, Bruce | Sedgemore, Brian |
| Hain, Peter | Sheerman, Barry |
| Hall, Mike | Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert |
| Hanson, David | Simpson, Alan |
| Sims, Roger | Walley, Joan |
| Skinner, Dennis | Wareing, Robert N |
| Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent) | Watson, Mike |
| Smyth, The Reverend Martin | Welsh, Andrew |
| Steel, Rt Hon Sir David | Wicks, Malcolm |
| Steinberg, Gerry | Wigley, Dafydd |
| Stevenson, George | Wilkinson, John |
| Strang, Dr. Gavin | Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen) |
| Sweeney, Walter | Winnick, David |
| Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury) | Wray, Jimmy |
| Taylor, Rt Hon John D (Strgfd) | Young, David (Bolton SE) |
| Turner, Dennis | |
| Tyler, Paul | Tellers for the Ayes: |
| Wallace,James | Mr. Archy Kirkwood and |
| Mr. Don Foster. | |
| NOES | |
| Alexander, Richard | Jopling, Rt Hon Michael |
| Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham) | Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine |
| Atkins, Rt Hon Robert | Knight, Dame Jill (Bir'm E'st'n) |
| Banks, Robert (Harrogate) | Knox, Sir David |
| Bendall, Vivian | Lamont, Rt Hon Norman |
| Bottomley, Peter (Eltham) | Mills, Iain |
| Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes | Monro, Rt Hon Sir Hector |
| Brown, M (Brigg & Cl'thorpes) | Neubert, Sir Michael |
| Carlisle, John (Luton North) | Porter, Barry (Wirral S) |
| Carrington, Matthew | Riddick, Graham |
| Cummings, John | Shaw, David (Dover) |
| Dover, Den | Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey) |
| Duncan Smith, Iain | Skeet, Sir Trevor |
| Durant, Sir Anthony | Twinn, Dr Ian |
| Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield) | Walker, Bill (N Tayside) |
| Gardiner, Sir George | Wiggin, Sir Jerry |
| Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N) | Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton) |
| Hawksley, Warren | Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'fld) |
| Heath, Rt Hon Sir Edward | |
| Hicks, Robert | Tellers for the Noes: |
| Hunter, Andrew | Mr. Peter Atkinson and |
| Mr. Harry Greenway. |
§ Question accordingly agreed to.
§ Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Simon Hughes, Sir Peter Emery, Mr. Kevin Barron, Mrs. Edwina Currie, Ms Tessa Jowell, Mr. Roger Sims, Ms Liz Lynne, Mr. Hugh Bayley, Mr. Dafydd Wigley, Rev. Martin Smyth, Mr. Eddie McGrady and Mr. Andrew Welsh.