§ Mr. AmosTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will place in the Library a full copy of the research commissioned by the committee for monitoring agreements on tobacco advertising and sponsorship into compliance with the agreements on advertising and sponsorship between the Government and the tobacco industry.
§ Mr. Freeman[holding answer 28 July 1989]: My right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health wrote to the hon. Member on 27 September to explain that the independent Committee for Monitoring Agreements on Advertising and Sponsorship (COMATAS) had been consulted about this matter, and that the tobacco industry had objected to the release of this material on various grounds.
This matter has been pursued with the industry's representatives with the aim of securing the release of this material but they remain of the view that the research reports should not be made public. They argue that the business of COMATAS is private and confidential to the committee and that the research in question was not intended to be free-standing. They insist also that the reports contain commercially sensitive information.
This matter was discussed at a COMATAS meeting on Thursday 5 October. The independent chairman, Sir Peter Lazarus, concluded that since COMATAS is a joint committee consisting of equal representation from the industry and from Government, if one party insisted that the research reports should not be released, this view should prevail. The committee accepted this position.
The results of the research projects commissioned by COMATAS are reported in the first and second annual reports of the committee, published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office (ISBNs 0 11 321138 4 and 0 11 321225 9), both of which are in the Library.