Clause 4 - Advertising: exclusions
Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Bill
3:15 pm
Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 5, in page 2, line 17, leave out from `in,' to `information' in line 18 and insert
`a communication with a person who has requested, or who has previously requested,'.
The amendment is directed at specialist tobacco suppliers who, as I said in the debate on clause 1, are in danger of being hit hard by the Bill. The clause does not apply exclusively to specialists, but they are affected most by its drafting. The amendment, which changes subsection (2), would allow communication between a business and its known customers to be legitimate when a particular request has been made.
Some specialists who do not own shops depend heavily on mailing lists for their clientele. If they have to wait for a particular request before making a communication, they may face diminishing returns. The number of people specifically requesting information will reduce over time. In other words, it will be a problem if the specialists cannot initiate communication. A cigar supplier, for example, may want to initiate communication by informing customers whether the Cuban tobacco harvest will impact on the quality of the product or on prices. Under the clause, however, a specialist supplier would have to wait for requests for that information to come in.
We all know that mail order companies often have a tick-the-box arrangement and if the box is unticked a customer can be inundated with all sorts of unwanted information. One learns to avoid that. Would that sort of arrangement help the specialist to overcome the problem? A mail order form often has a default arrangement; people will receive a pile of junk mail unless they tick the box. Does the Minister accept that such a default position could constitute a request?
The purpose of this probing amendment is to get to the bottom of the restriction on communication between businesses and their customers. The net should be widened to include not just those who have requested information but those who have requested it—or transacted with the business—in the past. Customers tend to be a passive lot, but may respond to proactive information from a direct mail supplier. If the clause prevents suppliers letting customers know what is on offer—or, say, that the price of cigars is going to soar because of a disastrous harvest in Cuba—it will be restrictive for suppliers.
The amendment would allow the existing self-regulatory rules, which allow tobacco advertisements to continue; tobacco advertisements are allowed if they are contained in communications to individuals on a database of known adult smokers, who have confirmed their status as such and who always have the right to be removed from that database. That was the protection afforded by the voluntary code. Such a right is also provided by the Data Protection Act 1998. How will the Bill sit with the rights conferred under that Act?
We all know that we must now be extremely careful with information. It is not that we cannot operate unless we receive a particular request, but we are limited. The amendment would provide adequate protection for individuals, while permitting companies legitimate commercial freedom, especially specialist tobacco suppliers. Without it, the Bill will place heavy constraints on some small suppliers who depend on direct mailing for their businesses. In effect, their clientele is likely to diminish over time to the point at which they may go out of business. We can foresee such consequences, and we want to avoid that happening.