Clause 4 - Advertising: exclusions
Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Bill
3:45 pm
Ms Yvette Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary (Public Health), Department of Health; Pontefract and Castleford, Labour)
The purpose of the amendment is to clarify the Bill. First, it adds to the Bill the power to determine in regulations the meaning of place of sale. We have accepted that there are reasons for permitting a certain amount of advertising at point of sale to communicate price or the products on sale. However, that should be subject to regulations. We want to make it clear that regulations can define what is meant by the place in which the goods are sold, to prevent the place being extended and abused and becoming a loophole. For example, supermarkets sell cigarettes. The regulations will permit and regulate advertising in the area of the supermarket in which cigarettes are sold. It would be unacceptable for the place of sale to be interpreted as meaning the entire shop, because advertising—which might be permitted on the gantry by regulations—might then be extended to cover shelves where, for example, tins of soup or baby milk might be for sale.
The amendment also excludes the word ``display'' and is, therefore, in line with amendment No. 24. Until the hon. Member for Meriden speaks on amendment No. 24, however, it will not be clear whether we have similar reasons for the proposal. The Government's reason is clarity and certainty. Rather than attempting to deal with display and advertising issues together, it would provide greater clarity to separate the two and introduce new provisions to deal with display. Those provisions will be available for consideration later in Committee.
Clearly, this is not the most straightforward of areas, as there is an overlap between what constitutes display of products and what constitutes an advertisement. The Government do not intend to change the broad status quo on the display of tobacco products for sale. We have no intention of unnecessarily increasing the burdens on small businesses, nor do we expect to change the way in which tobacco products are commonly displayed on gantries in corner shops, supermarkets and ordinary places of sale. It is legal to sell tobacco products and it is acceptable that vendors should be able to display their wares for sale. However, we want to prevent future loopholes and abuses. For example, we would not want tobacco companies to promote huge displays of their products in a high street window or among a display of children's toys. We would be concerned about products being scattered over aspirational items, such as Formula 1 motor cars, or fashionable items such as the micro scooters that children and teenagers are using at the moment. For that reason, we would oppose amendment No. 24 without a new clause being introduced, which is what we intend to do. It would be wrong to have no means of controlling and regulating the display of tobacco products.
We will table further provisions on the issue, so that we can distinguish between the legitimate displays that take place as part of the status quo and promotional displays the purpose of which is clearly to encourage people to take up smoking, and to make it difficult for those who wish to give up.
The purpose of amendment No. 25 is to have regulations made by the Minister in Westminster rather than the Scottish Minister. That is a matter for the Scottish Parliament. Although Wales and Northern Ireland will be dealt with by Westminster regulations, Scotland should make its own decisions on the matter. That does not necessarily mean that there will be different regulations in Scotland from those in the rest of the United Kingdom, because we have had considerable co-operation on the issue so far. The Sewel motion was strongly supported in the Scottish Parliament, even by Opposition Members' colleagues in the Scottish Conservative party. There would be difficulties if we have different regulations to deal with the issue on the internet. For that reason, we will consult our Scottish colleagues in detail. The bottom line is that, because of devolution, Scotland should make its own decisions. For that reason, we support Government amendment No. 17, but reject amendments Nos. 24 and 25.