Clause 8 - Prohibition of free distributions
Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Bill
12:00 pm
Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 10, in page 3, line 38, leave out ``a'' and insert'' his''.
The amendments pertain to the common, historical provision of coupons. I should imagine that several members of the Committee can remember back to their childhood when football cards were issued with cigarettes. They never inspired me to smoke and I doubt that much of the coupon practice has an impact today. It was an historical part of British culture that coupons were issued with cigarettes; many people have valuable collections of football cards. Under the Bill as it is drafted, the issuing of cards will become a practice of the past and the cards themselves museum pieces. The amendments are designed to point out to the Government some of the consequences.
Amendment No. 10 has rightly been selected to stand on its own. It is separate from the issue of coupons per se, and relates to legitimate defences and what is or is not reasonable. I have never attended an event at which I witnessed tobacco products or coupons being given away, but I am not a smoker and would probably not have been aware of it.
Under the Bill
``A person is guilty of an offence if in the course of a business he—
(a) gives any product or coupon away to the public in the United Kingdom, or
(b) causes or permits that to happen''.
My anxiety in trying to change minutely the wording from ``a'' to ``his'' relates to the possibility that a person may attend an event over which he or she has little control and for which he or she has little responsibility. I thought that the proposed wording would be tighter and would make it clear that responsibility lay with the person carrying out the business. If the business or function were, for example, a big sports event, over which the individual found guilty of giving away coupons had no control, it would be difficult to prosecute if his instructions or the agreement on which the business was established contained a clause that made it clear that he could carry out his business at that event. The word ``a'' disconnects the person who will be found guilty of the offence from ownership or responsibility for that business.
Although I have never witnessed it, I understand that such products have traditionally been given out at sporting and even charitable events or large social gatherings and university balls. Sometimes students become involved in the distribution of such products as a way of augmenting their income to support themselves at university. Traditionally, it has been done in that way, but of course such a person would have no responsibility for that event and might walk into a bit of a hole if he did not realise that such activity was now illegal.
The amendment is a probing amendment designed to make it clear who has responsibility for the business. If the person found guilty of the offence had no responsibility for the business, he might innocently walk into committing an offence without realising what he was doing.