Clause 8 - Prohibition of free distributions
Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Bill
12:15 pm
Ms Yvette Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary (Public Health), Department of Health; Pontefract and Castleford, Labour)
I welcome the hon. Lady's decision to withdraw the amendment. I want to add two quick points of clarification. It is not my understanding that the situations that she has described would be caught by the Bill, but I will look again at the phrasing. However, the wording in her amendment is not acceptable, because it would not allow the foreign owner to be prosecuted or anyone else to be held responsible for what we have described.
As for the Lords and Commons pipe and cigar smokers club, the idea that anything in the Bill would prevent access to Members of Parliament is nonsense. Any tobacco company can gain access to Members of Parliament, talk to them as much as individual Members will let them, and can make their points as they have always been able to. I was not sure whether the hon. Member for South Dorset was suggesting that there should be a special exemption for hon. Members so that companies could offer them free products and coupons that were not available to other members of the public. That would probably be a little unacceptable.