Clause 9 - Prohibition of Sponsorship
Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Bill
5:45 pm
Ms Yvette Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary (Public Health), Department of Health; Pontefract and Castleford, Labour)
The clause is extremely important. My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley is right that sponsorship has been a way of increasing what is effectively advertising and promotion of tobacco products through what the tobacco companies clearly regard as a powerful way of communicating their message to smokers and potential smokers. Subsection (1) sets out that
``A person who is party to a sponsorship agreement is guilty of an offence if the purpose or effect of anything done as a result of the agreement is to promote a tobacco product''
and subsection (2) sets out a clear definition of a sponsorship agreement. The clause does not ban companies from making donations. It does not ban them from being good corporate citizens and donating money to charity or to events. It simply bans them from promoting tobacco products as a result.
The hon. Member for South Dorset gave the example of a tobacco company that wanted to donate to a charity in order to fund some health research. If a company wants to donate to a charity to promote health research, let it. However, we must be slightly cynical about its interest in research into, for example, a cure for lung cancer if the price of its donation towards research is the promotion of its tobacco products, which cause the disease. Such promotion and sponsorship should not be permitted under the Bill.
It is true that we cannot ban international sponsorship. However, we can and should work with our European partners to achieve a Europe-wide ban. We can also work with the World Health Organisation to try to reduce world-wide sponsorship, particularly of events. I think that we will have some opportunity to work with international partners and colleagues on that. It is reasonable to require UK sporting, artistic and other events to find other sources of sponsorship.
The Government set out their intention from the beginning in order to allow time for sports to find alternative sources of sponsorship. The bottom line remains that sponsorship of events for the sake of promoting tobacco products must stop because it is a powerful way of promoting tobacco products and smoking. My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley is right. When the health consequences are 120,000 deaths each year, such a major form of advertising should be prevented.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.