Clause 14 - Obstruction, etc. of officers
Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Bill
10:45 am
Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden, Conservative)
I want to get the balance right between the need to empower enforcement officers, so that they carry out their work properly, and the need to protect those on the receiving end of such enforcement. I am worried about the way in which the Bill is drafted. It will be difficult to determine and prove whether a person has intentionally obstructed a duly authorised officer under subsection (1)(a), which is based heavily on subjectivity. It is a matter of one person's word against another's.
It will be impossible to determine and prove whether a person has failed to comply with a requirement made of him by an officer without reasonable cause. That takes me back to an earlier debate on the difference between
``has no reason to suspect''
``could not reasonably have known''.
Whether a cause was reasonable will be difficult to prove. Can the Minister cite examples of what would be a reasonable cause for failure to comply with a requirement made by the enforcement officer?
To understand how the provision would work in practice, I tried to think of some examples. It will be a big cultural change for our nation to adjust to thinking in terms of being alert to whether something is a tobacco advertisement and who has responsibility for its display. What about a tobacco advertisement that is displayed on an office building, which may not be the offices of a company that is in the business of promoting tobacco? Can an enforcement officer search that building?
Would an authorised officer have the right to enter the office of someone who, for example, had a Marlboro poster on the wall? That is not an unusual occurrence. I do not have one on my wall, but I gather an attractive Marlboro man poster is particularly popular with young women whose smoking prevalence is increasing—and which we are trying to reduce. If such a poster was displayed in an office, would the enforcement officer have the right to enter it and seek to prosecute someone? That individual may not primarily regard that as tobacco advertising; but we might accept that such a poster is banned from advertisement on billboards and other places where it might encourage smoking, and its continued existence might promote tobacco consumption among colleagues in the office. I am unclear about the practicalities of the clause. How on earth can the defendant claim that obstruction was unintentional, and what constitutes a reasonable cause for failure to comply? Perhaps the Minister would illustrate that for us.