Clause 13 - Powers of entry, etc.
Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Bill
10:30 am
Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden, Conservative)
I do not know whether I am grateful for the hon. Member's intervention. He clearly does not do his household shopping. Those of us who go regularly to the supermarket look from time to time at the ``For Sale'' board, where people can advertise kittens or their car without the hassle of advertising it in the newspaper. For the hon. Member's information, on those boards one sees cut-price cigarettes advertised with a domestic address and telephone number. The look of bewilderment on the face of the hon. Member indicates, and I have no reason to doubt, his complete innocence in all these matters—and mine, too, in terms of ever contemplating securing illegally imported tobacco. It would not even cross my mind to do that, but the fact is that, for quite a proportion of the population, it does. It is one of the main reasons for fuelling the prevalence of smoking.
We have not had ``advertisement'' tightly defined, and those notices appear in supermarkets all over the UK. Does the Minister think that they are advertising? An enforcement officer doing his or her weekly shopping in the supermarket might well see a little postcard on the notice board of a supermarket and think that it may open up an interesting line of inquiry because he thinks that it constitutes an advertisement. He may pursue it to the address and find that it is a private dwelling house. Under the Bill—[Interruption.] I am finding it quite hard to concentrate, Mrs. Adams. Under the Bill, he or she is currently prevented from access, and I should not wish us to tie the hands of the enforcement officers and prevent them from being able to shut something down. I think that that is a loophole.