New clause 1 - Review of effect of this act
Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Bill
4:15 pm
Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden, Conservative)
The hon. Member for Rother Valley may find that there is an overlap between some of the aims that I have set out to achieve in new clause 1 and some of what he sets out to achieve in new clause 2, so I look forward to hearing what he has to say. Obviously the legislation has imposed some significant restrictions on the way in which legitimate business has been carried out in this country for a long time.
The justification given for the ban on tobacco advertising is the reduction in the prevalence of smoking, and the Government have set a target of reducing that by 2.5 per cent. It is important that we test the proposition properly and require the Government to evaluate the effect of what they are doing. Parliament should head the scrutiny of the legislation.
The UK has taken a significant unilateral decision as part of a significant trading block to ban tobacco advertising for public health reasons in order to meet the target of a 2.5 per cent. reduction in smoking prevalence. We owe it to those who will have to comply with the ban on advertising to demonstrate whether the target has been achieved because of the investment that they will have to make.
Our purpose will be made clear by this debate on our reasoned amendment. We share the Government's aim of reducing smoking prevalence, but the relatively modest target of reducing prevalence by 2.5 per cent. will be difficult to achieve unless we do something far more effective about the volume of illegal tobacco coming in to this country, which we see as fuelling the incidence of smoking.
It is quite reasonable to ask the Secretary of State to commission a qualified body to carry out a rolling study of the effect of the Bill. There is little difference between the hon. Member for Rother Valley and me on the concept of a qualified authority. I have read the Health Committee Report with care, and I understand his reasons for wanting a body to be introduced called the tobacco promotion regulatory authority. The Health Committee's report promoted such a body, and the Bill introduces new instruments that will carry out the role for which the Health Committee envisaged a tobacco regulatory authority.
It is a semantic difference, but under my new clause the Secretary of State would select a reputable and appropriately qualified body. Such a body might already be in existence. I am no great fan of setting up quangos and authorities all over the place, we have enough of them--I wonder about the effectiveness of some of them sometimes. An existing authority may be able to perform this role for the Secretary of State.
Commercial regulation is outside the sphere of my brief on health, so I am not sufficiently conversant with the constraints on the Advertising Standards Authority, for example. Existing regulatory authorities and bodies may be perfectly well-qualified—