Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Bill [Lords]
4:30 pm
Mr Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
First, I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Amess, and I also welcome Mr. Winterton, who chaired last week's Programming Sub-Committee—for rather longer than we are used, as such Committees usually last about two minutes.
A few points are worth making about the sittings motion. We were unhappy that the Committee had been curtailed from what we were originally led to believe would be eight sittings, which became seven, six, and finally five, and that we would have to report to the House shortly, leaving little time to produce meaningful amendments for discussion.
We also argued the toss in the Programming Sub-Committee over the time that we should start on Thursday morning. Labour Members seem happy to start halfway through the day, at 9.30 am, whereas we wanted to start at 8.55 am, as is the normal procedure for a Committee on a Thursday morning. Ultimately, we had to concede that extra and probably crucial five
minutes and we shall start at 9 o'clock on Thursday morning. Such is the sloth of Government these days that we shall have to go along with that.
We oppose programming in principle. As Opposition Members did not vote against the Bill but tabled a reasoned amendment, an agreement could have been reached to make the Committee rather more open-ended. We have a lot to debate.
The Minister will say, as she did on Second Reading and in the Programming Sub-Committee, that it is not a new Bill. As I said, it has been round the houses. It appeared in the last Parliament, but did not go beyond the Commons because of the election, and it has been scrutinised in the Lords, too. As a result of how our parliamentary processes work, however, what happened in the last Parliament is irrelevant and we must start again. It is especially important to do so because we need to test the Government's resolve in promoting the Bill, which was not in the Queen's Speech following the general election and was dragged back to the Floor of the House of Lords by a private Member speaking for the Liberal Democrats. The Government have now adopted it and belatedly given it their support.
Secondly, we have a bicameral Parliament and, although the Bill has been scrutinised in the upper House, it is absolutely right that it should be scrutinised fully and exhaustively in this place.