Clause 2 - Prohibition of tobacco advertising
Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Bill [Lords]
9:00 am
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
I hope that the Government will take the amendments extremely seriously. If I as a layman in such matters understand the Bill correctly, we have a curious position. The part about
''providing the means of transmission''
is the one that bothers me most. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) says, that includes a huge number of people and businesses, and could make criminals out of an enormous number of law-abiding people.
I am not an expert—indeed, I am a total novice—about IT, but I believe that I have enough of a grasp to get the technical words right. If I understand how these things work, one first of all needs hardware—a computer, for example—to have a means of transmission. Without that, it is not possible. If someone who provides the means of transmission is to be caught by the provision, presumably that includes everyone working in PC World who sells computers that could be used. Nothing states that the person in PC World has a defence in saying that he did not know, unless the amendment is accepted. Therefore, everyone who works in PC World, Dixons, Currys, or anywhere else where people buy computers, or hardware, might be deemed to be helping the means of transmission.