Member

The Government have an obligation to think about how those retailers will cope. Would the Minister consider a grant scheme to subsidise the cost of age-verification technology and reduce the financial burden on small retailers? It would certainly help improve compliance. The Government have to address shopkeepers being scared—the noble Lord, Lord Murray, used that word earlier, and it is an appropriate one. They are very scared about the impact of the generational ban on their businesses, the safety of their staff and the loss of income in an already struggling sector. It will no doubt lead to many of them going under or losing a great deal of income. To make this age verification work, they might need some help. Whatever happens, we should make no mistake that the weight of responsibility for the enforcement of this legislation will fall not on our shoulders but on the shoulders of retailers, who will have to navigate a new legal age threshold, which will change and become more challenging every year.