Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)

My Lords, I will address just two amendments in this group. The first is Amendment 171 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, who powerfully and clearly introduced it as a probing amendment to the Government while very handily timing her intervention to remind me that it is in this group and that I have attached my name to it. I thank the noble Baroness for that. We might say that there are different sides in this Committee, but everyone has agreed that adult smokers need to be able to get the information they need that this is an effective way to stop smoking. That is what this amendment does, and I do not think I need to say anymore on that. I want to address briefly Amendment 172A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, which is about restrictions on brand sharing. It is important to highlight why this amendment should not be part of the Bill. The process of brand stretching or brand sharing is something that we have seen the tobacco companies doing a great deal of. Mysteriously, expensive leather jackets, fancy sunglasses or even stationery suddenly start to bear various branding aspects—I will get to what those aspects are in a second—that just happen to echo that of a certain form of cigarettes. Governments very often find themselves playing a whack-a-mole game: if you try to ban this, then something slightly different appears and so on. I particularly want to highlight the guidelines for implementation of Article 13 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control because this amendment very clearly goes against what that says. It notes that there needs to be an effective ban on all forms of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. I think it is worth quoting this because it highlights the ways in which the WHO is trying to catch everything because it has to try to catch everything: “Promotional effects, both direct and indirect, may be brought about by the use of words, designs, images, sounds and colours, including brand names … or schemes of colours associated with tobacco products, manufacturers or importers, or by the use of a part or parts of words, designs, images and colours”. The Government need all the powers they can possibly have to stop the merchants of death sneaking round into little gaps in the legislation.