Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)

My Lords, I will speak very briefly to my noble friend’s Amendment 114A. First, I apologise profusely for not being here in time to speak to my amendments in the last group. I feel doubly guilty about that because I am going to pick up on something the Minister said in answer to the fact I was not here. With regard to heated tobacco products, I believe the Minister said that they are harmful. However, there is no conclusive evidence of this; as my noble friend Lord Jackson pointed out, they are a cessation product and therefore ought to be materially less harmful. The fact is that the WHO also acknowledges—or rather assumes—that they will be harmful, but it does not have any conclusive evidence to that point. Can the Minister elaborate a little on where that evidence comes from? As regards Amendment 114C, I think we should continue to conduct impact assessments. I reject the Liberal argument, which seems, as far as I can ascertain, to be that you should not have a consultation with people you do not like because you might not like their answers. That does not strike me as much of a consultation. I have little else to say, but I apologise again, particularly for picking up on the Minister, who did not have to answer my amendments—that is a bit of a cheap shot, and I apologise.