Health Bill [HL]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right, and that point can be made with particular force in relation to Iceland. A display ban was introduced in 2001 and the evidence is pretty equivocal. There is some evidence for a decline in smoking prevalence amongst the young but, depending on what figures you look at, in my submission the trends are not conclusive. More to the point, though, what is not mentioned when people talk about Iceland is that, simultaneously with the introduction of the display ban, the Icelandic Government did three other things: they put up the price of cigarettes, they introduced restrictions on smoking in public places and they introduced a positive licensing system for retail sales. There is no way that anyone can say that the display ban has of itself influenced smoking behaviour in Iceland.