Health Bill [HL]

I shall backtrack slightly. I was talking about Amendment 107B and reminding noble Lords, who are no doubt extremely familiar with this WHO convention, that it states that when parties to this treaty set and implement public health policies related to tobacco control, they shall, ""act to protect these policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry"." As I was saying, we are extremely well aware of these tactics, which are very understandable as this extremely strong industry battles further for its sector. The kind of methods that it uses include casting doubt in the minds of the public about what they can trust or believe, suggesting that cause and effect is not necessarily the case, that statistical data do not provide answers, that their seemingly unbiased research undermines the public health case, and of course—that easiest of things—seeking delays in the implementation of what, to others, is self-evidently right. We know them all and saw them in the debates on the 2002 Bill, which I remember extremely well. Years ago, I was an historian of 20th-century medicine. You cannot study and teach that without being extremely well aware of how the tobacco and health debate was played out in the 20th century prior to and beyond the definitive researches of Sir Richard Doll. He published before I was born, and here we are still. We are fortunate that we do not have to rely on a few personal stories but have extremely wide-ranging, incontrovertible statistical evidence. However, if noble Lords want a personal story, perhaps I may add to those that we have already heard. On Monday night, I was waiting for my son at a sports centre. As I watched, a man sitting outside took a long draft on a cigarette, then his whole body convulsed in pain as he coughed. His body slowly recovered and, as soon as it had done so, he drew in the cigarette smoke once again. He had to do it, even with the excruciating pain that it was causing his body then and there. If noble Lords ever doubted addiction—the absolute need to smoke, even with a terrible immediate pain—they should have seen him. I was quite glad that my son, along with other kids, saw him as they came out of the sports centre. My heart went out to him because, if you like, there was no free will about that. I am now a spokesperson on international development and, as the Committee heard, the parent of teenagers. Therefore, I am immensely grateful for the regulation of tobacco and the public health messages promoted in the UK. At the same time, I am appalled by the spread of the sale of tobacco in the poorest developing countries, as I know what a time bomb in health terms they have coming down the track. We need all the tools at our disposal to counter in the UK—and, I hope, overseas—this particular problem. We are not naive; we know the history and the present position of the tobacco industry. The World Health Organisation has observed that even when tobacco companies devote portions of their profits to corporate social responsibility projects, things are not quite as they may seem. The WHO states that so-called, ""socially responsible initiatives … sit side by side with their continued involvement in aggressive advertising and sponsorship campaigns directed at young people, financial pressures they impose on countries that attempt to limit tobacco marketing, their deliberate deception in many developing countries concerning the dangers of second-hand smoke, and attempts to actively undermine the tobacco control activities of the World Health Organization"." Of course, the tobacco industry is actively lobbying against UK health policy on this issue now. As we heard on Monday from the Minister, last autumn MPs received postcards from the Save Our Shops campaign. Nowhere on those postcards was it disclosed that the campaign was industry-funded. Save Our Shops was branded as "Responsible Retailers", which was actually a campaign of the Tobacco Retailers Alliance. The Tobacco Retailers Alliance is funded by the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association, which in turn is funded by the three UK tobacco companies. Why am I not surprised? I offer these amendments to the Government to try to help them. The second amendment would enable them to establish a review of their guidelines on their engagement with the tobacco industry in respect of tobacco control and see the extent to which we are adhering to the important and hard-fought-for WHO convention. Government action to protect tobacco control policies from the commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry requires the insulation of tobacco control policy development from the tobacco industry to the greatest extent possible. Engagement with the tobacco industry should be limited to only those areas where it is strictly necessary; for example, to regulate tobacco products and the industry itself. Such engagement must be transparent and recorded. As I mentioned on Monday, the FCO has guidelines and makes it clear that it should not be involved in the promotion of tobacco products. As was referred to earlier, we have a particular responsibility as the UK Parliament to protect public health, especially the future of our children. I offer these amendments to the Government as a couple of tools to help them in their primary concern. I beg to move.