Health Bill [HL]

I address the Committee because I have yet to hear in all our deliberations any evidence that any of the tobacco companies based in the UK are pitching any of their activities to under-18s. They pitch tobacco as an adult product; it is a legal adult product. If there is evidence, I would be the first to complain and bring it to the attention of the Minister. I imagine that others would as well. On Amendment 107, we are taking about the idea of reporting all promotional activities not to get around the young people, but in order to live with the existing Act. I repeat: cigarettes are legal products. The sort of activities that come to mind would affect all packaged goods. They are to do with price, handling, fees, promotional orders, pack sizes, pack shapes, new products, promotional offers and so on—whatever below-the-line activity is available. I wrote a book on below-the-line activity with the University of Bradford many years ago. All those things are perfectly legal. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, but certainly somebody referred to the Prime Minister’s appeal for an enterprise economy with the importance of brands and so on. An enterprise economy requires companies competing with each other, not totally regulated by the state. I do not think that Amendment 107 is legal, and it would certainly be resisted by the whole of the packaged goods industry. Since we are almost at the end of this smoking section, perhaps my personal experience could be recorded. My late mother, God bless her, smoked until she was about 80. She died in her sleep aged 95, having been to the opera in Brisbane, and was not diagnosed with any form of lung cancer.