Health Bill [HL]

My Lords, that is a pretty poor defence, if I may say so. If ASH really wants to be as pure as it wants the tobacco industry to be, it should refuse the government grants and, indeed, repay the grants that it has already received. It is not only retailers and the tobacco industry that have lobbied your Lordships; I instance Unite, which is a very large trade union that pays a lot of money in affiliation fees to the Labour Party. It, too, is concerned about this legislation. I shall not take the House through the whole document that I have before me but will quote just the Executive Summary: ""The UK tobacco industry is highly profitable for the Treasury, generating tax revenue of £10 billion"." By God, how we need that money at the moment; we should not refuse it. Unite did not say that; those are my own words. The second point is: ""There are currently 6,500 people working in the tobacco sector and supports a supply chain of 80,000 people in the UK alone"." Thirdly, it says: ""The tobacco sector is the top contributor to the UK’s balance of trade, and exports goods worth £984 million"." The fourth point is: ""The illegal trade in tobacco products is costing the UK tax payer and the public sector £4.3 billion"." Fifthly, it says: ""Since 1970 job losses in the sector have amounted to 40,000 in the UK alone. Unite believes there would have been government intervention if this had happened in any other manufacturing industry"," which now represents only 11 per cent of total GDP. Those final words are mine. ""The UK has one of the highest tobacco taxation levels in the world and this is clearly driving the growth in illegal unregulated tobacco products";" and, ""There is a clear and insidious link between the illegal counterfeit tobacco trade and organised crime"." I will not go on. I think that that is quite enough. There have been attacks on the glossy magazines. I shall conclude my remarks by quoting in full a letter from ordinary tobacconists which appeared in the Daily Telegraph on 4 May 2009. It states: ""Ban on display of tobacco""SIR - The House of Lords will be voting on Wednesday to decide whether small shops like ours can continue to display tobacco products or not.""This is a matter of the greatest importance to 50,000 small convenience stores for which tobacco represents on average a third of trade. The Department of Health has suggested that hiding tobacco would reduce youth smoking, but sufficient evidence to support this theory has not been presented.""We are already struggling in the recession. A ban on the display of tobacco would deal us a new body blow.""Politicians talk about wanting to help hard-working families during the downturn. Not many people work harder than the proprietors of Britain’s small shops. Unlike the banks, we are not asking for bail-outs. All we ask is that any restrictions on our businesses are proportionate, evidence-based and absolutely necessary.""The government of New Zealand has abandoned plans to ban tobacco displays, because it does not believe that the evidence exists to justify the burden this would place on small businesses.""The Lords have a chance to ask the Government to think again about this ban"." And I am going to read out the signatories: ""Ken Patel, Shopkeeper from Leicester; Mahendra Jadeja, Shopkeeper from London; Solly Khonat, Shopkeeper from Blackburn; Parminder Singh, Shopkeeper from Birmingham; Debbie Corris, Shopkeeper from Whitstable; John Abbott, Shopkeeper from Darlington; John McKeown, Shopkeeper from Ballymena; Fiona Barrett, Shopkeeper from Glasgow; Dev Aswani, Shopkeeper from Swansea; Paddy Paddison, Shopkeeper from Devon"." Let them speak for me.