I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to consider the following amendments: No. 2, in page 2, line 31, leave out clause 4.

Government amendments Nos. 5 to 12 and Nos. 16 to 17.

In Committee, I agreed to bring forward a provision for Scotland which paralleled as far as possible clause 4 of the Bill. In giving that commitment, I said that such an amendment would need to reflect the different prosecution arrangements in Scotland, and new clause 2 does that. In response to representations from the Bill's sponsors, new clause 2 extends the local authority enforcement role to cover not only offences under section 18 of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937 but new offences that will be created in clauses 3 and 5 of the Bill. Those are offences in relation to the sale of unpackaged cigarettes and the display of warning statements in retail premises and on vending machines. Later in the debate, I shall move amendments to clause 4 which parallel that extension of the local authority enforcement role. I hope that the new clause has the approval of the Bill's sponsor, the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds), and I commend it to the House.

Amendment No. 2, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, East (Mr. Knowles), seeks to delete clause 4. As some members of the Committee will remember, there was much discussion on that clause. We wanted to get it right and I am sure that, with the addition of the amendments that I have tabled, we have done so. I hope that there will be general agreement on that. As always, I shall listen with care to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, East. I shall explain why I think that clause 4 is necessary and how it is intended to work. Local authorities have powers elsewhere to follow up offences such as those in the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. The Bill strengthens those powers, and clauses 3 and 5 introduce new ones.

The concern expressed by the hon. Member for Warley, East, other members of the Committee and the Parents Against Tobacco campaign was that those powers were not necessarily being used. The Government are concerned that some local authorities appear not to be taking seriously enough their responsibilities in that area. This can be for various reasons, but it seems that local authorities are often doubtful about their powers to act in this field and may even believe that they have none. This, I believe, was also the response that Parents Against Tobacco came up against.

It seemed clear, therefore, that something was needed to prompt local authorities into considering exactly what they might and should be doing to prevent the sale of tobacco to children. The other clauses of the Bill strengthened the force of the offences, but, alongside that, it needed to stimulate local authorities into action.

Clause 4 requires local authorities to consider at least once every 12 months to what extent it is appropriate for them to carry out an enforcement programme relating to offences under the 1933 Act, and now, with my other amendments, to which I shall be turning shortly, the other clauses of the Bill. In practice, this will mean that, at least once a year, this subject will be on the agenda of every county council, metropolitan district council and London borough council. The councils will have to address themselves to the problem in their area and decide what form of action is appropriate to their particular local circumstances.

As the House will have noted, district councils in the shire counties were not on the list of those to whom clause 4 applies. However, this does not mean that they will not wish to take action or that they will be unable to do so. District councils have powers under section 222 of the Local Government Act 1972 to prosecute for such offences. Also, of course, they, too, may take a decision to mount a campaign in the interests of their area aimed at the prevention of the sale of cigarettes to children.

The Government's determination to see that clause 4 produces results is reflected in our commitment to back it up with a circular to local authorities, prepared jointly by those Departments with an interest in these matters. The circular will explain exactly what local authorities' powers are to take action on these offences. It will remind them of their responsibilities and the importance which is attached to taking action against offenders.

We have been told that local authorities are not sure how best to approach such a campaign. Again, it is hoped that, with the assistance of those already engaged in these activities or the monitoring of them, the circular will provide examples of best practice. These will serve to explain to local authorities the various ways in which this problem can be tackled.

We would not, however, propose to leave it at that. As has been said, public pressure for action can be an important driving force for local authorities to take action. One way in which local electors can judge what is happening is to have access to information about what their local authority has been doing. We have therefore given an undertaking to issue a revised code of practice to local authorities on the publication of annual reports and financial statements by local authorities, which will require local authorities to include information on just that.

The annual reports of local authorities must be made widely available to members of the public, at town and county halls; members of the local press, supplemented by a press release; interested groups wishing to receive copies; and employees of the authority. This should give plenty of opportunity for the general public to evaluate what their local authority is doing and, if necessary, to lobby for more or different types of action.

9.45 am

Clause 4 is the linchpin of all this activity. Local authorities already have powers, but we want to ensure—I know that this is the purpose of the hon. Member for Warley, East—that they are regularly considering whether and how they should use them.

My hon. Friend said that the local authorities have powers already to take the various forms of action that he has described. Are not we guilty of repetition by giving the authorities the additional power of enabling them to consider every year the appropriateness of the action that they have taken, and to take whatever action happens to be appropriate to their respective areas? Is not the additional power repetitious and an example of what we seek to avoid putting on the statute book?

The proposed legislation requires local authorities to do only one more thing apart from providing them with additional powers, which is done in other parts of the Bill. It is to consider carefully at least once a year what the problems are in their areas and how they should best use their powers. I think that my hon. Friend will agree that these are important matters. I know that he has concern, because he expressed it in Committee. I believe that he would like to see local authorities considering the problem and using their powers as they think best and using their resources in the manner that they hope will be most productive. I believe that my hon. Friend and I agree on that. The clause does no more than ensure that local authorities regularly consider how that may best be done in their areas.

We want local authorities themselves to be aware of what can and should be done, and we want their electors to be in a position to make their opinion felt. Without the requirement in clause 4 for each local authority to take a measured view of what needs doing at least once every 12 months, this may not happen. The force of the Bill as a whole would be emasculated by the removal of clause 4.

I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, East is concerned not to place additional unnecessary work on local authorities, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North (Sir T. Skeet). They are right. We all know that it is far too easy to require local authorities to devote resources and time to inessential and ineffectual tasks, to the exclusion of their more serious responsibilities. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, East will accept that clause 4 represents one of the more serious responsibilities of local authorities—to consider how the law on the sale of cigarettes to children might be enforced—and that it could therefore be right to retain it.

It would probably be useful if I spoke to amendments Nos. 5 to 11, which are largely technical. Much time and care was devoted in Committee to achieving a form of words for the key enforcement clause, clause 4. The Government were concerned to arrive at a clause which was practicable and effective. I know that that was the intention also of the hon. Member for Warley, East. Although we may have started out from somewhat different positions, when it came to what we considered to be practicable and effective, I am glad to say that it seems that we have achieved common ground. I do not believe that that would have been achieved without perseverance and resourcefulness and the good sense of the hon. Member for Warley, East and his supporters and friends in Parents Against Tobacco.

The intention that lies behind the clause is that, at least once every 12 months, every county, metropolitan district or London borough should consider the extent to which it is appropriate for it to carry out an enforcement programme that is designed to stamp out the practice of selling cigarettes to under 16-year-olds. The programme of action was to be related to the offences that are set out in the Children and. Young Persons Act 1933. However, the new offences that are introduced by clauses 3 and 5 go wider than that.

Thus, a local authority may wish to design a programme to deter retailers from selling packets of cigarettes to children. Where the main problem is the sale of single cigarettes, it may wish to take action on that offence. A local authority might wish to monitor the use of certain vending machines as a preliminary to malting complaints about their use to a court. Some or all of these activities might be appropriate to a programme of enforcement action, but local authorities need to consider them all before deciding how best to proceed in the interests of their areas.

Clause 4, as drafted, refers only to the offences under section 7 of the 1933 Act. This group of amendments would insert reference to clauses 3 and 5 of the Bill and to the making of complaints about and monitoring of the use of vending machines. Thus they ensure that each local authority will take a comprehensive look at all those areas where children might be at risk through the illegal sale of cigarettes before deciding what action to take. That cart be seen only as an improvement to clause 4.

Amendment No. 16 is simply a tidying-up amendment to ensure that the clause follows those clauses in the Bill, notably clauses 1, 3 and 5, to which it relates.

Amendment No. 17 tidies up the long title to the Bill. It reflects the changes made in the Bill in relation to enforcement action by local authorities and to the order of the clauses that have been agreed. I commend the amendments to the House.

The Bill returns to the House after four Committee days, which we all much enjoyed, and a lengthy process of negotiation. I do not pretend that the Bill is as uncompromising as I would like, but both the Minister and I made it clear on Second Reading that we were ready to do all that we could to establish a consensus behind legislation that would effectively reduce the sale of tobacco products to children. I am in no doubt that the Bill will do that.

I thank the Minister for the generous amount of time that he has given to our discussions. He has bent over backwards—if that is not an unparliamentary term—to help the Bill to proceed on its way. I thank him for his extraordinarily constructive attitude —not a quality that one always finds in Ministers. I also thank the Committee for its work.

I shall not take too long to review the background to the Bill in general, and this new clause in particular, but I must remind the House of two salient points. First, nobody outside the tobacco industry argues with the proposition that tobacco products represent a major threat to the health and well- being of the nation. On Second Reading, I quoted the chief medical officer of health, who said that cigarette smoking in the United Kingdom continued to be

"by far the most significant single cause of ill health and premature death, and hence of expenditure on health services".—[Official Report, 18 January 1991; Vol. 183, c. 1093.]

The House heard from myself, from the Minister and from other hon. Members about the overwhelming evidence of death and disease caused by smoking. Those problems are especially acute in Scotland. There, and throughout the United Kingdom, our hospitals and cemeteries are filled with the victims of tobacco.

Secondly, in giving the Bill a Second Reading, the House accepted that while there are difficult questions of personal freedom when it comes to restrictions on adult smoking, those do not apply to children. For their own protection, children cannot be given the same freedom of choice as more mature adults. That is recognised in existing legislation—in Scotland, it is the 1937 Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act—which makes sales of cigarettes to children illegal. Regrettably, despite a worthy amendment to the law introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) in 1986, the legislation still fails to restrain the sales of tobacco to children.

There are a number of reasons why the law as it stands does not work, but the chief of those is that it has not been properly enforced. Local authorities in Scotland currently take no effective part in preventing illegal sales of cigarettes; they have no powers to bring a case to court—that is the procurator fiscal's role—and they have not generally investigated complaints. Mostly, where investigations have been done at all, the police have been responsible, and they have admitted that they simply do not have the time to do the job properly, if at all.

I am delighted—indeed, pleasantly surprised—that Scottish Office Ministers now see the sense of charging local authorities with responsibility in that area—even though, of course, the decision to prosecute remains the province of the procurator fiscal. I salute that change of heart and implore the Scottish Office to complete its good work by preparing guidance to local authorities on the use of this new power, based on best practice in curbing illegal cigarette sales. I hope, too, that a means will be found of ensuring that regional and islands councils will refer in their annual reports to action taken to monitor the situation and to investigate complaints.

Clause 4 introduces a framework for effective enforcement action in England and Wales. As I said, the failure of the legislation to date is largely due to the fact that it has been so inadequately enforced. On Second Reading, I cited a number of surveys demonstrating that up to half the shops that sell cigarettes in Britain were selling to children under 16 in open defiance of the law. Such surveys have continued and while, in a few areas, retailers are responding to public concern and acting responsibly, in too many instances the same familiar pattern of law-breaking is evident. The reason for that is that traders have been able to take it for granted that they would not be prosecuted. A survey at the end of 1989 of 110 local authorities showed that 104 had prosecuted no one in the three years since the 1986 Act was passed.

There was, perhaps, confusion about who was responsible. There were local authorities that literally did not appear to know that the law existed. Many local authorities thought the responsibility was that of the police, and the police took the view that the responsibility lay with the local authorities. This Bill acknowledges that the primary responsibility for enforcing the law should lie with local authorities.

If the amendments to clause 4 are accepted by the House, as I hope, a duty would be placed on one tier of local government to consider, at least once a year, the extent to which it is appropriate for them to carry out in their areas a programme of enforcement action designed to control all aspects of cigarette sales to children. The nature of that programme is defined.

I will not pretend to the House that I would not have liked this part of the Bill to be even more specific, but I believe that these provisions, taken together with the supplementary guidance that the Department of the Environment is to issue, will create the conditions for a real blitz on illegal cigarette sales, whenever and wherever necessary.

It will, in future, be abundantly clear that local authorities do have the responsibility to act, that some specific local authorities must fully consider the matter on an annual basis, and that they have the power to investigate and to prosecute, and to take any other steps they consider appropriate. When the Bill becomes law, it will never again be possible for one of the relevant local authorities either to claim that it has no power to act or that it is not responsible for acting in this area. It is therefore a major advance.

The effect of the measure as a whole will be to make absolutely plain the responsibility of retailers not to sell to children under 16, to deter them from selling single cigarettes to children and to make it easy to deal with any loophole provided by the availability of vending machines.

Other provisions in the Bill simplify most usefully the nature of offences and raise substantially the level of fines that can be imposed by the courts. The retail industry is on notice. When this legislation completes its course through Parliament, as I hope will happen this summer, it will not pay to sell cigarettes to children.

I am trying to pursue the hon. Gentleman's argument. He suggests that the problem with enforcement is that one has to have the necessary evidence to take a case to court. How does he suggest that that evidence should be produced? Will he use children as agents provocateurs? How will he get the essential truth? I agree that we should protect our children by education and parental control, but I do not think that there will be a large number of additional prosecutions as a result of this clause.

I wondered how long it would be before I received an intervention from that quarter. The hon. Gentleman was one of the most interventionist of hon. Members in Committee—not always with the most useful contributions. He asks a simple question—he usually does ask simple questions—and I can only respond as best I can.

The hon. Gentleman uses the phrase "agents provocateurs" as if we were trying to do something improper by the use of children in acquiring evidence about the illegal sales of cigarettes. We argued this question in Committee, and he knows in his heart of hearts that we are not going to get prosecutions unless we have the help of children under the age of 16 who are sold cigarettes. That has to be part of the process and I think that in his kinder moments he would probably accept the necessity for that sort of action.

I was winding up my comments on this passage of the Bill, saying that local authorities should be under notice that parents throughout the United Kingdom expect action on this matter. Central Government will have an active part to play in monitoring the situation and calling to account either the industry or the enforcing agencies if the law is neglected in any area.

I am immensely cheered by the fact that in consultations and discussions with the Government, and after the very healthy presages of the Committee, we have managed to achieve this enormous improvement on what is now an appalling status quo.

I listened carefully to what my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary said from the Front Bench on this subject, and I shall come to my reaction later, as I have tabled an amendment to delete this clause. I want to comment on what the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) has said.

Obviously, there are worries when we impose fresh duties on local government—something that we do all too lightly in the House. On occasion, it seems that every Bill will have to be enforced by local councils at one level or another, without regard to manpower considerations or cost. However, with the other hand, we apply pressure on local councils to contain their costs, although their duties are increased, and that is unreasonable. Local government continuously objects to it, and rightly so.

I served in local government for a long time and I know precisely what pressures are brought to bear from time to time by Government Departments. If a pressure group gets on to a Department about a certain issue, the whole of a council's resources should then be devoted to that cause, whatever it is. The next year, there will be another pressure group campaigning about something else.

It is difficult to bring prosecutions for this offence. Last year, the figure was 27. It is difficult to obtain the information on which one can push for a prosecution, but there are problems with the use of agents provocateurs. The hon. Member for Warley, East lightly swept that argument aside, but there are serious moral and legal questions over such a use of children.

Is it right that children should be used to incite another person to break the law? That is a serious question. Is there not a danger that those children will lose respect for the law and consider that it is correct to do something if they are told to do so by a person in authority?

It is illegal to incite the committing of a crime and those who use that method to bring prosecutions might well find that it is deemed illegal when a case reaches a sufficiently advanced stage in court. One never knows—that is always a danger.

I do not dismiss the use of children as agents provocateurs lightly, but it seems to raise a host of problems to which we should give careful consideration.

I share the hon. Gentleman's concern, but does he agree that when children are seen coming out of a tobacconist with cigarettes, it is legitimate evidence, because that is where much of the evidence was collected?

I agree absolutely with the hon. Lady, but it is difficult to do that.

Another matter that I am not certain about, although it is dealt with in another clause, is whether tobacconists are deliberately selling cigarettes to children on a large scale. I do not accept that, as I do not think that people in this country go around deliberately breaking the law. It can be difficult to distinguish between a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old child. In Committee, I mentioned memories of my youth, when children over the age limit used to buy cigarettes, break open the packet and sell them individually. However, I never came across cases of tobacconists breaking open packets, although that does not mean that it does not happen, and I think that it is more usually older children who do that.

My hon. Friend mentions a serious problem. Is he in dispute with Parents Against Tobacco, which says that £90 million a year is spent by children on tobacco? Does he think that that figure is wrong?

I do not think that under-age children are going to tobacconists and spending that money themselves. I suspect that the money is spent indirectly, with children over the age buying the cigarettes and selling them on. That has been my experience.

We have just been given one of the figures. It does not make the problem any easier, but it is important for my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Page) to remember that that figure of £90 million, which is probably accurate, in part consists of sales by children over the age of 16 or by adults, who have bought cigarettes legally, for their friends standing outside the retailer's shop. However, that does not absolve society.

The hon. Member for Warley, East said that no one outside the tobacco industry has any doubts about the health arguments. I tend to agree with him there. That is also true of the drink and butter industries. We are told that innumerable things are threats to our health, but it is difficult to argue that that should give us the right as legislators to interfere with people's choice. In Committee and on Second Reading, there was a straight clash of principle on that subject. I start from a libertarian position, but there is a broad divide in the House which does not necessarily run between the parties so much as across them.

Does my hon. Friend agree that a number of products are harmful when taken in excess, and it is right that people should be free to have them, provided that they realise their effects? Tobacco products are unique in that they are harmful per se. Therefore, there is a clear distinction to be drawn.

That is where the clash comes: in the principle of the libertarian argument about people's right to prescribe what others do, and that of individual choice. It applies to a whole range of matters.

The hon. Gentleman is in danger of setting up a spurious argument. We are talking about children. If the hon. Gentleman believes that it is wrong to preclude children from exercising choice in regard to tobacco, he must apply the same argument to restrictions on alcohol and fireworks. For centuries, we have taken for granted our responsibility to protect the young from themselves. We are not talking about robbing adults of choice.

If I could get out more than two sentences at a time, I might be able to answer some of the points that are being made.

The hon. Member for Warley, East said that the Bill was not as strong as he had originally wanted it to be, and that he had been forced to compromise. Approaching the matter from the opposite direction, I find myself in much the same position. I suspected that, although the word "children"—which is always good emotive stuff—was incorporated in the Bill's title, the driving force behind it was a generalised attack on the tobacco industry, for which children were being used as an excuse. Whether people like it or not, the tobacco industry is still legal and will, I believe, continue to be so.

As for the generalised libertarian question, I always view such measures with suspicion, because I would rather fight in the first ditch than fight in the last. If the argument is lost in regard to tobacco, similar restrictions will then be applied to drink and fatty substances, and newspaper censorship will follow. When the people who know best want to tell others how they should lead their lives, there are no limits to the argument. I am entirely against that argument, which runs, "It is all for your own good. All you have to do is surrender your freedom to me."

I think that we are getting somewhere, however, I hope to speak on some of the amendments later; but I am more than happy to accept the assurances of my hon. Friend the Minister, and, in the light of what he has said, I shall not oppose new clause 2.

I welcome new clause 2, which attempts to bring Scottish law into line with the Bill's proposals for England, allowing for the differences between the prosecution systems of the two countries.

It is generally recognised—certainly by Parents Against Tobacco—that the problem of children under 16 acquiring cigarettes illegally is greater in Scotland than in England. Had the matter not been tackled, the Bill would have contained a serious lacuna. The Minister has shown an enlightened awareness of the problem from the outset, but the same tribute cannot be paid to his Scottish colleagues.

For years, the Scottish Office has been reluctant to fund research into under-age smoking, with the result that, while the latest figures available in England were produced in 1988, the latest Scottish figures were produced in 1986.

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's kind references to me. When I voiced my concern, and that of the Committee, about the absence of enforcement measures in Scotland, my Scottish ministerial colleagues immediately saw the point, shared my concern and worked hard to consult local authorities speedily, so that the new clause could be tabled on Report.

The Minister has indeed exercised considerable persuasive skills to bring round his Scottish colleagues to a somewhat more enlightened view than they had previously demonstrated, and I welcome the changes that are being made.

Under clause 4(2)(a), English local authorities' "programme of enforcement action" includes

"the bringing of prosecutions in respect of offences under the principal section".

Perhaps inevitably, there is no comparable provision for Scotland, because of the responsibility of the procurators fiscal for bringing prosecutions there. I hope that the difference in criminal procedure will not make local authorities any less assiduous in seeking to assist the prosecuting authorities in the collation and production of evidence, and in encouraging the bringing of prosecutions for the evil that under-age smoking causes. It is difficult to measure the scale of that evil, which causes permanent damage to the health of hundreds of thousands of children. The figures produced by Parents Against Tobacco have not been seriously challenged in any quarter.

This is a valuable measure, which supplements a Bill introduced by the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) in 1986. I congratulate the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) on his sterling work.

I wish not to discuss the principles and purposes behind the Bill—the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) has done that very adequately in Committee and today—but to say a little about how I expect the Bill to operate in practice. I welcome new clause 2 and clause 4; I agree with my hon. Friend the Minister that they are the linchpin of the Bill and will determine whether it succeeds of fails.

I am a great believer in the deterrence theory. I hope that the Bill will set up what is known in boxing parlance as the old one-two. We are looking for the straight left in the form of local authority enforcement, and the right hook represented by adequate fines from magistrates. The £100 average is ludicrous; I believe that the maximum fine should be imposed and I should like the press to play the role of referee.

The press must give such cases must more publicity when they come to court, so that people are made aware that they are patronising a shopkeeper who, for a few measly pence, is prepared to put children's health at risk. They should consider whether it is worth their while to patronise a shopkeeper who is so careless of our children's health. If someone were caught putting poison into baby food, the subsequent court case would be publicised throughout the country.

People who sell children tobacco are poisoning them as surely as they would be if they put poison in their food. The time scale is longer, but in setting up an addictive habit they are condemning those children to eventual illness and disease. Because more young girls are smoking nowadays, shopkeepers are condemning not only the present generation but the next generation. More deformed children are likely to be born, along with children who will have less chance at school because of the proven effect on the intelligence of children of women who smoke.

Local authorities, magistrates and every Member of Parliament must ensure that when the Bill is enacted it is enforced. I want every hon. Member to say to the local authority in his or her area, "What do you intend to do to enforce the provisions of the Bill?" In accordance with clause 4 and new clause 2, I want them every year thereafter to say to their local authorities "Can I have a copy of your monitoring for the year?"

I have listened keenly to my hon. Friend's observations. He suggests that the onus should be placed on local authorities and he wants maximum fines to be imposed by magistrates. What about the responsibility of parents and teachers? Huge penalties are all very well, but the training of parents has been ignored. My hon. Friend puts the responsibility entirely on Parliament, but that is not Parliament's responsibility.

One of the virtues of an intervention before one has finished one's speech is that one can disregard what one intended to say later. In conclusion, I was running through the responsibilities of Members of Parliament and others, that lie beyond the provisions of the Bill, but my hon. Friend has done the job for me. He rightly points out that parents have a role to play in preventing their children from smoking. He also rightly says that more emphasis should be placed on the role of schools in educating children about the dangers of smoking. My hon. Friend has done it so eloquently that there is no need for me to say more.

rose—

I ought to return now to the role of Parliament, but I see that the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) wishes to intervene.

I endorse the hon. Gentleman's point entirely, but are we not now in the fatuous situation, as a result of the protestations of the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, North (Sir T. Skeet), where the campaign to stop children from smoking has become the moral responsibility of everyone except the tobacco industry? The one sector which appears to have no moral obligation is that which, due to its odious dishonesty about the dangers of its product, has tried to deceive both the public and youngsters about the hazards that they face if they smoke tobacco.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I do not intend to get involved this morning in the libertarian argument about whether the provisions of the Bill should apply to the entire population or should be applied only for the protection of children. In a previous intervention the right hon. Gentleman made the point that the Bill provides for the protection of children until they reach the age when they can make the decision for themselves, and I intend to stick to that argument. The right hon. Gentleman, who sits beside me on the Public Accounts Committee, and I have seen many a report highlighting the cost to this nation of the effects of smoking tobacco on people's health, including coronary heart disease and many other associated illnesses. However, if I were to go down that route we should be here for a long time and it would not serve the purposes of the debate.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North (Sir T. Skeet) for supporting my view that parents, schools and everyone else should take part in the moral crusade to prevent children from smoking. Local authorities must, however, provide the sharp cutting edge of enforcement and magistrates must back up the enforcement. Then, I hope, fewer children will smoke and the result will be a healthier nation.

I welcome the amendments that we are debating—in particular, new clause 2 and the amendments to tidy up clause 4. In Committee I made the plea that we should make the language of the Bill understandable and I congratulate the Minister on achieving that aim. On many occasions I have emphasised that the legislation that we pass should be couched in language which makes quite clear what its purpose is.

The hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) said that he had sought consensus. Both he and the Minister have achieved it. One has only to consider the provisions of the Bill before it went into Committee to realise that now they have been honed to a workable form.

I remind my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, East (Mr. Knowles) that legislation prohibiting the sale of tobacco to children has been in place since 1933, so local authorities already have that responsibility. All that the Bill does is to emphasise their role in bringing prosecutions and ensuring that there is adequate publicity about preventing the sale of tobacco products to children.

Much has been said in the debate about the libertarian aspect. My view is this; smoking is habit forming, and if we permit children to smoke there is the danger that the habit may carry through into later life and seriously damage their health. Nevertheless, we must remember that children will be children. When they mature, they can make logical decisions about what substances to consume—be it tobacco, alcohol or anything else—but during the growing-up process they will inevitably try things that are not necessarily good for them. Therefore, Members of Parliament—including those of us who are parents—have a role to play. Local authorities also have a role to play in ensuring that the legislation is enforced. I sympathise with local authorities when the legislation that we pass leads to additional expenditure, due to the extra personnel that they have to employ, but in this instance we are emphasising a role that they already have under the 1933 Act and asking them to get on with that important job.

I do not intend to oppose new clause 2, which will bring the law in Scotland into line with the provisions that we agreed in Standing Committee. I do not intend, either, to oppose the other amendments in this grouping. Before we agree them, however, I should like to refer to some of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Page). I thought that he had gone off his head this morning; normally, he is so sensible about the role of governmental organisations and local authorities. Therefore, I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North (Sir T. Skeet) intervened. He made exactly the same point as had occurred to me.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate (Mr. Banks) said, it has been against the law to sell tobacco to children since 1933. However the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) believes, and there is evidence to support his view, that, notwithstanding the fact that it is against the law for tobacco to be sold to children, they are nevertheless getting hold of it. Therefore the hon. Gentleman and the Minister have proposed amendments to ensure that the law is enforced. Even though an Act has been on the statute books since 1933, more and more children appear to be buying cigarettes.

The sponsor of the Bill and his hon. Friends support the Bill enthusiastically. I support the Bill's reaching the statute book, but not with a great deal of enthusiasm, because I believe that, in two, three or four years' time when local authorities have produced their annual reports, they will say that the problem is as bad as ever. It might even have got worse.

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However much we seek to enforce the law—I agree that it should be enforced, and if there is evidence that the law has been broken it is essential that prosecutions take place, maximum fines are imposed and the penalties are severe enough to be a deterrent —I am concerned that it will not change what goes on in the real world. As my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, East (Mr. Knowles) said, it is quite possible for people to beat the law.

Most evenings at 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock or midnight a group of teenagers who have nothing better to do hang around the war memorial in the village where I live. Some of them are over 16 and some are under 16. I know jolly well that, notwithstanding the intentions behind the Bill, those over 16 will go into the village shop and legally buy cigarettes and those under 16 will smoke them. No law will have been broken because the cigarettes will have been purchased by those over 16. They will probably have done exactly what was suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, East in Committee and sold them singly for lop a throw. Ultimately, it is the duty of the House to do all that it can to prevent illegal sales of cigarettes to those under 16—and it has been illegal since 1933—of course and to ensure that any changes in the law are enforced by the agencies outside. The Bill clarifies that it is the duty of local authorities to enforce the law and clears up the doubt over whether is is the duty of the police or of local authorities.

The rumours in the papers regarding the announcement to be made by the Secretary of State for the Environment leaves my constituency in some doubt. The Minister will clarify today whether it will be the district council or the county council, through its trading standards office, that enforces the provisions of the Bill. I should point out that I represent a constituency in the county of Humberside. According to "Newsnight" last night, apparently the county of Humberside is not much longer for this world. In the event that the county is abolished—I hope that it is —how will the Bill's provisions apply to my constituency? Will the legislation relating to the reorganisation of local government which is likely to be introduced later this year have to be amended, or will the Bill have to be amended to deal with the fact that later this year I will represent a constituency within a county that does not exist? Will the Minister tell me what is likely to happen?

In conclusion, let me summarise some of my misgivings about the Bill. Ultimately, for all the enforcement agencies and local authorities which may or may not exist, we come back to the parents. I am glad that the organisation is called Parents Against Tobacco as parents are the most important group of people who can do something about children smoking. What I should like to happen around the country and in Ulceby, the village where I live, is for parents and responsible people to say to the parents of children who smoke, "Your son is not 16 yet, is he? I could have sworn that I saw him smoking outside the Spar shop in the village the other day." That is what used to happen in the 1950s and 1960s when I was a schoolboy. I knew jolly well that if I were ever tempted to smoke the lady who lived across the road from my family would speak to my mother and say, "I could have sworn that I saw Michael smoking the other day. He is not 16 yet, is he?" That is the most effective way to deal with the problem.

Did that actually happen to my hon. Friend and did it stop him smoking?

Yes, it did. I can honestly say that I never had one puff of a cigarette and I admit that I was a pretty dreadful child, as I am sure all hon. Members would expect. I was intimidated by my parents, the neighbours and, most of all, by my teachers who regarded the idea of anyone in their charge smoking—that also applied to those aged over 16 as I stayed at school until I went to university —as unacceptable. At my secondary modern school, the penalties for anyone between the ages of 16 and 18 caught smoking on the school premises were extremely severe. I only regret that it is not possible for the Bill to contain provisions for teachers to spend a little more time, effort and energy on enforcing the ideas behind it, as teachers are letting the side down. In the average comprehensive secondary school today, teachers do not recognise the crime of smoking under the age of 16 in the same way as we do. The rules should be toughened up through the education system.

Parents and teachers can have a far greater impact than any legislation. That is not to say that I do not accept and understand the need for legislation. I agree that if it reaches the statute book the Bill will improve matters. I hope that my hon. Friend's Department and the Department of Health will start keeping statistics as soon as the Bill reaches the statute book and that in a year or two years' time we can have an Adjournment debate on the issue to see whether there is any change for the better. I have a shrewd suspicion that although there may be some improvement, we need to get the message through to parents. Parents Against Tobacco needs to get the message through.

I have an interesting critique of the Parents Against Tobacco campaign written by Mr. Chris Cooper. He suggests that some of their statements should be reworded. He writes:

"Did Des Wilson perhaps in the early stages of drafting his denunciations of the buying of cigarettes by children ever blurt out anything indiscreet, such as, 'You negligent, improvident, irresponsible parents let your children run wild without thought for their health and now we, the right-thinking, energetic, caring parents arc going to have to do your job for you.' If he ever did, squads of PR people stepped in to soften the message without moderating the excitable prose. The parents of this country will not allow the heath of their children to be threatened and their lives to be potentially curtailed by the activities and products of a ruthlessly cynical industry."

We must acknowledge that there is an element of buck-passing. We pass the buck to the House of Commons, to the courts, to the police and now to either the district councils or the county councils. We are now saying that all of them have a responsibility, but, ultimately, we shall not get a grip on the problem until there is a greater sense of parental and teacher discipline on children, which is lacking not only on the question of smoking but on a range of other issues. Smoking is only the symptom of a breakdown of teacher and parental discipline. Although we, as responsible citizens representing our constituents, are right to try to do what we can to put the Bill on the statute book, parents must exercise greater discipline.

When I see people in my village and tap them on the shoulder—which I do as a responsible Member of Parliament—to draw their attention to one or two things that their children are doing and suggest that their children should not run riot through the village a 11 pm, midnight, or I am, that they should perhaps not get drunk and should not smoke if they are under the age of 16 and that they get up to no good, the parents do not like it. Little Johnny can do no wrong. Until we break through that attitude, we shall make no progress, whatever legislation is on the statute book.

I welcome the new clause in so far as it relates to Scotland—it merely repeats what we wrote into the Bill in Committee—and although I also support the other amendments, I urge a note of caution. Until teachers and parents recognise their responsibilities, we are unlikely to change some of the statistics which were given by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, East.

We know now that the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) was a model child and was never tempted down the path followed by so many other hon. Members. I was also a model child and never smoked.

I recently heard an hon. Member describe something that had happened and say, "I slept like a baby." I remember thinking that that man had never been involved with one. I now say to the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes—that paragon of virtue—that I am certain that he has never been a parent. If he had, he would know that although all parents have responsibility, we cannot hold them solely responsible for the actions of their children. Parents are often fighting against an ethos in society which encourages their children to go in the opposite direction to that which they would have wanted. It was not parents who, in the 1960s, encouraged their children to smoke cannabis. Parents have a responsibility, but so do we all. That does not mean that the House should not try to enact legislation that makes it easier for parents to carry out their responsibilities and not have them undermined by irresponsible shopkeepers and irresponsible advertising.

When talking about passing the buck, we can make a contribution by saying that the buck stops here. I was going to take up what my hon. Friend the Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) said —

Is the hon. Lady suggesting that parents should abdicate their responsibilities and that society should be run by the House or by legislators who, of course, always know best?

I thought that I said the opposite, but I repeat that parents have responsibilities. Often what they try to do is undermined by other agencies and by the ethos of our society. That is what has happened with smoking.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warley, East on the Bill and on the way in which he has accommodated many hon. Members, especially the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes. I would not have been so generous. My hon. Friend almost described the Committee as a love-in and I was going to take him up on that. However, having listened to the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes say that although he disagreed with the Bill he would go along with it, I believe that my hon. Friend was right: those of us who believe in the Bill influenced hon. Members who had doubts to say that they would support it.

It is important that we clarify who has responsibility. I, too, believe in deterrents. We can now publicise the fear of detection of those people who sell to under-age children and shopkeepers will now be aware of their responsibilities. We cannot stop youngsters over the age of 16 or adults giving cigarettes to children, but we can try to create an atmosphere in which they believe it to be undesirable. We do not have the power to go around our constituencies poking people and saying, "Look, we know what you are doing." We do not have such powers and some of us might get strange responses, but we can make it more difficult for children to smoke.

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One important issue that has not been raised is that, whatever freedoms may exist in society for adults, the medical profession is concerned about the effect of smoking on young girls who can become addicted at an early age. There is a danger not only to their health but to the health, well-being, survival rates and weights of the babies that they produce. Anyone who knows anything about children's health is worried about that. One of the first questions that hospitals and doctors ask a pregnant woman—especially a young woman —is whether she smokes and they advise her not to do so. Smoking during pregnancy has an effect on the weight of a child and on the way in which it thrives. A motion was tabled on that issue during the previous Session.

Women's magazines offer a temptation or invitation to smoke. Many young girls read such magazines arid we must do our bit to counter that by saying that there is another argument. We must create an ethos in which smoking is unfashionable and try to stop people selling cigarettes to children.

The hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes introduced a red herring by asking who would be responsible if a local authority was abolished. I am sure that the Minister will deal with that issue. There are transfers of schedules and ways to deal with such issues. The hon. Gentleman introduced the red herring to raise doubts and to say that the Bill would not work. Until legislation is on the statute book, we do not know whether it will work. Sometimes we must return to legislation to refine it and to deal with further difficulties, but if we all agree that we do not want our children to smoke, we must ensure that whatever parents, teachers and others do, people are not allowed to tempt our children and get away with breaking the law.

I wish to make a few comments in answer to points that have been made. As I said in my opening remarks, I understand the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, East (Mr. Knowles), who does not want unnecessary and expensive duties to be placed on local authorities. However, clause 4 would require local authorities to decide how best to enforce powers and responsibilities that they already have. We ask them to think carefully about how best to use them and put them into effect. I hope that he and my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North (Sir T. Skeet) will agree that time spent on reconnaissance is never wasted; that is equally true of local authorities. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, East said that he was not minded to press his amendment and I am glad that he came to that conclusion.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North was right to stress that cigarettes are harmful. Local authorities will have to take stock of how they use their powers and use them as effectively as possible so that children cannot buy cigarettes as easily as they have been able to do in many places.

I was glad that the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) welcomed the Government's new clause 2. He was right that Scottish local authorities do not prosecute, but they are best placed to provide the evidence to the procurator fiscal on which prosecutions may be based. I hope that those local authorities use their opportunities effectively and fully. That is the view and hope of my ministerial colleagues in the Scottish Office.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) was in a sombre —indeed, almost pessimis-tic—vein for most of his speech. He spoke about the difficulties of enforcement. Because this is a difficult area to enforce, we spent much time in Committee considering how to do that. The Government will assist by issuing a full and helpful circular and by ensuring that local authorities include in their annual reports information on what they are doing so that local people know what is happening in their area and can take the action that my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes suggested that parents and teachers should take. I am glad that my hon. Friend accepted that we should do all that we reasonably can by legislation and I am grateful to him for that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes asked who will enforce the law in his local authority area if the position changes. I am not sure what the possibilities are for his area, but I imagine that the authority may become a single-tier body. In that case, it is simple—those responsibilities that belong to the local authorities which are abolished will pass to the single-tier authority and responsibility for enforcing the Bill's provisions will belong to the local authority that has all the responsibilities for local government duties in my hon. Friend's constituency.

I was impressed by the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes revealed that he was intimidated by his parents when he was a child. I am not sure that he has ever been intimidated by anyone in the Chamber, as he repeatedly proves in his speeches. My hon. Friend was right to emphasise the disciplinary role of parents, teachers and other adults. I hope that that message will not be obscured by our concentrating on what we can do in legislation. I am sure that that will not happen, because my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North put that message before us constantly in Committee and again pithily this morning. His view found agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, East and other hon. Members.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Eccles (Miss Lestor) for her support for the further changes that I have asked the House to make to the Bill. She rightly said that smoking is particularly bad for pregnant woment and can do much damage to their children. That should be widely known. The hon. Lady referred to advertising seen by young people. I draw her attention to the voluntary agreement that excluded advertising in a range of magazines that are particularly read by young women. Perhaps we shall return to that point later. It should be emphasised in concert with the hon. Lady's important point about young women.

I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 2, line 24, leave out clause 3.

With this it will be convenient to consider Government amendments Nos. 3 and 4.

The title of the Bill is the Children and Young Persons (Protection from Tobacco) Bill, but the primary concern of clause 3 is not children but adults—adults, not children, will be penalised. Under the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 and subsequent Acts, it is illegal to sell a packet of 10 cigarettes to a child of 16–I would be very much against that. It is also illegal to sell one cigarette out of a packet of 10 to a child, because the greater covers the lesser, so why repeat the point?

It is extraordinary that the Bill not merely dots the i's but crosses the t's. There is a refusal to accept that when something is already illegal it is not necessary to make it illegal a second time. This provision is not necessary. What will happen if it is illegal to sell cigarettes individually? Small tobacconists face a 2·5 per cent. increase in VAT and a recession. They also face the possibility of higher penalties—I understand that scale 3 penalties will be imposed—such as a £1,000 fine if they make the great mistake of selling one cigarette to an adult. Seen in that light, it is ridiculous. It deprives a low-income person of the right to go into a shop to buy a single cigarette.

We had an interesting debate on this matter in Committee. My hon. Friend the Minister said:

"On the clause stand part debate I shall advise the Committee to drop clause 3".

Nothing could be more specific than that. My hon. Friend also said:

"It is a piece of self-indulgent rhetorical legislation that we should eschew. It is already illegal to sell cigarettes to children."—[Official Report, Standing Committee C, 13 February 1991; c. 99–100.]

My hon. Friend the Minister gave clear guidance in Committee and dealt adequately with the points that were raised. I hope that he will also consider the points that I raise today and that we can find a way round some of the difficulties.

I should like to make a point about the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds). On our trips to the middle east, old friendships were restored. I am delighted that the Bill will go on the statute book. It deserves to be called the Faulds (No. 1) Bill. It will contribute to the long line of legislation dealing with children. No hon. Member wants children under 16 to smoke, but the means by which we propose to achieve that differ.

The hon. Member for Warley, East believes that legislation should be supreme in this case. It is all very well to ask local authorities to prosecute. They can beaver away every day of the year trying to find a way to prosecute, but, unless they have evidence, there will be no convictions. In 1990, there were about 30 minor convictions for such offences.

Ultimately, we must have confidence that people will abide by the law, and more than 90 per cent. of retailers recognise their responsibility and want to comply with the law. What evidence exists of abuse of the law against selling cigarettes to children under the age of 16?

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The Minister has tabled an amendment to deal with enforcement. It recommends that the penalty be raised to scale 3, which seems rather tough. Formerly, the maximum fine was about £400, which was imposed by clause 15 of the Criminal Justice Bill 1991. Under scale 3 it will go up to £1,000. I understand why, in certain circumstances, courts should impose the full fine. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Page) recognised the fact that a severe punishment should exist, but I cannot see how the £1,000 fine would be appropriate unless a series of offences had been committed. Will my hon. Friend the Minister explain that point?

Another Government amendment goes some way toward helping us and says that cigarettes should include cigars. However, cigars cannot be broken in half and handed around in that way. Therefore, they would have to be excluded because their inclusion would cause serious difficulties.

This country is now part and parcel of the European Community. How does the Bill stand with regard to European legislation? The EC wanted to place an order that would be binding on the United Kingdom. Would clause 3 be acceptable to the Council of Ministers? Would it survive the microscope of Europe or would it have to be modified? As the matter has been partially dealt with, that is where we should deal with it finally. If the EC is about to legislate on the subject we should be cautious about legislating in the Chamber.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Have you had any notification of the Government's intention to make a statement today on this morning's publication of the Amnesty International report on the position of Palestinians and others in Kuwait? Twice in the past few weeks and three times through letters to the Prime Minister, I have raised the issue of the imminent danger of a murderous pogrom against Palestinians in Kuwait, where British forces are situated. The current Government of Kuwait, which Amnesty International accuses of being involved, through their armed forces, in murder, torture and abduction, were reinstated to power partly with the help of the British armed forces. If a Sabra or Chatilla occur in Kuwait city under the shadow of British armed forces, it will have serious consequences.

Order. I have heard what the hon. Gentleman says, but I have received no such request. The matter will no doubt be dealt with by the Government.

May I say how much I support the amendment? I am extremely worried about clause 3 for several reasons. I was not on the Standing Committee but, in principle, I agree with the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) about the need to protect young children from tobacco. However, I have read clause 3 carefully and see no specific reference to young people. It states:

"it shall be an offence for any person carrying on a retail business to sell cigarettes to any person other than in pre-packed quantities".

It says nothing about persons under the age of 16. If it did so, I would support it, but as it does not I oppose it utterly.

In certain parts of the country there has long been a custom of tobacconists selling cigarettes singly, particularly in my part of the world in the north-east. It would cause great resentment if that practice were stopped. In my constituency there is a specialist tobacconist, to which people come from miles around, to buy and sample products. It would make life difficult for such specialists if they could not sell cigarettes singly.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) said that children in his constituency were buying packets of cigarettes and selling them singly at lop each. As I believe that a packet of cigarettes now costs more than £2, my hon. Friend should teach those children a little about business matters.

We should bear in mind the fact that the tobacco industry supports the non-sale of cigarettes to persons under 16 years of age. However, Government figures suggest that some £70 million worth of cigarettes are being sold to juveniles. By the same token, it must be recognised that the tobacco industry spends £1 million advertising the fact that shopkeepers should not sell cigarettes to those under 16.

The clause deals with selling cigarettes singly. In disadvantaged areas, many people like to take advantage of buying one or two cigarettes, especially at the end of the week. I fear that the clause will deprive them of that facility. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North (Sir T. Skeet) clearly stated, a law already exists covering the sale of single cigarettes to children. As it is already unlawful for children to buy cigarettes, the clause is unnecessary and its removal would not undermine the current sound legislation.

As a non-smoker who supports the tobacco industry, I feel that the industry has a difficult job to do. I support the withdrawal of the clause as it is unnecessary and hits disadvantaged people.

Hon. Members who have spoken on the clause have shown little common sense. The section of the community which is most likely to—and, according to the only evidence that we have, does—buy cigarettes singly in any great numbers, is that of children.

No.

The hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) did not produce a scintilla of evidence that there was large-scale purchasing of single cigarettes by adults, and nor did the hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Dickens). If the evidence had been available it would have been brought before us by the tobacco lobby, which clearly has an interest in stopping as much of the Bill as it can. I do not believe that any such evidence exists.

The specific point is that if a shopkeeper has been selling single cigarettes to children, that shopkeeper has already committed an offence under the 1933 legislation. Therefore, the only people who can possibly be affected by the introduction of clause 3 are people aged over 16, to whom the Bill does not generally apply.

That is not quite my point, but I will deal with it later. I was dealing with sales of single cigarettes to adults. I do not believe that there is any evidence of extensive sales of single cigarettes to adults. If there had been, I have no doubt that it would have been brought before the House during the passage of the Bill.

I said that there was £70 million worth of sales to juveniles, which represented just 1 per cent. of all sales in the United Kingdom. If the hon. Gentleman wants evidence, he should ask who is buying all the other cigarettes.

Cigarettes are normally sold in packets. The evidence is that single sales relate to children. The most persuasive evidence put before the House was that of the 1985 Bristol survey. That evidence also showed clearly the extent to which children who smoke when aged 14 to 15 are hooked on the habit by buying single cigarettes. More than half of those children bought single cigarettes over a period. That is a problem.

The fanciful suggestion that we are depriving adults of the possibility of smoking because they cannot afford to buy more than one or two cigarettes at a time seems, when weighed in the balance against under-age smoking, to be seriously flawed. I well remember the words of the Tom Lehrer song about today's young innocent faces being tomorrow's clientele.

This is one of the Bill's more important clauses because one of our great difficulties in enforcing the ban is producing the evidence. Clearly, evidence of cigarette packets that have been partially broken into to obtain single cigarettes could be compelling evidence when seeking to enforce the rigours of the law.

I supported the clause in Committee when we had a long and intricate debate on it. I received publicity in my constituency for my stand on banning the sale of single cigarettes. I have not received any letters from anyone complaining that they buy single cigarettes and would be deprived of doing so under the clause.

I am extremely grateful for the hon. Gentleman's helpful intervention. I am sure that his common sense attitude is the one which the House should display towards the clause. The provisions of the clause seem to be a sensible attempt to bolster the Bill's purpose. Those who argue against it must address the clear evidence that young people buy cigarettes singly and there are unscrupulous shopkeepers prepared to sell them singly, repeatedly, until children are hooked. That is one of the main causes of under-age smoking. The Bill tackles it effectively and I hope that the House will support it.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North (Sir T. Skeet) who has just moved the amendment in a vigorous, common-sense and slightly teasing style, I had considerable misgivings about the relevance of the clause to the rest of the Bill, for a number of reasons. As he said, I put those reasons fully in Committee.

First, it is already an offence to sell cigarettes to children. Therefore, the clause partly duplicates the existing law. Secondly, in practice or in theory, depending on whether one believes that adults buy cigarettes singly, the clause limits adults' rights, albeit in a small way. As my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Summerson) said, it is not the Bill's specific purpose to prevent cigarettes from being sold in ones or twos to adults.

I was also concerned that the clause might contravene article 30 of the treaty of Rome as an unnecessary restriction of trade. The Government have given that matter further consideration and do not consider that they need to oppose the clause on the ground of the risk of challenge under the treaty. Apart from what has been said by one or two of my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, we are not aware that, at present, cigarettes are sold in packets of less than 10, and are not often sold singly to adults. However, there is evidence that they are sold singly to children. Unless such facts were to be introduced, we consider the risk of challenge under article 30 to be very small.

Hon. Members who were members of the Standing Committee will recall that we had a robust debate on the clause, which was ordered to stand part of the Bill by the casting vote of the Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Hill). In voting in support of the clause, my hon. Friend was following tradition and precedent, and I have no quarrel with his decision. However, I noted carefully the views of the supporters of the clause on both sides of the Committee, and I understood their special concern about children picking up the smoking habit by initially buying cigarettes in ones or twos. We want to put a stop to that, as I believe do all hon. Members.

The Bill's main purpose is to stop the supply of cigarettes to children under 16. We are addressing that problem in several ways. The Bill strengthens the law on illegal sales and increases the penalty for such offences. It also clarifies the role of local authorities in enforcing the law. However, I recognise that there is a strongly held view that some errant retailers contrive to believe that there is nothing unlawful about selling single cigarettes to children or, where they do understand that it is unlawful, they believe that they can get away with it.

Therefore, I understand the attraction to many hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds), the Bill's sponsor, in having a specific provision on the face of the Bill to prohibit the sale of single cigarettes. I have also been influenced by my ministerial colleagues, particularly those at the Department of Health, who are in favour of the clause, and by representations that I have received from local organisations and members of the public.

Last, but certainly not least, I have considered the views of the Government's chief medical officer, who has told me of his support for the clause. Having had the opportunity to reflect on the matter and weigh up the strongly held views on both sides, and then having reflected again, particularly during this debate, my conclusion is that the clause should be left in the Bill.

My hon. Friend has the interests of children under 16 at heart, but he will have seen the figures produced by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys showing that, in 1982, the percentage of boys who smoked at least one cigarette a week was 11 per cent. By 1988, the figure had dropped to 7 per cent. It is well down, so boys are smoking less. In the same period, the figure for girls dropped from II per cent. to 9 per cent. If the trend is in the right direction, do we require this hammer to deal with it?

If there are opportunities to reinforce that welcome trend, it would be irresponsible of us not to take them.

The Government no longer wish to oppose clause 3. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North, who advanced some powerful and extremely familiar arguments against the clause, will likewise decide, on balance, not to press for its deletion. He quoted me as saying that there was something of self-indulgence in the clause. I used those words, and I think there is, but occasionally it is right for the House to indulge itself, and if it does so on this matter, children will he the beneficiaries.

Amendment No. 3 makes it an offence to sell upackaged cigarettes. Its purpose is simply to provide a penalty for that offence at level 3 on the standard scale. The maximum fine under level 3 is £400, but it will rise to £1,000 when the Criminal Justice Bill is enacted. A level 3 fine seems the right maximum penalty for the offence. We agreed in Committee that level 4 was the correct penalty for the main offences under the Bill of selling cigarettes to children under 16 and for failure to comply with a court order on vending machines.

I cannot accept that it is right to set a similar maximum penalty for selling one cigarette to an adult. That is surely a less serious offence, and the penalty should reflect that. Where a retailer is accused of selling cigarettes to children under 16—even a single cigarette—he can be prosecuted under clause 1 and face the higher penalty under level 4 of £1,000, rising to £2,500 under the Criminal Justice Bill. If a retailer sells a single cigarette to a child, there is nothing to prevent him from being charged under clause 3 and under the principal provision. We shall give guidance to local authorities in the circular that we propose to issue when the Bill is enacted.

There appear to be two levels of penalties—one for selling to a child and another for selling to an adult. Should not the clause say so?

It is perfectly clear. If someone is charged under clause 1 for selling cigarettes in packets of 10, in boxes of 200 or only one, the higher penalty is available to the court. If someone is charged under clause 3, only the lower penalty—level 3—is available to the court. If a single cigarette is sold to a child, a prosecution can be brought under both clauses and the court will decide what the fine should be. I believe that it is clear what is available to the prosecution. If evidence shows that someone has sold cigarettes to a child in ones, 10s or 200s, they should speedily consult their solicitor. If someone sold a single cigarette, he would have to plead hard at court to avoid substantial fines on both counts.

I am very pleased that, since Second Reading, we have managed to achieve a consensus, in Committee and with the Minister, on the important point concerning single cigarette sales. Clause 3 was designed to end the practice of breaking open packs and offering cigarettes for sale singly, and often at an inflated price.

The House should be in no doubt that my motive is to help bring smoking by children and young teenagers to an end. Hon. Members sympathetic to the tobacco industry may declare that I intend more—that I really want to prevent adults from smoking. That suggestion has leaked through, but I must simply deny it. Adults who are smoking are to be pitied for their costly addiction. Let their doctors urge them to stop. Such advice is the province of the medical profession, which has offered it strenuously over decades.

Only yesterday, the Townswomen's Guild conference on drug and alcohol abuse heard from doctors that smoking is far more dangerous than hard drug addiction. That may appear odd, but apparently it is the case. It causes overwhelmingly more deaths and fills many more beds in our hospital wards. Dr. Claire Gerada, talking of the impact of drug addiction during pregnancy, said that a pregnant mother who smoked 20 cigarettes a day would do far more harm to her unborn child than a pregnant woman who injected heroin every day with a fresh needle.

But if we can stop smoking in childhood, we should make enormous inroads into the whole range of adult problems associated with tobacco. Most people take up the habit before the age of 18. At root, tobacco use is caused by addiction begun in childhood. I am sure that the whole House will share my ambition to choke off this life-denying habit before it takes hold.

Unscrupulous traders who seek to make an even higher profit from children smoking will break open packs and sell a cigarette singly, often with a match, to children who cannot afford the price of a packet. The argument—of course, it is plausible—was that the law already forbade the sale of cigarettes to children under 16, and thus a law preventing the sale of single cigarettes was unnecessary.

The Minister explained his conversion, and the Committee looked at further evidence, including a recent paper published in the British Journal of Addiction, showing that the habit of selling cigarettes singly to children is particularly prevalent in poor areas, and that the more cigarettes a child smokes the more likely the child will be to buy them singly.

Clause 3 will make it illegal for retailers to sell cigarettes except in the original pack of 10 or more. It is most unlikely that it will have any effect on the trade in cigarettes to the adult market. One retailer who wrote objecting to the clause admitted that he never sold cigarettes singly to adults. I cannot conceive that local authorities would seek to take action under the clause unless they very firmly believed that the trader was supplying children with cigarettes from broken packs.

In such circumstances, the clause will create a powerful additional offence, designed to bring an end to the deliberate recruitment of children to the smoking habit. On that basis, I am happy to accept the level 3 fine for this offence, since the level 4 fine, which will apply to the principal clause on cigarette sales to children, is still in the frame.

The hon. Member for Bedfordshire, North (Sir T. Skeet) says that smoking among young people and children is declining and asks why we need the Bill. But we do not usually remove from the statute book legislation designed to prevent people from breaking the law just because the incidence of the particular offence with which it deals has declined. The hon. Gentleman overlooks the fact that there are new children coming along all the time; we are not talking about the same young people.

Smoking may indeed decline among a certain group for two or three years at a time, but any graph will show that that decline is not constant. We are talking about the young people of the future as well as those of the present, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) said, it would be interesting to discover what has happened to youngsters who took up smoking when they were under age and to ascertain whether they are now addicted. My hon. Friend rightly said that addiction may start very early on.

11.30 am

We have heard much about the possibility of our preventing adults from smoking if we make it illegal for cigarette packets to be broken open by retailers. One question that we have not considered—and we shall not be dealing with it in this debate—is that although we may say that adults are responsible for themselves and that it is up to them whether they smoke, their smoking has an effect on other people, and the fact that the rest of us inhale their smoke and their poison is receiving a great deal of attention from the medical profession.

As someone who has been as pure in my habits over the years as the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown), I object very strongly to inhaling other people's smoke. If hon. Members have any concern for our health in this place, they will recall that my throat was severely affected for a long time, and I was certainly not helped by the fact that I had to attend a large number of meetings at which people were allowed to smoke. Adult smoking affects not only the individuals concerned but the rest of society.

Although some adults buy single cigarettes, more appear to be sold to children. The point of the clause is that it would provide shopkeepers with a safeguard. In Committee, we discussed the difficulty that shopkeepers may experience in refusing young people who seek to intimidate them and the need for a notice explaining that it is against the law to sell cigarettes to young people. If we make it illegal for shopkeepers to open packets of cigarettes and sell the contents singly, we shall be providing them with another safeguard. A shopkeeper can say, "Sorry lads; I'm not allowed to sell you single cigarettes. I'm not allowed to open the packet."

To an extent, the clause will also deal with the case of the young person over the age of 16 who goes into a shop to buy two or three single cigarettes to sell to youngsters under the age of 16. I accept that the clause may prevent some adults from buying single cigarettes, although I do not think that the practice is very widespread. Nevertheless, the clause represents a useful way of helping shopkeepers to avoid breaking the law by telling youngsters, "I cannot open the packet of cigarettes, so you will have to go away." That is a good reason for retaining the clause.

I agree with the speech that we have just heard. There appears to be uncertainty in the House —and certainly outside it—about the number of adults who go into shops to purchase single cigarettes. We just do not know, although I think that the number must be very small indeed.

One thing about which we can be certain, however, is that children go into shops to buy single cigarettes. One of the problems that retailers face is that they cannot always be certain that young people are under 16. Children grow up very fast these days and many of them look older than they are. A retailer may therefore sell a single cigarette in good faith to someone of 14 or 15 believing that he is just over 16.

The Minister's approach to the problem is highly commendable. We had a fine debate in Committee, at the end of which, on the Chairman's casting vote, he was rebuffed and failed to achieve his then aim of deleting the clause. Nevertheless, my hon. Friend went to the trouble of obtaining expert advice. I think that he would agree with me that if we retain the clause, we shall have a belt-and-braces policy on the sale of single cigarettes to under 16-year-olds. I most certainly support the clause, because it is all too easy for a child to obtain smoking material in the form of single cigarettes. That is where the chain starts, and that is what we want to avoid. That is the purpose of the Bill.

The sale of single unwrapped cigarettes should never be allowed. After all, we buy cigars that are wrapped and placed in tubes or other hygienic coverings.

All in all, we shall be doing children a great service by retaining the clause.

In Committee, I started from the position then held by my hon. Friend the Minister. Even this morning, I had much sympathy for the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North (Sir T. Skeet) and for the argument that he advanced. He asked why we needed the provision, given that it is illegal to sell one cigarette or 20, packaged or unpackaged, to children. As the Bill attempts to protect children and young people under the age of 16 from tobacco, and as it is an offence to sell one cigarette to a child under the age of 16, why do we need the provision? That was the point from which I started, but, on reflection, I concede that good arguments have been advanced on the other side.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate (Mr. Banks) said, the debate in Committee was finely balanced. Just about every member of the Committee spoke and we all cast our votes, with an equal number on each side of the argument. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North will understand if I say that, now that we have had a second opportunity to consider the matter, I am prepared not to stand in the way of the clause.

The hon. Member for Eccles (Miss Lestor) made a good point, which I had not considered before. In Committee, I made great play of the need to ensure that retailers were protected when they innocently broke the law. My hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North and I were anxious to emphasise that it is sometimes difficult for retailers to know whether they are selling to a 17-year-old or to a 15-year-old.

I respect the integrity of the hon. Gentleman's argument, which fits in very well with the point that he made earlier—against the rest of us. He said that many of the £90 million-worth of tobacco goods allegedly sold to young people were initially sold to youngsters over the age of 16. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will accept that people in that age group are the most likely to try to buy single cigarettes. In other words, the hon. Gentleman has met the objection that he voiced in his first speech by his change of heart in his second.

I try to be consistent, and I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. If my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North withdrew the amendment, he would be conceding the point in favour of the arguments that he and I advanced in Committee. Bearing in mind the wishes of Ministers at the Department of Health, whom my hon. Friend the Minister has consulted, and the fact that, as my hon. Friend said, there is nothing wrong in the House indulging itself occasionally on such an important subject, I am prepared to withdraw my opposition to the clause.

I have one technical reservation. Clause 3(1) states:

"It shall be an offence for any person carrying on a retail business to sell cigarettes to any person other than in pre-packed quantities of 10".

Those who travel on British Airways flights in the smoking section may be invited to partake of a cigarette after a meal or, on request, of a packet of cigarettes sold under the brand names of Rothmans, Benson and Hedges and so on. Such cigarettes are given, not sold. I have seen cellophane-wrapped packets of cigarettes on such British Airways flights, and I presume that they are also available in hospitality. Will that still be permitted? Will it be possible to give or provide cellophane-wrapped packets of five cigarettes in this way? Will it still be legal, on the ground that they are not being sold? If my hon. Friend the Minister cannot answer that now, perhaps someone from his Department or the Department of Health will write to me with an answer.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) for following me on my pilgrimage to the point at which I support the retention of this clause—that is the right conclusion, and the legislation will be the more effective for it. I think that I can satisfy him on the question that he asked. If cigarettes in packets of five, or in singles, are given away in this country in the circumstances that he describes, they will not be affected by this legislation, because we are talking about selling. If an airliner has taken off and is elsewhere, of course our law may not apply—but I should have to take further advice on that—

Order. I thought that the Minister was intervening—

I had finished.

I was also grateful for the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate (Mr. Banks). He has been utterly consistent: he took the same view in Committee as he has expressed today.

I realised once I had sat down earlier that I had not mentioned amendment No. 4. I hope that the House will find it useful if I say a little about it. Clause 3(3) was inserted in the Bill as a result of an amendment moved by the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) in a helpful effort to ensure that retailers and hotel and restaurant owners could continue to sell cigars singly to adults. I assure the hon. Gentleman that, by tabling this amendment, the Government do not seek in any way to reverse what he has done or to prohibit the sale of single cigars to adults. The Government remain fully of the view that retailers and others should remain free to sell cigars in packets of fewer than 10.

I did say in Standing Committee, however, that the courts may have difficulty with the wording of this subsection even if we attempted to define cigars and cigarettes. The simplest way of avoiding confusion and removing any possible doubt would be to. delete it. By attempting to exclude one tobacco product—cigars—from the meaning of cigarettes in this subsection we leave more open to doubt and confusion, the issue of whether other tobacco products—cigarillos, cheroots and panatellas—are included or excluded.

What we want to achieve is a ban on the sale of unpackaged cigarettes but not other tobacco products—certainly not the ones that I have just mentioned. By deleting the subsection, we would be left with the ordinary meaning of cigarettes, which does not, in the Government's view, include what would ordinarily be described as cigars, cigarillos, cheroots and panatellas.

This is a small amendment, but it may be significant in some situations. We all know what we mean by cigarettes, and I believe that the courts will have no difficulty in construing the word in the same way. Attempts to define what is or is not a cigarette or cigar would serve only to confuse and lead to uncertainty, which in turn can lead to bad law and unwanted decisions. I recommend deleting the subsection from the Bill.

I am obliged to the Minister, who has mentioned two points that will lead to great difficulty in future. Gift packets can be handed out to all sorts of people over the counters in shops, too. I hope that my hon. Friend will thoroughly review that matter, because I am sincerely interested in the future of children and I do not want the Act abused.

Fortunately, it will not be the Minister or indeed anyone from the legislative system who will hand out the scale 3 penalties—they will be for the courts to decide. How the penalties are administered will be complicated, but the courts may find it less so after the guidance that the Minister has given today.

I am very glad to learn that article 30 of the Rome treaties will not be infringed, because this matter will not constitute a restraint on trade. That was one of my primary concerns, and on that basis I am quite prepared to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

I beg to move amendment No. 13, in page 4, line 26, leave out clause 6.

With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 14 and 15.

I know that many hon. Members have been very unhappy about the extent and visibility of advertising for cigarettes on the front of shops. Their concern was made abundantly clear in Committee. I also recall that I made it very clear that I believe that the right way to control tobacco advertising and promotion is through further development of the successful system of voluntary agreements. Although complex, the system is comprehensive in its coverage and has always been honoured by the industry.

I am therefore extremely pleased to remind the House that a new voluntary agreement on advertising between the Government and the tobacco industry has been agreed in principle and should shortly be concluded. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health announced yesterday, the agreement will contain two key measures designed to reduce the visibility of shopfront advertising and to ensure that all such advertising carries appropriate health warnings.

First, the industry has made a major commitment to reducing the amount of shopfront advertising. It has undertaken to reduce the total number of external permanent advertising materials at retail premises by 50 per cent. over five years. Those reductions will be validated by independent audit and the results of the audit will be presented to the monitoring committee and will appear in its annual report. In making that reduction, the industry will seek to ensure that it is applied evenly over time by type of sign and by geographical location. Priority will be given to removing signs that are clearly visible from schools. The programme will be carried out in consultation with the retail trade.

Secondly, the industry has agreed to ensure that all existing signs that do not yet carry health warnings shall do so by the end of June. Under the current agreement, signs erected before 1983 did not have to carry a health warning. That provision naturally caused some confusion to the public and, not surprisingly, has been the subject of a number of complaints to the monitoring committee. This programme of action by the industry represents a major step forward in the control of shopfront advertising. It will involve the industry in considerable expense and loss of advertising space and that shows its readiness to make the voluntary system effective. It demonstrates that very real and rapid progress can be made through the voluntary system without recourse to legislation.

In addition to tackling the system of shopfront advertising, the new voluntary agreement will address a number of other areas of recent concern. For example, it will extend the present ban on poster advertising that is visible from schools to cover hoardings that are visible from children's playgrounds. Furthermore, as the House may already be aware, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health this week appointed Sir John Blelloch as the new chairman of the monitoring committee. I am sure that he will carry out that role with the same impartiality and vigour as did the previous chairman, Sir Peter Lazarus.

I hope that the House will accept this clear evidence that the voluntary system is continuing to work effectively. Since 1971 successive Governments have concluded voluntary agreements with the tobacco industry to control advertising and other aspects of its operations. This Government have extended and enhanced the system of agreements to provide an unprecedented level of protection to both smokers and non-smokers. The current agreement, concluded in 1986, represented a major step forward. It cut by half the amount that could be spent on poster advertising, abolished advertising in cinemas and ended the advertising of high-tar cigarettes. It also banned advertising in a range of magazines aimed at young women and banned poster advertising outside schools. It enhanced the long-standing requirements for the provision of health warnings and maintained the comprehensive controls on the content of advertising—something which cannot be done as effectively by legislation which is inevitably inflexible.

The 1986 agreement created the joint monitoring committee of which Sir John Blelloch has just been appointed chairman. The committee consists of representatives of the Government and of industry. It receives and investigates complaints on alleged breaches of the agreement and, where necessary, it seeks to rectify matters. It also commissions independent research into how aspects of the agreements are working. A separate agreement, concluded in 1987, controls expenditure by tobacco companies on sports sponsorship and regulates the content of promotional material for sporting events.

A third agreement, on product modification, has resulted in a significant reduction in the average tar yield of cigarettes. The Independent Scientific Committee on Smoking and Health reported that, together with the reduction in the number of people who smoke, the product modification agreement has contributed to a fall in smoking-related diseases.

The system of voluntary agreements has made a major contribution to public health in the past 20 years. The progress made through the voluntary system will now be consolidated with a further significant advance in the level of control over tobacco advertising. This development demonstrates just how flexible, responsive and comprehensive the voluntary system can be. Legislation, by contrast, is cumbersome and slow, and cannot respond quickly to new threats to public health or to anomalies in the existing system. Clause 6 is limited to one type of advertising and might well have proved difficult for the courts to interpret. Any anomalies or problems in the operation of the clause could have been corrected only by amendment to legislation. That is not so with a voluntary agreement which can be applied flexibly and effectively.

I hope that the House will join me in congratulating my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health on his success in extending and maintaining the voluntary agreement on tobacco advertising. I also hope that it will acknowledge the readiness of the trade to agree to this more demanding arrangement. I know that the hon. Member for Warley, East has been sceptical about how much can be achieved by negotiation, but I hope that he is convinced by what I have been able to report that it would be in the interests of the public and particularly children to give the new voluntary agreement time to show itself effective. I hope that he, too, will support amendment No. 13.

If clause 6 is removed from the Bill, we shall need to consider the relevance of clause 7. The terms "local authority" and "premises" are defined elsewhere in the Bill. The definitions of "advertisement" and "tobacco sponsored event" relate only to a clause which I hope the House will agree to remove. Finally, "tobacco" is defined in clause 5 for the purpose of that clause. We are left, therefore, with a redundant clause, and we should remove it from the Bill. If the House agrees to accept amendment No. 13, I hope that it will agree also to amendment No. 14.

Amendment No. 16 is consequential and tidies up the title. It will be needed if the House decides to adopt amendment No. 13, which would remove clause 6.

My Bill included a clause on shopfront advertising because this forms an ever-expanding message route to children, and one not blocked by the voluntary agreement which stops other tobacco advertising near schools. The clause sought to prohibit the advertising of tobacco brands or tobacco-sponsored events from retail premises.

As the House will know, the industry has been widely criticised for pretending to publish warnings about the illegality of selling cigarettes to children, while in fact providing a pathetically small notice—it appears in some shops and not others—that is dwarfed by the point-of-sale promotional graphics surrounding it. Such displays in favour of tobacco are plastered over the shops seen and used every day by children.

Throughout the discussions which I have had on the Bill with Ministers, it has been made clear that the Government opposed this provision on shopfront advertising because they preferred voluntary rather than regulatory control of tobacco advertising. I was, however, not prepared to delete the clause at the earlier stages of the Bill's passage through Parliament since I hoped that the debate on it might provoke both Government and industry into further consideration of the impact of shopfront tobacco advertising near schools. That, of course, is what has developed.

The clause won support in Committee, and the discussion there highlighted the problem most graphically. Not only did hon. Members of all parties speak strongly in favour of controls on shopfront advertising, but the Committee was shown photographs of shopfronts covered in tobacco advertising, some of it using cartoon-type characters very likely to appeal to children.

I am pleased that hon. Members' strong support for this element of the Bill has indeed produced some positive result, in the form of the negotiations that have taken place between Government and industry on expanding the voluntary code in relation to shopfront advertising, the outcome of which was announced yesterday, and on which the Minister has enlarged today. I must say that I think I personally owe him a considerable debt of gratitude. He has played a role—I am sure that this is the case with his colleagues in the Department of Health—in talking some sense into the tobacco industry in terms of the expansion of the voluntary agreement. I am most grateful to him for his efforts and his success.

In the light of this and of other concessions to my point of view made by the Minister, and for the sake of the Bill as a whole, I am prepared to let the clause drop. I look forward, however, to a really positive change in practice by the tobacco industry. I know that many individuals and national organisations, particularly PAT, will be monitoring the situation closely.

The Bill that I introduced was originally drafted by PAT. It came to the House with the support of a wide range of organisations and concerned parents throughout Britain. It tackles what it is fair to describe as an evil—the cynical breaking of the law in order not only to profit from children who smoke, but to encourage them to smoke. It also came with all-party support.

12 noon

The Bill has been carefully considered in Committee and concessions have been made on all sides. In some areas the Bill has been strengthened, and in others we have made compromises to temper it and so achieve maximum consensus. I have no doubt that it has returned to the House in a form that will encourage parents to accept that their children will be far better protected from tobacco in future. It is now in a form which should discourage offenders and ultimately lead to more and tougher action.

We all know that taking measures to reduce the sale of cigarettes to children will not, in themselves, stop children smoking. We know—this argument has been made a number of times today—that schools, parents and others, as well as the industry, have a responsibility to contribute. The Bill is based on the premise that all attempts to discourage children from smoking will not succeed while it is easy for them to purchase cigarettes and while it is easy for people to break the law and sell cigarettes to children. The Bill is a major advance on the unhappy and unsatisfactory status quo. I commend it to the House.

As a sponsor of the Bill, I am happy to agree with the proposal of the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) that the two clauses be dropped. I do so for the reasons that he gave, although not with any great enthusiasm. I am prepared to give at least a tepid welcome to the terms of the agreement announced yesterday, on the "half a loaf" argument, although many of us would have preferred proposals along these lines.

I have noted the Minister's advocacy of voluntary agreements. I should be more persuaded if I felt that they would be adhered to. We have no great faith in voluntary agreements which, over the years, have been steadily broken both in the spirit and in the letter. It was part of a previous agreement that there should be no poster advertising near schools, for reasons that are self-evident and consistent with the themes that we are discussing today.

However, we know that, apart from instances where that was not complied with and poster advertisements were put up close to schools, there was an almost immediate and noticeable increase in shopfront advertising—not least, advertising on shopfronts adjacent to schools, children's playgrounds and so on—in exactly the way that the hon. Member for Warley, East described. Surely that cannot have been other than contrary to the spirit of the agreement.

Hon. Members may be aware of the survey carried out in Hackney, which commented:

"The 1986 Voluntary Agreement is being infringed daily in the London Borough of Hackney".

The evidence upon which the report was based was not difficult to accumulate. The report cited four ways in which the code had been directly broken, and one in which the spirit of the agreement had been infringed. There was also a most interesting study of the position in Edinburgh, published in 1989 in Health Education Research. It commented on the limited remit of the voluntary agreement, which did not restrict children's exposure to shopfront advertising.

There is another area that is outside the scope of the Bill. I am bound to express my concern, and that of many in the field, at the way in which the spirit of the voluntary agreements are circumvented by the extent to which tobacco companies not only sponsor a whole range of events but especially sporting events, with the implied connection between the sponsor and good health, which is of course the reverse of the truth. There are also indirect forms of advertising—for example, the way in which the companies promote holidays and a variety of activities not directly connected with tobacco products but which nevertheless promote their products.

I am pleased to see two of the provisions, to which my hon. Friend the Minister referred, within the new agreement. First, priority will be given to reducing the number of permanent advertising signs on shops that are clearly visible from schools. Again, I hope that the spirit as well as the letter of that agreement will be adhered to, because a shopfront, although not clearly visible from a school, may be just around the corner where children will pass it daily. Surely that should be included.

I am especially glad that, from 1 July, all external signs on shops will carry a health warning. It has always seemed to me to be an extraordinary anomaly that other forms of advertising were required to carry a health warning, yet enormous advertisements outside shops did not. This voluntary agreement is a step in the right direction, and we shall watch carefully how it is implemented, both in its spirit and its letter.

Speaking of health warnings, does the hon. Gentleman accept that they ought to be more conspicuous than they normally are? Secondly, is not it an anomaly that we are concerned that drugs are taken to enhance sporting performance, but that we do not seem to be unduly concerned about a drug that is one of the greatest dangers to health?

I agree completely on the hon. Gentleman's second point. As regards the first, as far as I know, the size of warnings on advertisements is not covered in the voluntary agreement, although, interestingly, the size and placing of warnings on cigarette packets is now covered by the European Community directives, which leads me to observe that this may be the last voluntary agreement. Many of us hope so. A number of European countries have a complete ban on such advertising, and EC directives to extend that ban throughout the Community are under discussion. One hopes that those discussions will come to fruition and that the original intentions of this clause, which we are now revoking, will come to pass.

I would have spoken at some length on this amendment, had it not been for the speech by the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds), the sponsor of the Bill. I was concerned about the inclusion of this clause and I now know the reasons why the hon. Gentleman pursued the matter in Committee. The subject cropped up in Committee and I think that it was the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) who was concerned that the voluntary agreement had not been renewed. There was some controversy and concern, which I suspect was behind the inclusion of this clause in the Bill, that the new voluntary agreement was not even available in draft form, so I understand the hon. Gentleman's anxiety to include clause 6 in the Bill.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be encouraged, as I was, by what the Minister said. Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims), I have always supported the idea of voluntary agreements. I thought that he was being a little churlish about the tobacco industry when he said that it did not adhere to the spirit of the voluntary agreements. It has a vested interest in ensuring that such voluntary agreements work. As he rightly pointed out, the tobacco industry knows that there is pressure from the European Commission.

Let me remind my hon. Friend of the latest developments. Just before Christmas, when the Bill had been presented but not debated, the European Commission sought to introduce a directive controlling the advertising of tobacco. We debated that directive shortly before the Christmas recess. It was not accepted by the Council of Ministers when it met at the beginning of December, but the European Community may well return to the matter, and the European Commission may introduce another directive for the Council's consideration.

If I am to persuade Ministers that such a directive is not needed, it is important for me to be able to demonstrate, with my colleagues who believe in the voluntary agreements, that their spirit is being adhered to. The tobacco industry is concerned, as I am, about what may come from the European Community, so it is in its own interest to ensure that the voluntary agreement between it and the Government that is about to be signed is delivered. I hope that that will reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst and the hon. Member for Warley, East.

Since then, matters have moved on, and the voluntary agreement is due to be renewed in draft. I am content for the clause to be deleted.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) said that he hoped that Europe would move towards banning tobacco advertisements. I am sure that the Commission will take into account what has happened over the years. In the past 20 years, smoking in the United Kingdom has gone down by 30 per cent., in the United States by 20 per cent. and in the Netherlands by 40 per cent., but all those countries permit advertising.

However, smoking has increased in some Community countries: for instance, in Portugal and Italy it has gone up by 8 per cent. In Norway, it has dropped by 5 per cent. It may console the hon. Member for Warley, East to know that he is not sacrificing much. He is wise to delete clause 6. By doing so, he has eliminated much of the argument that we would have adduced if we had to fight the matter. I think that it is probably right to rest on voluntary arrangements.

Is my hon. Friend aware of a survey carried out in New Zealand? It showed that, in 18 countries where advertising was banned, the extent of children's smoking was reduced. That is what we are concerned about.

I am glad that my hon. Friend has referred to my old country, New Zealand. Some extraordinary things are going on there. Sponsored events will be phased out by 1993, but will be replaced by a Government-funded health sponsorship council. That would be a heavy charge on public funds, whereas the cost of the voluntary agreement is carried entirely by the tobacco industry. I should have thought that a voluntary arrangement would be much better than legislation.

I am at a disadvantage that other hon. Members might not experience. I have not seen the voluntary agreement and do not know what it contains. Does the hon. Gentleman know the terms of the voluntary agreement? If we do not know what they are, how do we know whether we are getting a good or a bad deal?

rose—

The Minister will be summing up—

I allowed my hon. Friend to get up again so that I could properly intervene during his reply. As the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend know, this is a matter for the Secretary of State for Health, not for me. I understand that the agreement is nearing completion and that it covers a wider range of topics than those to which I referred earlier.

The Secretary of State wanted to make available for the debate information concerning points upon which agreement had been reached in principle that he thought would be of interest to us. We shall have to wait for a few weeks before the full agreement is published. It will deal with the topics to which I referred earlier.

I cannot intervene on an intervention.

No. It is, perhaps, just that I should continue to bat for a few more minutes.

According to The Sunday Telegraph of 2 December 1990, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Dorrell), said that the two countries that had achieved the 'biggest reduction in cigarette consumption were Britain and Holland, which had voluntary agreements. He went on:

"Not one of the countries which had imposed or proposed a ban on advertising had recorded a fall."

That is a good commendation of voluntary agreements. They are very successful. Voluntary agreements can be altered periodically. The subject is normally discussed just before a Budget. Legislation is much more formal; it does not have the flexibility of voluntary agreements. Therefore, I recommend their continuance.

It may console the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) to know that the National Federation of Self-Employed and Small Businesses says that it fears clause 6, since the estimated cost of replacing shopfronts ranges from £200 for a simple notice to £1,000 for a full display. That could prove to be extremely expensive for people who are going through difficult times.

The National Federation of Retail Newsagents represents about 32,000 independent retail newsagents. It represents only small businesses—the shop round the corner. The federation is doing its utmost to ensure that the people who run these shops act responsibly. It says:

"As recently as last October this Federation provided a distinctive window display poster to each of its 32,000 members with the wording: 'Your Newsagent Cares—Tobacco goods will not be sold to persons under sixteen years of age from these premises.'"

That is a step in the right direction and the best way to go about it.

If arrangements can be reached with the companies concerned—they are participating by trying to enforce them through their agencies—the Bill is far more likely to work. I pay tribute to the work done by the hon. Member for Warley, East. The Bill may not now be in the form in which he introduced it, but it will now be effective, since in due course it will be administered by the Government and the judiciary.

I join my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North (Sir T. Skeet) in congratulating the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds). For a Back Bencher to get a Bill on the statute book is a considerable undertaking at any time, but to manage it on a subject which can be deeply divisive and to get the Committee to pull together has been no mean achievement.

I should also like to offer him an apology. I mentioned earlier the libertarian and anti-libertarian arguments, and he presumed, because he had sponsored the Bill, that I was including him in those comments. I can think of few Members who are less likely to support anti-libertarian measures. I would have had more doubts about other members of the Committee, but on such issues one normally knows exactly where the hon. Member for Warley, East stands.

Order. To put the matter beyond any doubt, I should make it clear that we are not yet on Third Reading. We are debating a particular amendment.

I should also like to comment on the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) about sponsorship. He seemed to take particular exception to the tobacco industry sponsoring sporting events. The industry sponsors two categories of event; sporting events and cultural activities such as concerts. In many such cases, the costs are high, and one cannot charge the economic price; so such events need sponsorship. If one unilaterally chopped out sponsorship from the tobacco industry—and there is a lot of it—that would mean the end of many sporting and cultural activities. One would have to bear in mind that that would be the net effect. My hon. Friend might consider that it would still be worth doing, but I would disagree.

I am certainly happy about the removal of clause 6. The effect on small retailers would have been devastating. We have to be careful: when one seeks to achieve an end by imposing restrictions, if they do not work there is a tendency to impose totally draconian measures without returning to first base. That can be a danger. A few years ago, the Surgeon General of the United States said that passive smoking caused 2,000 deaths a year in the United States. His evidence was challenged and he had to withdraw that statement, yet one still sees that quoted as his opinion.

The difficulty is that, all too often, people start off from a set position and they do not look at the evidence purely on the facts before them. Their minds are already made up. It reminds me of the old joke about the drunk using the lamp post more for support than illumination; that all too often tends to happen in matters such as we are discussing today.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Another example from America supports what he is saying. In the 1950s and 1960s, they wanted to put fluoride in the public water supply. In the 1970s and 1980s, evidence was adduced that persuaded more and more authorities that that was wrong. There is often a time lag before one gets the medical evidence that sometimes upsets the established wisdom of earlier decades.

My hon. Friend is correct. We can recall the alleged health effects of various products. One year, fats are good for you; the next year, they are bad for you. One year salt is good for you; and then it is bad for you. If one wrote all those theories into law, we would be chopping and changing the law even more than we do already.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst spoke about advertising. Again, it is hard to reach a conclusion. In Italy, where tobacco advertising has been banned since 1962, smoking has risen dramatically. The same is true of Portugal. Evidence shows that if one starts from a pre-set position, one can always find evidence to support one's point of view. That is the difficulty.

If such a ban on advertising were to be introduced, would the hon. Gentleman, as a self-confessed heavy smoker, feel such deprivation?

The answer is both yes and no—yes, in that I am a long-term smoker. I know the brand I like and I am unlikely to change. So I would not necessarily miss the advertising, because my mind is made up about brand loyalty. However, I should object on principle that I could not discover other brands. I am loyal to a particular make of car, but that does not mean that I do not want to consider advertisements for other cars.

The same argument applies—it is the basic libertarian argument about deprivation of information for what is seen as the greater good. My worry is that we start selling principles for what seem good reasons, but then there is no stopping. If an argument applies to one issue, it must apply to another, and so it continues down the line.

I have already said that I am suspicious of anti-libertarian arguments. As one would expect, I could not put it in better terms than those used by Macauley. He said that the Puritans banned bear-baiting

"not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators."

I find that last sentence by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, East (Mr. Knowles) difficult to follow. Some of my hon. Friend's earlier remarks were more interesting.

One of the reasons why there is less smoking in this country and a faster reduction in smoking than in many others is because two remarkable medical statisticians in 1953 first discerned that it was highly likely that smoking tobacco was harmful to health. The two doctors continued in other areas—they did the work on radon and established an epidemiology of illness and diseases. Because of their discoveries, the medical profession in Britain took up the tobacco issue. We should pay tribute to Dr. Charles Fletcher, who was one of those who did much to raise public awareness.

We are discussing the dropping of clause 6. I shall tie my remarks to the voluntary agreement and its substitution for the use of the law. It is necessary to remind ourselves of the difference between smoking and alcohol. There is room for voluntary agreement on both those issues. Alcohol is not necessarily damaging, although it is if used in excess. It is also associated with other illnesses. One in 10 people is an alcoholic and many people have diseases or conditions which make alcohol harmful— pregnancy is one such condition.

There is no argument at all for tobacco, although one must be tolerant of those who still use it. I shall not talk too much about it, because I should confuse Auberon Waugh if I talked about tobacco as well as alcohol. I was able to stop smoking because I realised that I was addicted. We cannot expect all adults to be able to do that easily. Kipling told us of those who give up smoking easily as they do it often enough. There is agreement that we should try to stop succeeding generations of people from picking up an avoidable habit.

Most public service is about trying to promote well-being. That may involve welfare or material resources, but together they promote well-being, which is what brings most of us into Parliament. It may also take us into the civil service and public services, such as health and education, and into advertising or other private sector occupations.

One aspect of promoting well-being is to get rid of the unnecessary distress, disadvantage and handicap which results from young people doing what so many of us did when we were their age, which is to pick up smoking in a fairly casual way, because it is forbidden, because friends do it or because of boredom.

Order. I must say once again that we are not on Third Reading; nor are we on Second Reading. I am waiting for the hon. Member to address himself to the amendment.

One of the disadvantages of being at the far end of the Chamber is that I may not have said loudly enough that I was referring directly to whether clause 6 should be dropped and to the effect of the voluntary agreement on young people.

Order. Despite what the hon. Member says, I am still waiting for his words to reflect what is in the amendment.

I hope that my speech will not contain too many paragraphs that link in to my first thought, but I must not transgress your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, or be tempted into making a longer speech than I choose to make.

The issue is whether the voluntary agreement will be a sufficient substitute for clause 6. The worst type of advertising that children see is the example of their parents smoking. Any parent who wants children not to start the habit should consider smoking only when or where the children are not present.

Children go, with or without their parents, into confectioners' shops and local newsagents' shops. The diversion of tobacco companies' funds to small retailers has made a big difference to the impact on young people. One cannot ban young people from smoking. If one tried to ban, it would provide a challenge. Most of us can overcome such a challenge and do whatever has been forbidden. Clause 6 matters, because we need an environment in which, although not involved themselves, people understand why they should have sympathy for those adults who still need to buy tobacco.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that advertising gives young people in particular the idea that this addiction has a spurious legitimacy? Advertising provides youngsters with the rationalisation that smoking cigarettes is acceptable.

There is a slight twist. We should praise confectioners, newsagents and small retailers. They have been co-operating more and more openly in not selling cigarettes to young people. I draw an analogy with the anti-drink driving campaign. Young people who were twice as bad as their fathers became only half as bad, having quickly changed their habits. That happened because of signs in pubs and clubs stating that low-alcohol and alcohol-free drinks were available. The places where people obtained drink were made allies, letting people achieve what they wanted to achieve.

I hope that the voluntary agreement works. My hon. Friend the Minister announced that Sir John Blelloch would be the chairman of the monitoring committee, and we send our best wishes to him. Does the voluntary agreement apply in Northern Ireland? If my hon. Friend the Minister cannot answer immediately, perhaps he will make the matter plain later. The Bill should be followed by Northern Ireland legislation as soon as possible.

We are not concerned in clause 6 or in the Bill as a whole with the libertarian versus anti-libertarian argument. We are concerned with how to create conditions whereby fewer young people in succeeding generations pick up the smoking habit. All the arguments are against picking up the habit. I ask people to find ways of monitoring each cohort so that information is published as regularly as the children's pocket money surveys, once or twice a year.

We should start publicising the fact that things are getting better. There is a market in information. Peer group pressure should be reinforced, so that, no matter whether a young person is mighty or lowly, rich or poor, black or white, from the country or from the town, they look forward to the year 2000 and beyond, powerful enough within themselves not to pick up the smoking habit and to set an example to their parents, just as many young people do in other respects.

I warmly welcome the removal of the clause and the introduction of the voluntary agreement. I had grave reservations about the clause, because it would have forced shopkeepers throughout the country to remove their canopies and other fascias, causing a colossal upheaval, not to mention a great deal of expense and work. It would have been a drastic and unfair measure, and I welcome the fact that the voluntary agreement will avoid it.

When tobacco companies display cigarette brand names on the fascias or blinds of shops, they are merely competing for a market share. The sight of a brand name such as Marlboro displayed on a shop would cause few children to rush off and to buy that brand. Such advertising does not encourage children to smoke but draws to the attention of those who already smoke the name of a particular brand of cigarettes, and creates an image. There is a danger that the image created by tobacco companies promotes the concept of smoking. I welcome the fact that the voluntary agreement stipulates that advertisements should not be displayed in the immediate vicinity of schools, because such image-making advertisements can put people into the mood to smoke.

My hon. Friend's measure should also be welcomed by shopkeepers and retailers, as it will save them from a measure that would have caused them huge problems.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) said that voluntary agreements were often not kept. However, my information shows that they have been well observed across the board. I make a point of saying so not merely to place on record what I believe are the facts but because it is important that breaches of the code are reported to the monitoring committee, which exists to investigate complaints and should be used for that purpose.

My hon. Friend said that, under a previous voluntary agreement, it was agreed that hoarding near schools should not be used for cigarette advertising but that shop windows in the same neighbourhood seemed to display even more such advertisements. If that is so, the part of the voluntary agreement relating to hoardings was certainly being observed. My hon. Friend said that the spirit of the agreement was not being fully observed. That is not a strong argument for anyone who hankers after a legislative approach. It argues for an extension of the voluntary agreement to cover shopfronts as well, which the new voluntary agreement does.

I am grateful for the support of my hon. Friends who have spoken in favour of the voluntary agreement approach. My hon. Friends the Members for Bedfordshire, North (Sir T. Skeet) and for Nottingham, East (Mr. Knowles) showed how far from simple such matters were, and made the interesting point that smoking had declined more slowly in EC countries that had banned advertising than in those that had not.

People who believe that advertising is effective should consider whether the more powerful message for many people who see cigarette advertising is contained in the health warning it carries, not the advert itself. Without trying to predict what conclusion such consideration would lead to, I say yet again that the voluntary agreement insists—this will satisfy those who believe that advertising for cigarettes is powerful, but advertising that carries a health warning is also effective—that all shopfronts mentioning cigarettes should provide a health warning. The voluntary agreement that came into effect in 1986 carried that requirement only for new advertising added to shopfronts, and advertisements placed before 1983 did not require health warnings. That has all changed, and all advertising on shopfronts must, in future, carry a health warning.

If I have followed the logic of the Minister's argument correctly, he is saying that companies have been profligate with shareholders' money because they are wasting it on advertising which damages sales rather than helping them. I should have thought that the only reason companies spend enormous sums of advertising is because their market research shows clearly that the advertising shows a good return.

I am trying to make two points. The first is the effect of advertising and the effectiveness of the health warning in bringing to the public's attention the health hazards of smoking are complex matters. Secondly, however one judges advertising or the value of the health warning, the warning must be present on all shopfronts where cigarettes are mentioned. I should have thought that the House would agree that that was a welcome development.

My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) asked whether the voluntary agreement applied in Northern Ireland. I am glad to say that it does.

I thank the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) for his kind remarks and for his readiness to consider clause 6 and accept the Government's advice that it should be removed from the Bill. I know that he was extremely concerned that, at that time, there seemed to be no prospect of an agreement with the trade on a renewal of tighter arrangements on cigarette advertising. As I said in Committee, I believed that discussions would produce a satisfactory result, and considered that to be the way forward. I am glad that sufficient progress has been made for at least some of that development to be revealed today, to give the hon. Member for Warley, East the assurance that he wanted and that it was right for him to want.

We have come a long way since Second Reading on 18 January. The Standing Committee met four times to consider the Bill in detail. During those lengthy sittings, it debated many amendments tabled by the Government and by the Bill's promoter, the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds).

The amendments sought to improve the effectiveness of the Bill. A number, however, did not meet with the Committee's approval and we had to start again. Initially, therefore, progress was slow, but the debates and disagreements were always lively, amicable and constructive. I particularly thank the hon. Member for Warley, East for that, and other members of the Committee.

There was regular, constructive dialogue outside the Committee between myself, officials, the Bill's sponsors and Parents Against Tobacco. I admired the patient, persistent and effective advocacy of Parents Against Tobacco. The Bill was much improved in Committee.

The Bill has not been easy to handle as it encroaches on the territory of the Departments of Health, of Trade and Industry and of the Environment, not to mention the Scottish Office and the Northern Ireland Office. I am grateful for the co-operation of my ministerial colleagues and officials in those Departments.

The hon. Member for Warley, East has good reason to be proud of the Bill. He stuck to his guns on some matters and was bold enough to have second thoughts on others, all with the noble intention of getting a good and effective Bill on the statute book. I believe that the Bill, if enacted, will long be a tribute to his efforts.

We are all concerned about the grave dangers of young children starting to smoke. Our health education programmes and initiatives address that serious matter. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North (Sir T. Skeet) will agree that education is essential. The Bill, however, will offer young children increased protection by toughening the law and by increasing the penalties on retailers who flout it by selling tobacco to children. It will, I believe, be welcomed by parents and by the public in general and, not least—I wish to emphasise this—by the vast majority of law-abiding retailers, who are as dismayed as everyone else at how easy it is for children under 16 to buy cigarettes in some shops. I am sure that the House will want to give the Bill a Third Reading and speed it on the statute book.

I feel it incumbent on me to make one or two comments at the end of the stony road that we have pursued over some months.

I express enormous gratitude to the Minister, because I thought at the beginning of the journey that he was not sympathetic to the purposes of the Bill. He shortly proved me wrong, because he made immense efforts to achieve a consensus and make the Bill effective. He has had the additional chore of continuous consultations with, I think, five or six Departments, all of which he pursued assiduously, to the point where enactment of the Bill will change the appallingly unsatisfactory non-observance of existing legislation. The Bill will safeguard the interests of children, who suffered under the previous unsatisfactory position. I am most grateful for the Minister's enormous co-operation.

We have had to yield on one or two points, but, overall, the Bill will enormously increase protection to children. I am most grateful for what the Minister has done and for the enormous help of Parents Against Tobacco with the campaign. I am enormously grateful to the dear Lord for drawing me No. 1 in the ballot.

I welcome the Bill in its present form, although I confess that I suffer from a difference of opinion within myself about smoking. As a libertarian, I believe that it must be left to people to make up their own minds what they do. On the other hand, I feel that smoking is such a disgusting habit that the House is perfectly at liberty to make inroads into the problem from time to time.

We must bear in mind the fact that if we make something illegal or hard to get hold of, we inevitably make it more attractive. Children's smoking is not a new phenomenon. I am sure that, when most of us were at school, it was not at all unusual for children to go behind the bicycle sheds to indulge in what was then probably one of their favourite habits. I heard of one school that did not have bicycle sheds, where the pupils got together to form a deputation and went to those in authority complaining bitterly that they had nowhere to keep their bicycles. Needless to say, that was not the real object of the exercise.

I welcome the removal of clause 6, with which I would have had serious difficulties as it would have caused great hardship to many shops and shopkeepers. Many tobacconists also run news rounds and sell confectionery; in the trade, they are known collectively as "news-conf-tob". The "tob" element forms an important part of such retailers' trade, and they would have found it a great handicap if they had had to remove from their premises every reference to tobacco.

On the subject of smoking generally, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) said, it is difficult for the smoker who is thinking of giving up to admit to himself that he is addicted—that he is using a drug and that it has him by the throat. It must be because of the addiction that so many smokers are so inconsiderate in indulging their habit. As I said, I am a libertarian, but I feel that smokers have only themselves to blame if the House introduces legislation to curb their habit.

I am talking in particular about people who light up in restaurants. What could be more disgusting, when one is trying to enjoy a meal, than finding that someone at the next table is smoking? The smoke has a way of wafting across one's table, and very nasty it is, too. Just the other day it was my second wedding anniversary which, fortunately, I remembered in the nick of time. Having remembered it in the nick of time, I decided that I must do something extra special, not least because, on the occasion of my first wedding anniversary, I had arranged to take my wife to a local government conference in my constituency. Having survived that, I decided that in the second year I should do something a little better, so I took my wife to lunch at the Savoy. I am happy to say that my mother-in-law joined us.

I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend in full flight, but I am deeply gratified to learn that the title that he once held—"the most romantic man in the House"—still holds true.

Order. I am sorry to hear about the discomfort experienced by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Summerson), but I must say that I am finding it a little difficult to relate his experiences to what is in the Bill, and that is what we must discuss on Third Reading.

Yes, of course, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was going on to say that if smoking has such a bad effect on adults who do not smoke, it has an even worse effect on children. That is particularly true of cigar smoke that happens to drift across my table, if I may finish the story, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Smoking is certainly a disgusting habit and if you will permit me to say so, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am afraid that even some of our colleagues in the House when having supper in the Tea Room—[Interruption.]—but perhaps I have said enough.

Despite what I said earlier about libertarian principles, it is a fact to which I am sure the whole House subscribes that young people need to be protected. It is entirely justified that the House should interest itself in young people, and particularly in a habit like this which can be so damaging to them. I welcome the Bill.

I welcome the Bill and congratulate the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) on his tenacity in seeing it through. As a son of the manse, he has been taught from his earliest days to tread a lonely road and to stick to his point. I thank the Minister for making it abundantly plain that the new agreement applies also to Northern Ireland, just as the Bill is intended to apply to Northern Ireland.

I am afraid that it does not apply directly to Northern Ireland. That will be done in the usual way by an Order in Council, and we intend to implement one.

I am glad that that is the intention and that the agreement applies to Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for Nottingham, East (Mr. Knowles) talked about bear-baiting and quoted Macaulay in that context. Today we welcome this Bill for the pleasure that it will bring to genuine tobacconists, to parents and to young people, and for the relief from pain that it will bring to others who will not become addicts.

Many children are worried about adults. I recently received a letter from a primary school in my constituency which has joined Smokebusters. The libertarians and the tobacco lobby may not be too happy with that word, but those young people argue for better control of advertising and are worried about the spread of the poison that is damaging their parents. My father suffered from the addiction, regularly justifying it on the grounds that, as he said, it cleared his lungs in the morning when he started smoking. I had to tell him that that was because it irritated his chest.

I hope that the Bill will be another light along the pathway that will lead us to tobacco-free air and the ability to breathe freely.

I, too, welcome the Bill and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) on introducing it and on the spirit of co-operation that he and the Government have shown in reaching a consensus on various matters. At the outset, we were all anxious to put a measure on the statute book that would protect children and make it more difficult for them to gain access to tobacco and cigarettes. That we have achieved.

It is a pity that we cannot continue the air of romance introduced to our proceedings a little earlier, although it is nice to know that we have some romance in the House of Commons. I know that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will pull me up if I continue on those lines, however.

On a serious note, much has been said about the responsibility of parents. We must also bear it in mind that many parents who are addicted will be grateful to the House for legislation that may help to protect their children from becoming addicted as they did, possibly when children themselves. It is not easy for a parent to tell a child not to do something to which he or she is addicted. So parents may be grateful for a measure that will help to prevent their children from making their mistakes.

I welcome the Bill and congratulate its promoter. I am glad that he stuck to his guns and that by doing so he extracted a concession on the—albeit voluntary—agreement. I am also glad that Northern Ireland will benefit from it. I do not generally welcome Orders in Council for Northern Ireland, but I welcome this one. I trust that the Minister will speed up the legislation so that Northern Ireland will not be left behind. Parents have the first and primary responsibility to ensure that their children are protected from tobacco, but they must be aided and abetted by the state, and the temptation of advertising should not be placed in the way of children. I am glad that the Bill will become law.

I add my congratulations as well as those of my hon. Friends, particularly those who represent Scottish constituencies, to the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds), who has promoted the Bill with great skill. In parliamentary life there are few opportunities to legislate in this manner. In my first Parliament I had the good fortune to be responsible for two successful private Members' Bills, but since then I have not been successful.

The hon. Member for Warley, East can take great satisfaction from the way in which he has piloted the Bill. The progress of the legislation will be followed with great interest in Scotland to see how it works in practice, because in Scotland prosecutions for breaches of the law are almost unheard of. The legislation will enable us to monitor through the local authorities the steps that are being taken. The legislation will be live and will not just lie on the statute book because it imposes on local authorities obligations to which they will periodically have to return. That will keep in the minds of the authorities and the public the great importance of protecting young people from a habit that is deeply damaging to their health and well-being.

When the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) won the ballot and chose this subject for his Bill I was very worried, because the subject arouses great passions in the House and a great deal of potential opposition. He faced the massed ranks of my hon. Friends the Members for Nottingham, East (Mr. Knowles) and for Bedfordshire, North (Sir T. Skeet) and it says much for the hon. Gentleman's tenacity and skill that the Bill has reached its present stage.

I have never had the good fortune to win the ballot for a private Member's Bill, but I had to pilot a controversial private Bill and know exactly the hazards that one encounters. If those of us who opposed the hon. Gentleman had taken an irresponsible route by using the resources at our disposal and occupying the time of the House we could have ensured that the Bill did not go through. We did not do that, because such a course would have been wholly irresponsible.

In Committee the hon. Member for Warley, East went to a great deal of trouble to explain to us the intentions of the Bill and he certainly satisfied me about its genuine motives. He may even have on his side the Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco. I should like to quote from that organisation's document called "The right to smoke: a Conservative view" which was written by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart), and which sets out the Conservative view about the right to smoke. The document states:

"Children, on the other hand, are different. The capacity for making an informed choice exists in them only potentially. It becomes actual with time and the gaining of experience. Until then, there is no virtue in treating them as free. Insofar as smoking cigarettes involves very probable dangers to health, they should be kept out of the hands of children. The only room for argument here is over means rather than ends. Control should be enforced ideally by the parents. But if they refuse or are too weak to do this, I see a perfectly legitimate role for the State. The Protection of Children (Tobacco) Act 1986 is only the most recent declaration that this role has been assumed."

I am sure that my hon. Friend would add the Bill to that list. I hope that the hon. Member for Warley, East will not get cold feet when I tell him that I suspect that he might even have the support of FOREST on the objective which he has set himself.

It seems from what has been said so far on Third Reading that there are two special areas of concern. First, there is addiction and, secondly, there is the danger to health that is caused by smoking cigarettes. When either factor is put in conjunction with children, there is even greater concern. It seems, however, that we shall have to think extremely carefully about other activities that are addictive and damaging to health, including, possibly, alcohol and newer developments that have come on to the market such as computer games. That may seem a rather odd conjunction, but we shall have to consider carefully how far the principles that have been raised during consideration of the Bill should be applied to other habits and developments.

My hon. Friend has advanced a valid argument. The hon. Member for Warley, East was sensible enough to recognise that there are those of us who take a certain view on the principle of the right to do something as an adult, but who believe that a line can be legitimately drawn if we are challenged on the freedom of the individual. I do not think that as a result of the passage of the Bill and the discussions that have taken place there has been any disagreement that the line should be drawn at the point where we come to discuss the health and welfare of children. When these matters were discussed in great detail in Committee, we were concerned, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood wrote in his article, with the means rather than the end. There has been some genuine give and take which has been an example of the House and the Committee system operating at their best.

I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Warley, East on the way in which he has gone about taking the Bill through the House. It is an extremely difficult business to get a Bill through this place, even when there is complete agreement. To have triumphed and secured the passage of a Bill that has aroused fierce passions and controversy, and in part the opposition of my hon. Friends the Members for Bedfordshire, North and for Nottingham, East, as well as my opposition, is a sign of the hon. Gentleman's skill and tenacity. I congratulate him.

I offer my compliments and congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds). I think that by way of the Bill he will be seen over the years to have performed a valuable public service on behalf of children throughout the United Kingdom. I was not a member of the Committee that considered the Bill, but I spoke on Second Reading, when I wished my hon. Friend well.

I speak as someone who first acquired the habit of cigarette smoking at the age of 12 years while on board a trawler fishing off Spitzbergen. I thought that it was manly to smoke. All the other fishermen on the vessel were smokers. By 16, I was on 20 to 30 cigarettes a day. I know how powerful the addiction is. It is not one that I have now, for I gave it up many years ago. I believe that my hon. Friend has performed a valuable service.

The need for the Bill was brought home to me when I recently spent a few days in Glasgow royal infirmary. I had to undergo abdominal surgery. On the ward there were men who were seriously ill—in three instances, terminally ill—with lung cancer and severe emphysema. When I spoke to the men they all admitted that they had been near-lifelong addicts. They bitterly regretted that they had ever taken up cigarette smoking, especially given the heavy addiction from which they suffered.

I am disappointed that clause 6 was removed from the Bill, but pleased with the insertion of new clause 2, to which the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) referred. It is a useful addition to the Bill, and especially so for my constituency, where far too many people smoke cigarettes. During recent days, head teachers have spoken to me about the Bill, and I am sure that they and others concerned with the health of youngsters welcome it. They will be especially pleased about the addition of new clause 2.

I shall subject the regional and islands councils to tough-minded scrutiny in the application of the new measure. It is essential that we dissuade our young people from taking up such a noxious habit.

No newsagent-tobacconist in my constituency has complained about the Bill. That is a tribute to the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds), who has not tried to tackle the whole problem of smoking in one go, but has dealt with the new generations of people who need to be saved from a bad habit. The general environment matters and that is why concentrating on obtaining the help of tobacconists has been so important.

I hope that on public occasions people do not speak as though smoking tobacco is fine. I attended the inaugural lunch in the House of Commons when Action on Smoking and Health was launched. When the loyal toast was given, the royal patron said that it was one occasion when people would not be told that they could smoke. We should move away from the habit at public functions of people being told when they can smoke. They should be told when they cannot. That would apply some social pressure. In the same way, public functions should ensure that alcohol-free drink is available; people should not have to ask for it.

On the libertarian aspect, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Summerson) on reaching his second wedding anniversary. Having heard of the way in which he celebrated his first, I am surprised that anyone wanted to spend a second with him. Perhaps the only reason why he remembered it in the nick of time was that his wife did not want to remind him. Perhaps she feared that she would again be taken to a local government conference.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I am delighted that this important Bill has made such speedy progress. Before enumerating the amendments involved, I wish to congratulate the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) on the progress of his Children and Young Persons (Protection from Tobacco) Bill. Had I not been so preoccupied with my own Bill, I might have been prepared to lend him a hand with his. I very much support the Parents Against Tobacco campaign and I am sure that many parents today will be celebrating the passage of the hon. Gentleman's Bill to another place. I hope that it will reach the statute book very soon.

As I said, I am also delighted that my own important Bill has made such speedy progress. I hope that the House will give it a Third Reading so that it can go to another place, where I hope that it will have as swift and easy a passage as it has enjoyed in this place.

I wish to place on record my gratitude to all those who have given the Bill their wholehearted support, in particular the sponsors, those hon. Members who were kind enough to attend the Committee stage and also my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims), whom I omitted to include as a supporter, but who nevertheless served on the Committee. I know that he shares my anxieties about these matters.

I am grateful for the overwhelming support that I have been given by the Law Society, which has sponsored the Bill, and has helped me in what I think that the House will agree is an extremely complex subject. In seeking to ensure that all the relevant issues were brought before the House, I have this morning been reading some of the briefs prepared by the Cardiff Law School, the British Epilepsy Association and various other organisations about matters appertaining to the Bill. The complexity of some of the legal issues surrounding case histories is almost mind-boggling at times. I do not profess to have the knowledge of the law necessary to understand all of the arguments relating to some of those cases. However, in our consideration of the Bill on Second Reading and in Committee—I hope that the same will apply today—we have managed to discuss the issues of importance relating to the Bill, so that those outside the House, who will no doubt seek to interpret our intentions and who will have to work with the Bill for the benefit of those whom it seeks to help, will be clear about our intentions and the areas of concern with which we sought to deal.

The Bill amends the Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964, to provide safeguards for vulnerable people who have been found either unfit to plead in relation to the charge against them or not guilty by reason of insanity. Under the 1964 Act such people have to be detained indefinitely in hospital without trial and regardless of the severity of the alleged offence.

The provisions will affect a number of people. I have already mentioned the British Epilepsy Association. It might be for the convenience of the House and of the record if we could reflect on how the British Epilepsy Association views current law and how it affects epileptics, and to explain why they have been so keen to support this measure, as have a number of organisations, and to support reform of the existing law.

As a result of the Sullivan case of 1983 an epileptic episode is classified legally as a "period of insane automatism". The British Epilepsy Association, in common with all medical organisations, has argued consistently that epilepsy is not any kind of insane manifestation, but a proven neurological condition.

Today's law is based on the McNaghten rules of as long ago as 1843. We are seeking to change those laws by creating a proper definition in the Bill. At the time when the McNaghten rules were written, medical understanding of epilepsy was poor—that is not difficult to understand —and the condition was far more widely believed to have a psychiatric basis. Clearly, the law has not moved with the times.

When a person is charged with an offence committed during an epileptic attack it is not medically possible for that person to be guilty of a wilful criminal act. In a moment, hon. Members will glean from one of the amendments made to the Bill in Committee how important it is that we get our thinking right on the mental element of any offence that has been committed where the person charged may be insane or unfit to plead.

It is right that an individual should be able to plead not guilty and cite the details of his epilepsy as a defence. Under the law as it stands, the defendant cannot plead not guilty without the caveat "by virtue of insanity", which results in a mandatory committal to a psychiatric hospital. At present the court cannot place supervision orders in such a case, nor can it discharge the defendant. The court simply has no choice.

There are instances of courts endeavouring to use their discretion. On occasion, that can be helpful to the defendant, but it does not alter the law or remove the need to change it. In any event, it has no bearing on other cases by way of precedent. Defendants have to choose the lesser of two evils. The law does not offer such people protection. The individual decides, or is advised, to plead guilty. Otherwise, the person has to plead not guilty by virtue of insanity and, as a consequence, is sent to a psychiatric institution.

The British Epilepsy Association would like two amendments to the law, one of which cannot be dealt with in the Bill. I refer to it because another hon. Member may wish to return to the matter in future. The association wants epilepsy to be reclassified within the law, and the implication that it is a psychiatric illness to be removed. The Bill cannot do that. Instead, it provides the courts with the flexibility that they so urgently require to deal appropriately with such cases.

At the time of Second Reading, the concept of a trial of the facts to determine whether a person who was unfit to plead had committed a criminal offence was new. Following the Committee stage, correspondence, and a great deal of interest on the part of right hon. and hon. Members, we have now come to terms with what that concept should mean.

I wish to refer especially to the changes that we made in Committee. The amendments to clause 2 substitute provisions for section 4 of the Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964. The first two amendments sought to restore safeguards available under the 1964 Act which it was not our intention to remove.

The amendments allow the court to postpone consideration of whether a defendant is unfit to plead until any time up to the opening of the case for the defence. That safeguard was originally introduced into the 1964 Act to answer the criticism that, even when the prosecution had insufficient evidence to secure a conviction, a finding of unfitness prevented the prosecution case from being tested and still resulted in the accused being detained indefinitely in hospital. If the prosecution has an extremely weak case —although the accused person may be unfit to plead or, if he pleaded at all, would have to plead not guilty by reason of insanity—it is surely right that the evidence, such as it is, should be brought before the court, as an instant acquittal might well be the outcome. The question of unfitness to plead would then never need to be addressed. To give flexibility to the courts to postpone consideration of unfitness to plead will allow the case for the prosecution to be tested. If there is insufficient evidence for the jury to convict, the case can be dismissed and the accused acquitted without the need to consider whether he is unfit to plead.

A further advantage of retaining this provision, as provided for in the amendments that were agreed in Committee, is that it allows the courts to consider the accused's intention—that is, the mental element in cases where that may be relevant. That goes to the heart of the problem faced by epileptics and to the heart of the concern expressed by the British Epilepsy Association.

The trial of the facts that would follow a finding of unfitness to plead would look only at the facts of the case. It would not consider the accused's motivation. Clearly, it could not do so. It would already have been established that the accused was unfit to plead. Concern was expressed, however, on Second Reading that to exclude the mental element, which is so important in establishing a conviction in other criminal cases and very much the strength of our English criminal law, might be to the detriment of certain mentally vulnerable defendants. This provision, which merely restates the existing law, does not preclude the mental element being taken into account in those cases where it may be relevant. If intent is not established by the prosecution, the court will have the opportunity to acquit the accused in appropriate cases.

The remaining amendments to clause 2, agreed in Committee, clarify the circumstances in which the same or a separate jury should decide the question of fitness to plead and hear other parts of the trial. We wanted to remove any doubt. The amendments were drafted in such a way as to achieve that aim. They also allow for the postponement of the consideration of fitness to plead, as agreed in the first two amendments. If the question of fitness to plead is considered by the court on the arraignment of the accused—when the accused first appears before the court—and the jury decides that the accused is fit to plead, the case will be referred to a proper trial in which the accused will be tried by a different jury from that which decided the question of fitness to plead. The House will agree that that is the right way for us to proceed with this amendment of the law.

Similarly, if the accused is found to be unfit to plead on his first appearance in court, the case will be referred to a trial of the facts, which will be heard by a separate jury from that which decided the question of fitness to plead. Again, I am sure that hon. Members will feel that that is right.

I have been listening intently to the hon. Gentleman's observations on cluase 2. The role of two registered medical practitioners in submitting evidence concerning the accused is critical. Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that in the practical circumstances of a trial, a registered medical practitioner means a consultant psychiatrist?

Yes, I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. It is difficult to know how much of the ground to cover on Third Reading. This is such a complex matter that, for the benefit of those hon. Members who are listening intently to my argument, one almost needs to go back to the beginning and start all over again. That is a very important brick in the Bill to which I have not referred in any detail, save to say that clause 2 gives statutory backing to the McNaghten rules. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to tell me that I am right and that I have given the hon. Gentleman the correct answer.

I move on to deal with cases in which the question of fitness is raised with the court at a later stage in the trial after some or all of the prosecution's case has been put. Clause 2 allows the court flexibility to direct whether the question of fitness should be decided by the same jury who already heard part of the case or by a separate jury, according to the particular circumstances of the case.

That is an important provision because clearly there will be some cases where so much evidence has already been adduced that it would benefit both the court and the accused for the same jury who heard all the evidence then to hear the evidence under the provisions outlined in clause 2, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, as to whether the person is fit to plead. However, there could be other cases in which that might not be in the interests of the accused. I do not believe that the House can do anything other than give the court the discretion that it needs in those circumstances.

In cases where the accused is found unfit to plead and the case is referred to a trial of the facts, the jury who heard the earlier part of the case can also hear the trial of the facts. Of course, if the accused who is unfit later recovers to become fit to plead, as can happen, his or her case would be remitted for a proper trial and that trial would be heard by a new and separate jury.

The amendments that the Committee gladly agreed provide additional safeguards for people who are unfit to be tried and ensure that those who later recover sufficiently to stand trial will receive a fair and proper hearing.

Finally, for the benefit of hon. Members present whose interest in the Bill I gladly welcome, I confirm that part II of the Bill provides a range of disposals to the court according to the particular circumstances of the case and the defendant's individual needs. At one extreme, the court retains the power under the 1964 Act of committing the accused indefinitely to a psychiatric hospital. At the other extreme, there may be opportunity to provide an absolute discharge. In the middle, where the real benefits of the Bill are to be found, it will allow the courts to provide for supervision orders which may include treatment so that the accused can get the help that he needs within the community.

Although the Bill deals with an extremely complex area of the law, the changes it will introduce are straightforward, effective and long overdue. I am most grateful to officials in the Home Office who were most helpful with the drafting of the Bill and the amendments agreed in Committee and who I suspect may be listening to our deliberations today. I also thank my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Office who ensured the Bill's speedy and unimpeded progress thus far. I also thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his help and his willingness to co-operate in dealing with the Bill this afternoon. I hope that the Bill will progress to another place and that long-overdue reforms can quickly be put on to the statute book for the benefit of many vulnerable people in our society.

I can confirm the Government's continued and full support for the Bill. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) on guiding it through the Committee with great finesse. The Bill contains important reforms, some of which, as we understand from my hon. Friend's lucid explanation, are complex, but which are designed to safeguard the position of severely mentally disordered individuals who are found either unfit to plead or not guilty by reason of insanity.

On Second Reading, my hon. Friend expertly and clearly described the Bill's aims and he has done so again today. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, in turn, outlined the Government's stance and support. In the circumstances, there is little for me to add, but perhaps I can confirm the point queried by the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman). The registered medical practitioner to whom the hon. Gentleman referred must be approved by the Secretary of State as having special experience in the diagnosis of treatment of mental disorder.

I am grateful to the Minister for answering my question. As the Bill refers specifically to the Mental Health Act 1983 and to guardianship, will elements of the code of practice require revision because of the Bill?

As I did not steer the Bill through Committee I am not fully aware of the details. I hope that if my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale can reply, he will interrupt me.

I am grateful for the opportunity to do so. However, I am sorry that my mind wandered as I was dealing with notes that I received from the Official Reporters. Will the hon. Gentleman ask his question again? If you will allow a further intervention, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall do what I can to help.

The Minister again shows his characteristic courtesy. I asked whether, in the light of references to the Mental Health act 1983 and especially to the term "guardianship", it is likely that the code of practice—or the sections of it that refer to guardianship—will need to be revised if the Bill is put on to the statute book.

May I, at this point, give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale? However, if he would prefer to collect his thoughts, I shall continue.

The Bill has two main thrusts. First, there will, for the first time, be a requirement for the Crown court to test the case against an accused person who is found unfit to plead in order to satisfy itself that he committed the offence in question. As I said, that is a complex measure which has given rise to a number of issues. They have been carefully considered and we can see no reason why, in practice, the measure should not prove effective. The Government are satisfied that the introduction of a "trial of the facts" would greatly reduce the possibility of an innocent person being compulsorily detained in hospital for an offence that he did not commit.

The Bill's second main thrust is to provide the Crown court with a wider range of disposal options. Currently, if a person is found unfit to plead, or not guilty by reason of insanity, the court has no option but to send him to hospital for an indefinite period as a restricted patient. There has been increasing concern, not only that compulsory hospital treatment has not always been appropriate on medical grounds, but that it might be disproportionate in view of the nature of the offence.

The Bill proposes that following a finding of unfitness for trial, where the court is satisfied that the accused did the act or made the omission charged, or a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity, the court should have a choice of disposals—ordering an accused person to be detained in hospital with or without restrictions, a guardianship order, supervision in the community, or absolute discharge. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale, the Government believe that this will enable the court to ensure that its order is appropriate for the circumstances of each case, and will remove the inflexibility of the current provisions of the Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964. This will be particularly welcomed by the British Epilepsy Association, to which my hon. Friend rightly paid tribute, which has mounted a vigorous campaign to have the law amended in this regard.

It has already been made clear that the proposals are not novel. They are based largely on recommendations made by the Butler committee on mentally abnormal offenders, which reported in 1975. At the time, an extensive consultation exercise was conducted. Further consultation has been undertaken and the Bill's proposals have been widely and warmly welcomed by the legal and medical professions and by a wide range of organisations. Indeed, I am not aware of any significant objections to the Bill. I am aware that the specific and detailed question put by the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) has not been answered. I shall ensure that he receives an answer by letter. I regret that I am unable to answer it now.

Accordingly, it remains only for me to commend the Bill to the House and to wish it a smooth and quick passage through the other place. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale on introducing it.

As I am a Scots Member and this is an English Bill, I hesitate to speak, but the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) is to be congratulated on introducing the Bill. The House deals with two legal systems—the English and the Scottish—and I sincerely hope that the Scottish legal system is not out of kilter in implementing these necessary protective measures for people who, for reasons of insanity or mental ill-health, cannot protect their own interests. I am pleased that the British Epilepsy Association is glad that the Bill is making good progress. I am sure that, if the Scottish system is out of kilter, officials and members of the association who read the debate will contact me.

The time available allows me to assure the hon. Gentleman that the Bill is supported by other organisations apart from the British Epilepsy Association. It is supported by many organisations that do social work or work with vulnerable groups and their professional bodies. They include the Association of Chief Officers of Probation, the Association of Professions for the Mentally Handicapped, the British Association of Social Workers, the British Institute of Mental Handicap, the Campaign for Mentally Handicapped People, Disability Alliance, Justice, Mencap, the Mental Health Foundation, the National Association for Mental Health—MIND—the Legal Action Group, the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, the National Association of Probation Officers, the National Schizophrenia Fellowship, the Prison Reform Trust, the British Deaf Association and the Royal College of Psychiatrists. I have listed all those organisations deliberately. They read like a "Who's Who" of the organisations concerned with vulnerable people and those who try to care for vulnerable people. The presence of the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman), which I warmly welcome, gives him an opportunity to take up the cudgels and look at the position in Scotland. If he finds that the reforms contained in the Bill need to be made in Scotland, I assure him that I will help him as much as I can.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, especially for his recitation of those honourable associations and societies, all of which are as well known north of the border as south.

The hon. Gentleman's mention of vulnerable groups prompted me to say that the Scottish system might be out of kilter with the English one. Occasionally, the two systems for protecting vulnerable individuals become unbalanced. For example, the Criminal Justice Act 1988 contains a remarkable section that allows the use of video-recorded interviews for evidence in court in child or sexual abuse cases. It is regrettable that, in Scotland, there is no such provision and I hope that our legislation is not out of kilter with this fine Bill.

I offer my compliments to the hon. Member for Ryedale. I shall table a question to the Scottish Office asking it to confirm that our legislation is almost as good as the hon. Gentleman's proposals.

With the leave of the House, I am grateful for the opportunity to deal with this important matter.

I shall try to answer the earlier question asked by the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman). For a brief moment I feared that our wicket was in jeopardy, but the answer to the question that he so rightly raised has now been assembled. Clause 5 provides for the use of guardianship orders under section 7 of the Mental Health Act 1983. A guardian may decide where the person lives and require that he attends medical treatment, occupational therapy or education. He or she may insist that a doctor or other person is allowed to see the person under guardianship. A guardianship order would be made initially for six months, but would be renewable.

It was not my intention, in drafting the Bill, to seek to change the overall provisions of the Mental Health Act 1983. However, the House and the Minister will have noted the hon. Gentleman's concern. It is less a matter for the Home Office than for the Department of Health. The hon. Gentleman's intervention was timely in drawing attention to the fact that the Bill depends on the smooth working of the provisions of the 1983 Act.

The hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow raises important points, not all of which relate directly to the Home Office. However, I shall undertake to see that my colleagues in the relevant Departments—the Scottish Office and the Department of Health—read what he said and are aware of his concern.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving that undertaking and I know that the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow will be, too.

I shall not refer directly to the measure, but rely on my memory of it. In the Bill we have created a framework whereby, at a trial of fact, the person who is unfit to plead will be represented and there will be a guardian ad litem arrangement which seeks to ensure that the accused's interests are properly protected.

I rise for only a few moments to congratulate the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway). His Bill, like the previous one on the subject, has all-party support and, as he said, support from a variety of organisations that want justice to be done and do not want people to be subject to distress due to a situation over which they have no control.

Some of the legislation being amended is 150 years old. It sometimes takes the House a long time to catch up with developments that have taken place. We are also amending legislation that was enacted about 15 years ago, but some of it goes back further, as we are all aware. The assurances given by the Minister that the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) will be looked into mean that the Bill will be made to apply and work.

I add the Opposition's congratulations to the hon. Member for Ryedale on not shying away from a difficult subject that is fraught with enormous complexities which many people would want to avoid.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Sir. J. Wheeler) on his enterprise in bringing forward the Bill and the good judgment that he displayed in securing its speedy passage through Committee to Third Reading today. It is a considerable achievement and all who are concerned to see football in this country rid of the offensive and violent behaviour that has too often disfigured it in recent years will welcome the measures contained in the Bill.

In Committee, hon. Members asked me to look again at a number of issues. I hope that the House will bear with me if I seek to reassure those hon. Members that it is right for the Bill to be left in the form in which it left Committee and in which it is now.

I have given further consideration to the point raised about the condition in clause 1 restricting the offences to a period of two hours before kick-off, or the advertised time, whichever is earlier. Some hon. Members questioned whether two hours was long enough. The Government believe that the provision of pre-match entertainment to encourage supporters to turn up early, which I think lay behind the worry, is a good initiative, which we support. However, even at the largest fixtures, it is unlikely that a significant number of supporters will arrive more than two hours before kick off. A two-hour period is used in part IV of the Public Order Act 1986 and I am not aware that it has proved inadequate. I believe that the amendment that we made in Committee will prove wise and sufficient.

I have thought with the greatest care about the points made in Committee about the formulation of clause 3. However, I remain of the view that the wording that we now have is right. I will briefly explain the policy considerations and practicalities that have influenced me in reaching that conclusion.

Clause 3, as amended in Committee, creates a new offence of taking part in chanting of an "indecent or racialist nature." Any spectator at a football match who repeatedly utters any words or sounds of an indecent or racialist nature, in concert with one or more others, is guilty of an offence.

Lord Justice Taylor considered that the provisions of the Public Order Act would not always cover such objectionable behaviour. Under section 4, chanting or a single shout would be an offence if another person feared that immediate unlawful violence would be used against him or that the chanting would provoke violence. Under section 5, the chanting must be likely to cause "harassment, alarm or distress" to a victim—I stress, to an identifiable victim. Lord Justice Taylor considered that racialist chanting at a football match should be an offence without the need for an identifiable victim, and I agree.

We needed to think clearly about the context in which the proposed offence would be committed. At a designated football match, attended probably by thousands of people, the crowd may sing, shout, groan, gasp or sound like the House of Commons on a particularly good evening, in an atmosphere of considerable tension and excitment—again, like the House on occasions that we can all remember. The volume of collective sounds will be considerable. In that noisy and volatile atmosphere, racialist or indecent chanting is not only socially objectionable but becomes, potentially at least, a risk to public order.

Against that background, it would be a mistake to criminalise a single racialist or indecent remark that might not be widely audible in the ground; to do so would set the threshold for criminal behaviour too low. We wish to prevent group chanting, which is repeated and loud and may spark trouble, and if it occurs, to prosecute and punish the offenders.

There are other practical considerations. Some hon. Members questioned the ability of the police to identify and remove those committing the proposed offence. The police do not foresee too much difficulty. Police inside a ground will generally be able to identify those who are chanting repeatedly. Some officers may be directed to the offenders, and in particular to their ringleaders, by their colleagues operating closed-circuit television. An officer may then be in a position to hear the words or sounds uttered by offenders, but securely identifying a person uttering a single shout would be much more difficult. The police will decide whether offenders should be arrested, either during the game or at a later stage.

Evidence from closed-circuit television will play an important part in identifying offenders and securing their conviction for offences in the Bill. I hope, therefore, that the House will accept that there are persuasive reasons of policy and enforceability for preferring the formulation adopted in Committee.

Clause 3 is designed to deal with group chanting of indecent and racialist matter, which presents the public order and social problem. The Bill sets that offence at a lower threshold than current law. Such conduct should be an offence only when it is made especially objectionable by being carried out in concert with others.

Some members of the Committee asked about the removal of perimeter fencing. Lord Justice Taylor recommended that, for the safety of spectators, fences should be lowered and spikes and overhanging projections removed. He considered that if fences were lowered, it would be prudent to have a criminal sanction against running on to the pitch. I agree, although it is beyond the scope of our discussions on the Bill to consider whether the perimeter fences should be lowered or even removed. That is a matter for the local authorities issuing the safety certificates. The Football Licensing Authority will be working closely with the clubs, the police and the local authorities to ensure that adequate provision is available for spectators to escape on to the pitch in an emergency.

The Bill embodies the three recommendations made by Lord Justice Taylor in his report following the tragic events at Hillsborough by making it an offence to throw anything at or towards the players or spectators, to take part in racialist or indecent chanting or to go on to the playing area "without good reason". That latter qualification will ensure that, if there is an emergency and the pitch is a necessary way of escape, no offence will be committed.

This is a welcome and necessary Bill. I commend it wholeheartedly to the House and express my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North for his initiative in bringing it before us.

I am glad to welcome the comments of my hon. Friend the Minister and to confirm that the Bill has been considered in great detail by the Standing Committee and has received the wholehearted support of all that Committee's members, who also agreed with the Government's improvements and amendments.

Those of us who serve on the Select Committee on Home Affairs are especially grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for his courtesy, his interest in the progress of the Bill and his support for it. His comments were welcome indeed, and I add my support to what he said.

In Committee, we had a useful debate on clause 1. The Bill sets a time limit of two hours before the start of a match. In that regard, my hon. Friend's reference to the Public Order Act 1986 is entirely appropriate. It is a perfectly fair and reasonable prescription with which I know that those who take an interest in the game of football agree.

The Bill goes on to deal with the objectionable practice of racialist chanting, and chanting of a threatening nature. My hon. Friend the Minister explained carefully why the Committee felt able to agree amendments requiring the offence to be proved where one or more persons are engaged in the action. I am satisfied that the police will have adequate powers to deal with incidents that cause great offence and that the Bill will be extremely useful to the game of football.

The Committee agreed to one other amendment, omitting the reference to Scotland. When it first considered the subject, the Home Affairs Committee felt it proper that Scotland should have the opportunity to enjoy the protection of the creation of offences under the Bill. However, the Committee and others concerned with the game of football fully agree that the law in Scotland is adequate and that the Scottish police have no particular difficulty. I am glad to assure the House, therefore, that the removal of the reference to Scotland is entirely satisfactory from every point of view.

My hon. Friend will know that when the Select Committee investigated the policing of football hooliganism, its members went to a number of fixtures. Our junior Clerk and I went to the Skol cup final at Hampden Park in Glasgow and witnessed the entire police operation with the chief constable. The chief constable told me that he was anxious that we should not, in the course of our deliberations—from which this Bill follows—do anything to impede or impair the flexibility that the police in Scotland enjoy when policing football. Scottish common law is very different from ours. There are clearly occasions when the law in England, Wales and Scotland should run in parallel, but in this case Scottish law is superior to the law of England and Wales. The police in Scotland appear to have done a tremendous job of ridding Scottish football of much of the hooliganism that was, until five or six years ago, associated with the game there.

I am grateful for my hon. Friend's comments and his agreement to omitting reference to Scotland from the Bill. My hon. Friend was burdened by the Committee with the duty of attending a game of football in Glasgow to witness the effectiveness of the policing operation—

On a Sunday.

Such is the measure of my hon. Friend's devotion to the inquiry on which the Committee had embarked. He is right to say that the Strathclyde police have worked out a formula for the policing of football. That formula, in association with the common law of Scotland and other legislation, has provided them with a highly effective method of policing. I have no wish to see those arrangements disturbed by the Bill and we are delighted to agree to the omission of Scotland from it.

Football has gone through a difficult period in recent years. The Committee's report on policing football hooliganism, which was well received by all with an interest in the game, will help to deal with improving the game for players and spectators, and will also help the clubs and be in the interests of the public. The adoption of the three offences originally recommended by Lord Justice Taylor will set fair the game of football in the coming season, assuming that the Bill receives support, as I believe it will, in the other place. The future of football also depends on the establishment of the new Football Licensing Authority, which will do an important job for the game. I am glad that the authority, together with officials from the Home Office, is doing such excellent work in support of the game.

I conclude by referring to the work of the national football intelligence unit. During the Committee's inquiry, we formed the view that it is an organisation of great merit, containing especially dedicated police officers. The offences created under the Bill will be especially useful to the police, and the unit will be able to ensure that the police are possessed of all the information that they need to manage the game of football. The Bill leaves the House for the other place with the ringing endorsement of all those who have an interest in the game, and in the belief that it will contribute to the future of that important sport. I am glad that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd), has been able to lend his support and prestige to it.

I am glad that the Bill has reached this advanced stage so soon after publication of the report by the Select Committee on Home Affairs into the policing of football hooliganism. Today's debate brings to an end a period of three or four years during which Parliament has tried to wrestle with the problem of football hooliganism.

I was not in favour of the proposal in the Football Spectators Bill for an identity scheme. We have had many debates about the best way to deal with football hooliganism and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler) said, that Bill contained an extremely important proposal for the establishment of the Football Licensing Authority. My Bill and that authority will form a pincer movement for the better policing of football and for the greater safety of spectators.

The horrific tragedy at Hillsborough two years ago showed that better policing and the safety of spectators cannot be considered separately. From the time that I watched on television the events at Sheffield that Saturday afternoon, I have been convinced that the erection of fences to stop people running on to the pitch was the ultimate cause of the tragedy. There was no means of lawful escape from the ground. The erection of fences, a measure designed to deal with the problem of hooliganism, gave rise to a far worse problem and caused the deaths of 95 people. Folk will say that there were other causes and contributory factors, and that is true, but if the fences had not been there people would have had a chance to escape.

Does my hon. Friend agree that we should commend the greater resources that have been made available to the game following publication of the Taylor report? Those resources will enable clubs to bring their grounds and amenities up to date and provide for the greater safety of spectators.

I entirely agree. Perhaps I should remind the House of my interest as president of York City football club. The measures in last year's Finance Act, introduced by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister when he was Chancellor, were warmly welcomed throughout football. They are another feature of the change in atmosphere to be perceived in the world of football and its relationship to the House. The Bill is part of that change.

The help provided by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department in guiding the Bill through Committee and on to the statute book must not be underestimated. I know that he agrees that the House should remind people, particularly those associated with football—spectators, those running the clubs, the Football Association and the Football League—that the measure has not been introduced to enable the police to arrest more young people on a Saturday afternoon and lock them up. We are introducing it because we want to prevent the sort of tragedy that occurred at Hillsborough. It is a preventive measure. People should know when they attend a football match that if they misbehave—three specific forms of misbehaviour are specified—by chanting abuse, throwing missiles or running on to the pitch, the wrath of football and of the law will come down heavily upon them. We are talking of behaviour that can lead to a considerable tragedy if it is not curtailed. It is not merely anti-social behaviour. It must be the hope of us all that the Bill will discourage such behaviour. In the long term, that will be why the measure will be recognised as a great boost for the game of football. It can help us to rid football of the hooliganism that has besmirched our national game for far too long. I greatly welcome the Bill.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

This is a conservation measure. We live in a conservation-minded age, and the Bill would have the effect of ensuring both the conservation and preservation of our water supplies. As the poet sang:

"Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my Song."

But "sweet Thames" would not run softly, let alone the song, if efforts were not being made constantly to keep the great river in order. Surprisingly few people realise the extent to which the world-famous river is used merely as a conduit to bring water from hundreds of miles away to our great capital city.

My Bill would require a person seeking planning permission for a new building to send an estimate of the annual water requirement to the area water company at the same time as submitting the application for planning permission to the planning authority. I have secured all-party support for my Bill.

There are two objectives behind the requirement. First, water supply companies should be able to plan ahead. If they have warning of planning applications, they will know what level of building activity there will be in future and how much water they will be called upon to supply. Secondly, we must try to instil a "conservation mind" into those who make applications for planning permission. If the Bill is enacted, applicants will have to contact the local water authority and open a channel of communication between themselves and the authority. In that way, the authority will be able to say, "If you arrange the water supply in this way, a way that is different from that which you are intending, you will be able to save perhaps 25 per cent. of the amount of water that it is estimated will be consumed under the original requirements."

There is a requirement in my hon. Friend's Bill for a certificate to be submitted which shows that an estimate has been made of the quantity of water that will be used. However, there is no requirement for the water authority to act in any way. The suggestion that the authority would become involved in the planning of the extension seems to be a good, but perhaps a pious, hope.

I trust that it would be both a good and a pious hope. It would open a channel of communication. If time permits, I shall read some of the responses that I have had from water authorities.

The demand for public water supplies has increased by 70 per cent. over the past 30 years. That is a significant pointer to an increasingly affluent, and effluent, society. We all tend to forget that what goes into a building must also go out. It is not only the supply of water to a premises that a water authority must bear in mind; it must also treat the used water that comes out the other end.

Will my hon. Friend clarify one point? He referred to water authorities, but I was under the impression that since privatisation there are only water companies. There is only one authority—the National Rivers Authority. It may have been a slip of the tongue, but if there is indeed some other water authority, I hope that my hon. Friend will tell me.

I can set my hon. Friend's mind at rest; I meant water plcs. I should have said plc, especially as it has one less syllable than authority, and time is short.

We should ask ourselves about the uses of water. We take it for granted that when we turn on the tap, water will come from it. We use water for washing cars, watering the garden and washing clothes. Some people even drink it. It is used in various domestic facilities—for example, every time that we use the lavatory it takes two gallons of water to flush it. A bath takes 18 gallons; a washing machine cycle takes 25 gallons; and a hosepipe or sprinkler can use 220 gallons an hour. In manufacturing industry, it takes one gallon of water to produce a pint of beer. I hope that no one asks me how that comes about; it is a figure that I have been given. It takes 1,000 gallons of water to produce one tonne of steel, and it takes 6,600 gallons to manufacture one motor car. In the Thames Water area alone, 600 million gallons of water are used every day. That is equivalent to the total volume of the Albert hall being emptied and refilled every 75 minutes. That gives us some idea of how much water is being used.

Thames Water is considering building a new reservoir in Oxfordshire to supply the rapidly expanding towns in the Thames valley, such as Witney and Swindon, and to ensure supplies of water to London. The idea is to send water down the Thames to London, where it will be stored in reservoirs. That is all part of a continuing effort, going back many years. I remember my days as a land agent, in the early 1970s, when I helped to look after a farm on the chalk in Oxfordshire. In those days, Thames Water had what was known as its ground water scheme, where bores were drilled in the chalk and ground water was pumped out and sent down the Thames to arrive, eventually, in London.

The Bill states that anyone seeking planning permission for a new building has to send an estimate of the annual water requirement to the water plc. If the House gives the Bill a Second Reading, I would seek to table amendments in Committee to state that that would not be a requirement for a single building. It would have to be a requirement for developments of a minimum size, perhaps 10 houses or flats, a factory of 5,000 sq ft. or an office building of perhaps 10,000 sq ft. Obviously it would be absurd if every time someone wanted to build on a conservatory or a bathroom, he had to send details to the water plc as it would certainly swamp it in paper.

I mentioned to my hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Arbuthnot) that I would quote comments by various water plcs and here we go. South West Water says:

"There is no doubt of the importance of making our customers aware of the cost and value of the water required to support their proposals, and any advance information which can be provided to the water companies is extremely useful for planning purposes."

North West Water stated:

"It is helpful for customers and potential customers to be more aware of their requirements for water and, of course, we are always keen to know as soon as possible of potential new demand for our services."

Severn Trent Water stated:

"It is a very good idea"—

I hope that my hon. Friend is listening—

"and should be extended not only to the erection of a building, but to any change or alteration in any building that requires planning permission."

I am certainly listening to my hon. Friend; I am merely disagreeing with him. For example, how is anyone who builds a new factory unit to know who will occupy it? If it is occupied by a paper-making industry, it will use an incredible amount of water as opposed to some other industries. One has no idea what sort of tenant will occupy the new building. Will these estimates be of any use and will they have any meaning at all?

When most people build a factory they know perfectly well what use it will be put to. As I said, channels of communication will already have been opened between the developer and the water plc and I hope that they will both make use of it.

Southern Water stated:

"It would be of assistance if your proposals could be extended so that notification is given also to the sewerage undertaker."

Welsh Water said:

"We have long felt that any planning applications should be formally referred to ourselves for all the obvious reasons."

Northumbria Water stated:

"Consultation with water undertakers has become more tenuous as we are no longer statutory consultees under the Town and Country Planning legislation."

One of the main reasons why I have introduced the Bill is that there are many rivers throughout the country which are in danger of drying up altogether, due to use and abstraction. I make no apology for it, but I shall read out the names of those rivers. In the Anglian region; they are the River Hiz, the Hoffer brook, the River Slea, the Redgrave and Lopham fen site of special scientific interest, the River Glen, the East Rushton SSSI, the river Mun, the River Deben, and Hollesley-Black ditch.

In the north-west area, there is the River Lowther. In Severn-Trent, there are Dover beck, the River Worfe, Battlesfield brook, Rufford lake, Leomansley brook and Black brook (Tamworth).

In the Southern area, there are the River Darent, Wallop brook, the River Little Stour, the River Nailbourne, St. Mary Bourne, the River Meon, and River Hamble.

In the Welsh area there are the Frome, the Garren, the Gamber, the Monnow, the Alun, the Afon Clywedog, and Cefni reservoir.

In the Thames area there are the Misbourne, the Pang, the Ver, the Wey, Letcombe brook, the Upper Kennet, the Thames Head, the Ampney, the Churn, the Coln and the Windrush.

In Yorkshire, there are the Derwent and the Wharfe, and in Wessex the River Piddle, the Allen and the Wey. All those rivers are in danger of drying up.

As I said at the outset, my Bill is a conservation measure, and I hope for the sake of the rivers that I have mentioned that the House will give it a Second Reading.

My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Summerson) is to be congratulated on presenting the Bill, and also on being the nicest of men—as I had the honour to be able to say in his constituency as recently as Wednesday. As we have already heard, he is also the most romantic of men: I felt that the opening lines of the poem with which he began his speech set it in context in an excellent fashion.

None the less, I have some reservations about the Bill —about its enforceability, for example. My hon. Friend suggests that we should all put in estimates of how much water we use. I have no idea—

Object.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I had not even moved the Second Reading. Surely I should be allowed to do so before anyone can object.

Object.

Object.

Objection taken. Second Reading what day?

With the agreement of the Member in charge of the Bill, Friday 26 April.

Object

Objection taken. Second Reading what day?

With the agreement of the Member in charge of the Bill, Friday 26 April.

Object.

Object.

Objection taken. Second Reading what day?

With the agreement of the Member in charge of the Bill, Friday 26 April.

Object.

Object.

Second Reading what day? No day named.

Object.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Am I right in thinking that it was the hon. Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Baker) who objected to all but two of those Bills—including my Elimination of Poverty in Retirement Bill? If so, can Hansard record it, so that the people will know who is objecting?

The identity of hon. Members who object to Bills is not recorded.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Surely it was out of order for an objection to be taken before I had moved the Second Reading of my Hare Coursing Bill. As a result, it was impossible to tell who had objected. If it was the Government Whip, that is significant: many animal lovers who want an end to hare coursing would be annoyed if the Government were responsible for the objection, and will take that into account.

The procedure was perfectly in order. Objections can be taken at any point immediately after the title of a Bill has been read out.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I must plead guilty to making a fundamental mistake in objecting to the Smoke Detectors Bill. I understand that the Bill to which I objected is entirely different from its predecessor and I wish to withdraw my objection if that is possible.

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman cannot do that. At least he has been able to record the fact that he made an error; the objection must stand, however.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Order. I have already dealt with the hon. Gentleman's point. He will take time away from the Adjournment debate.

Before I begin, I welcome in particular the presence here of the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martyn Smyth), who, like me, is a prominent member of the all-party plumbing registration group, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Thorne), who is here to support what I have to say, and also my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims). In particular, I welcome the fact that the Under-Secretary of State is here. I look forward to his response to several of the points that I intend to make. I hope that at the end of the debate the country at large will be much better informed about the state of plumbing in the United Kingdom.

Ten years have elapsed since I drew the attention of the House to the standard of plumbing in the United Kingdom. Hansard of 10 April 1981 detailed my concerns at the time and the Government's response. I have initiated this debate as the chairman of the all-party plumbing registration group, since members of the group —and many others—continue to be concerned about standards and the inadequacy of controls in order to maintain health and safety.

Immediately following the 1981 debate, at the Government's invitation, discussions and corespondence took place about the three issues that I raised at the time—first, the lack of training in the plumbing industry; secondly, the ineffectiveness of the regulations and byelaws covering plumbing work; and, thirdly, the lack of regulation of those undertaking plumbing work.

I do not intend to dwell on the first issue—the lack of training—save to say that there is no evidence to suggest that more training is being undertaken today than 10 years ago. While competent and responsible plumbers face intense and unfair competition from so-called cowboys, there is little incentive to train. I earnestly hope that the changes to plumbing training currently in hand, which will be linked to national vocational qualifications, will lead to an improvement. I certainly welcome the new tax relief on the fees paid by individuals training towards such qualifications which was announced in the recent Budget statement. As a nation, we need to create an adequate pool of craftspeople with both practical and theoretical skills in plumbing, using the well-established vocational training facilities available.

The main concern that I share with colleagues in the plumbing registration group is the lack of enforcement of statutory regulations and byelaws covering plumbing. Correspondence with Ministers and the debate on the Water Bill in the other place on 8 May 1989 reveal that the Government consider that health and safety standards for plumbing are adequately dealt with through building regulations and water byelaws. My colleagues and I dispute that. The technical requirements are meaningless without proper enforcement.

Building regulations covering sanitary plumbing, unvented hot water systems and drainage are enforced by local authority building control officers. Contraventions undoubtedly take place which are not detected because building control officers do not know what work is going on and where. Although new buildings may be subject to inspection, work on existing properties goes largely unreported and unseen.

The effects of faulty sanitary plumbing are not only unpleasant but can adversely affect health. I am sure that most of us have heard the familiar gurgles emanating from the waste plumbing systems when staying overnight in hotels, or even in our own homes. These are usually due to water in the U-bends of the trap seals being sucked out. That causes soil pipe gases to enter buildings. The problem is faulty workmanship. The results are headaches, nausea and general poor health. A visit to the doctor may result in the diagnosis of a bug going round and the prescription of unnecessary, ineffective and expensive drugs. One old age pensioner in London's east end felt so unwell that her doctor prescribed antibiotics. When a registered plumber inspected the sanitary plumbing he found no trap seal at all. She had been breathing in foul air. When the plumbing was rectified the old lady made an instant recovery. Many others have suffered in the same way. The Building Research Establishment is certainly aware of the effects of faulty sanitary plumbing, but I understand that the Government currently have no statistical evidence of its overall impact on the nation's health.

Incorrectly installed hot water systems can also pose considerable safety hazards, including risks of explosion and scalding. Again, I understand that the Building Research Establishment has accumulated evidence of incidents at home and abroad in recent years showing the catastrophic effects of such explosions, which are akin to the results of a missile attack. The safety of hot water systems could be better dealt with in regulations made under the Water Act 1989. I should welcome a reaction from my hon. Friend the Minister to that suggestion because inspection of such systems is currently divided between water byelaw inspectors and building control officers. Water contamination and explosions could result through confusion about enforcement.

I believe that the Department of the Environment is proposing to introduce amendments to the building regulations which would require unvented hot water systems to be installed only by competent persons, who would be required to give notice to building control officers but not to water byelaw inspectors. I warn the Minister now that notification will be very limited. I am informed that less than 10 per cent. of systems installed to date have been notified to local authorities, so it will be reassuring if the Minister will not only publicise the statutory requirement to give notice but encourage local authorities to prosecute cases coming to light in which installers have failed to give such notice. Unless building regulations are properly enforced, there is little point in having them.

That also applies to water byelaws made under section 17 of the Water Act 1945 by water undertakers in England and Wales. Those undertakers have a duty to enforce their byelaws. Inspection on most new property may be carried out because the work comes to the attention of the water undertakers, but there continues to be a gap in the enforcement of byelaws in existing buildings. I first raised that issue in 1981 and the Government acknowledged the difficulties. Since then, new water byelaws have been introduced following widespread consultation. Similar provisions also apply in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Water byelaws are intended to assist water undertakers to maintain adequate supplies of wholesome water, and failure to do so may be a criminal offence under the 1989 Water Act.

I understand that the water industry is reviewing the future of water byelaws, including their enforcement. That is timely, because it is as well to remind the House what water plumbing may do. It may pose risks to health as a consequence of contamination from backflow or back siphonage of foul or dirty water, the contamination of drinking water systems, and the use of inferior material in plumbing systems. Plumbing may also waste water through the installation of substandard or inefficient appliances and fittings.

Water byelaws dealing with those matters pose considerable responsibilities for the water industry, with potentially serious implications for the health of their consumers if the requirements are not adequately enforced. The United Kingdom water industry now has the added responsibility of conforming to the European Community construction products directive and drinking water quality directive and the subsequent regulations. Water byelaw enforcement is therefore of even more significance.

I understand that the last known formal study into byelaw enforcement was commissioned by the Department of the Environment in the late 1960s. The results published in 1971 were appalling. They revealed that 61 per cent. of the 1,300 installations surveyed contravened the water byelaw requirements specifically relating to back siphonage. Professional plumbers are cynically aware that the situation has not improved. Indeed, it is likely that matters have worsened, for infringements are seen every day.

We now have further evidence. The South Staffordshire water company decided six years ago to intensify its programme of industrial and commercial inspections. The company has so far inspected about 90 per cent. of all industrial and commercial properties within its area at least once. Those inspections have revealed a staggering 48,000 byelaw infringements, of which 25 to 30 per cent. involve potentially serious water contamination risks. They included direct contact between mains water supplies and cyanide, arsenic, chemicals, acids, canal water, mortuary post-mortem rooms and sewers. In one case, snails and legionnaire's disease bacteria were found in cold water storage systems supplying the operating theatre of a hospital. In another instance, the mains water supplies of a funeral parlour was insufficiently protected against backflow contamination which could occur while chemicals were being used during the embalming process. In a third case, 99 byelaw infringements were found in one industrial plant; 24 of them were submerged mains water inlets connected to vats of phosphoric acid. The fourth and final example involved a junior and infants schools where inadequately covered cold water storage systems supplied wash basins in the toilet area where childen obtained water for drinking.

If time allowed, I could give many more examples. Almost every imaginable risk has been discovered at some time. Fortunately, due to that water company's diligence all but the very minor infringements found have now been rectified and a rolling programme of re-inspection is being carried out. In one case, it cost £100,000 to put the plumbing installation in good order.

Such monstrosities cannot be exclusive to the South Staffordshire water company. The number of infringements unearthed could well show the extent of the problem in other parts of the country. If so, that disposes of the belief that plumbing standards are adequately dealt with by water byelaws alone. Who installed such potentially lethal plumbing systems? Obviously it was incompetent, so-called plumbers who neither knew nor cared about correct installation or compliance with water byelaws.

It would be helpful if the Minister could reassure the House and the parliamentary plumbing registration group to the contrary. With that in mind, perhaps he will inform the House of the annual average number of water byelaw inspections carried out by water undertakers on new domestic and non-domestic supplies and on extensions and alterations to such supplies and of estimates for the value of such work. In addition, is he aware of a system for the reporting and publication of information on either backflow contamination incidents or the health problems associated with water quality inside buildings? In that context, it would also be helpful to know the number of prosecutions brought by each water undertaker for infringements of water byelaws during the past 10 years and the number of convictions obtained.

The information, that I hope that the Minister may be able to provide will help the House to appreciate the extent of water byelaw enforcement. If, by chance, the Minister is unable to supply some of those details, I strongly suggest that the Government promote another in-depth investigation. The House and the public need reassurance that health and safety standards are not being compromised by inadequate enforcement or even by the commercial priorities of the water industry.

The final issue with which I wish to deal is the regulation of those who undertake plumbing work for gain. I make no excuse for raising it again because a successful resolution of the issue would raise standards and be of considerable benefit to the public as well as to those who are responsible for the enforcement of statutory requirements.

Unlike the position in many other countries—including some member states of the European Community—anyone in the United Kingdom can undertake plumbing work for gain, call himself a plumber or set up in business as a plumbing contractor and advertise as such. Successive Governments have believed that voluntary self-regulation was the best means of improving standards. The 105-year-old register of plumbers maintained by the Institute of Plumbing—which is based in my constituency—is cited by Ministers as the most effective way of achieving public recognition of a reputable plumber.

As an honorary fellow of the institute, I know that public acknowledgement of its work is appreciated. However, voluntary self-regulation applies only to plumbers registered with the institute. They need not be registered and, indeed, some currently plying their trade have been removed from the institute's register for failure to meet the conditions of voluntary registration. It is also difficult for registered plumbers to continue to maintain standards by, for example, conforming to water byelaws when they face unfair competition from incompetent and irresponsible cowboy operators who are either ignorant of

or indifferent to water byelaw requirements. Self-regulation is effective only when it carries some meaningful sanction.

The Dutch and German practice where, by law, licensed plumbers are required to use approved water fittings installed in accordance with approved codes of practice is a good example. Eventually, our full integration into the European Community will result in European standards for the most common plumbing fittings and a European code of practice for installations. I am confident that our Dutch and German colleagues will wish to retain their superior practice which, unless the Government modify their stance, will place the British plumbing industry, its manufacturers and its installers at a considerable disadvantage.

There is no room for complacency. Plumbing needs to be put on a similar footing to gas installation work. I speak 20 days after the introduction of the statutory registration of gas installation businesses. Members of the parliamentary plumbing registration group applaud the Government's stance on the regulation of those who undertake gas work for gain. Gas is a hazardous substance and should be adequately controlled to protect lives and property. Official statistics of deaths and injuries from faulty gas works have proved the need for statutory regulation. The effects of faulty plumbing work are not so obvious, but that is no excuse for inaction. There are 23 million buildings connected to mains water, supplying 60 million inhabitants and protection from sub-standard plumbing work is no less important. Compulsory registration, perhaps based on protection of title, would be of great assistance to the regulatory authorities, would be enthusiastically received by competent and responsible plumbers and is vital to the health of the general public.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire) on his perseverance. As he said, it is 10 years since he first raised the subject in the House. My hon. Friend, who is an expert on housing issues, feels strongly about regulation of the plumbing industry. I am glad that he has been supported by my hon. Friends the Members for Ilford, South (Mr. Thorne) and for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) and by the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth).

I agree that this subject deserves serious consideration by the House. It is much to the credit of my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch that his unstinting efforts on behalf of the Institute of Plumbing have kept this issue alive in parliamentary circles over the past 10 years. My hon. Friend again spoke eloquently today in support of his arguments for improved standards and tighter regulation.

Standards of plumbing are a subject close to the heart of any civilised person. I am sure that we have all complained from time to time, perhaps particularly when travelling abroad, when there are not only gurgles but perhaps smells which show a lower standard of plumbing than we would regard as satisfactory at home.

We in the United Kingdom rightly demand a high standard. One of the few things that might be guaranteed to gain immediate cross-party agreement would be a failure in the plumbing in the Palace of Westminster. I am sure that all hon. Members would take much comfort from the presence among us, in the form of my hon. Friend the

Member for Hornchurch, of a fellow of the Institute of Plumbing. I have no doubt that he would rush to our assistance. We rely on the plumber. Rather like the dentist, we would prefer not to have to see him too often, but we are pleased that he is there when we need him.

As the plumber occupies such a position, it is distressing when the so-called cowboys of the industry try to exploit it. Not only does the consumer lose out in poor quality work, but the vast majority of reputable plumbers suffer from the backlash of public opinion based on the performance of a disreputable minority.

In recent years, we have confronted the problem of the cowboy builder. The House will recall that, at the Government's instigation, a working party was set up in 1987 to look into the problems associated with the activities of unqualified and unprofessional building contractors. The chief executive of the Institute of Plumbing was a member of the working party. Significantly, although the working party recommended that further consideration should be given to the statutory registration of building trades, it did not go so far as to endorse or recommend such schemes.

In welcoming the report of the working party, my hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment and Countryside made it clear that the Government were looking to the building trade and consumer groups to develop an assessment and approval mechanism for builders' guarantee schemes, which would promote the reputable builder. As a result, the Office of Fair Trading provided a forum for the industry and consumer groups to develop that approach. That work is being carried forward in close consultation with the industry and I understand that it is being consulted on the second draft of the fair deal contract.

I must, however, emphasise that the Government's view on regulation of the industry, including the compulsory registration of trades, has not changed. We believe that any form of statutory registration places an unnecessary burden on industry which will tend to hit hardest those least able to cope—small businesses—and may be bureaucratic and create a barrier to competition.

I appreciate the tribute that the Minister paid to the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire) about his honourary membership of the Institute of Plumbing. If something went wrong with the plumbing in the Palace of Westminster, would the Minister turn to the hon. Member for Hornchurch or to my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Forsythe), who is a master plumber?

Armed with that additional information, I have no doubt that it will relieve my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch if I give an unqualified assurance that, should the hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Forsythe) be available, we shall look to him.

Those responsible for maintaining the Palace of Westminster—I hope that I am not making a claim that cannot be sustained—take great care to select reputable, qualified and well-trained plumbers to undertake any necessary work.

The circumstances in which the Government believe that statutory registration is justified are when health and safety considerations are of overwhelming importance. The Gas Safety (Installation and Use) (Amendment) Regulations, which came into effect last month, provide for a statutory registration scheme for gas installers. In that case, the Government considered that exceptional reasons justified the introduction of such a scheme.

Clearly, the installation of gas is potentially extremely dangerous. Evidence shows that a disproportionate number of gas accidents were attributable to the work of gas installers who were not registered with the voluntary scheme run by the Confederation for the Registration of Gas Installers. No such equivalent evidence is available for the plumbing industry.

We believe that health and safety standards are adequately controlled through the building regulations and water byelaws. My Department recently consulted on proposals to amend the regulations relating to unvented hot water systems. One proposal would require such systems to be installed by competent persons who have undergone appropriate training. The proposal was considered necessary because of the potential for explosions if the systems, in particular the safety devices, are installed incorrectly. Those systems are still relatively new to the United Kingdom.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch made a specific point on the notification of unvented hot water systems under the water byelaws. The legislation does not require their installation to be notified and, therefore, it would not be appropriate to include guidance on this matter under the building regulations.

My hon. Friend is correct that, in the past, the number of unvented system notifications made under the building regulations has been disappointing. My Department is considering ways of promoting a greater awareness of the need to notify the building control authorities of installation of those systems. We shall shortly publish a free booklet on the building control system in England and Wales drawing attention to that. The manufacturers of these systems also have a role to play and we shall encourage them to include information on notification in their packaging.

For many years, the Building Research Establishment has carried out research into improving the performance of plumbing systems. Its research has provided a major input into both the development of the building regulations and British standards.

Protection of public health has long been ensured by the water byelaws which control the fittings and installations on customers' premises up to the point where water is drawn off. All water companies have made new byelaws based on a model prepared by my Department in 1986. The latest byelaws incorporated further measures to safeguard public health and safety. They took into account recommendations in the report of the Committee on Backsiphonage in Water Installations. Those were intended to prevent the contamination of water and to protect water from backflow and backsiphonage in mains and all types of connected water services. They also included more stringent requirements for cold water storage cisterns and WC flushing apparatus.

Generally, plumbing work in new premises and major extensions is carried out by building contractors or specialist plumbing firms. For the most part, such work is done by competent plumbers, many of whom may be registered with the Institute of Plumbing, which produces work that conforms with the byelaws. Indeed, many water companies recognise the competence of certain installers and accept certificates as evidence of compliance with byelaws.

I accept, however, that the large amount of renovation, alteration and maintenance of domestic water supply installations can create problems, because much of this work is carried out by householders themselves or by non-specialist people with little or no knowledge of the byelaws.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch quoted the large number of byelaw infringements discovered through a comprehensive survey of properties in the area of the South Staffordshire water company. He suggests that it is representative of the problem in other parts of the country. Water companies are under a duty to provide an adequate and wholesome supply of water. If a company fails to meet the statutory requirements, the drinking water inspectorate may take enforcement action. The serious infringements in the South Staffordshire area occurred mainly in industrial and commercial premises. The risk of water contamination and backsiphonage, particularly from industrial processes, is clearly higher in those premises, and water companies should therefore be particularly vigilant about carrying out inspections of those premises.

One matter of special concern to my hon. Friend is training.

We seem to be concentrating on the supply of water to premises, but plumbers also deal with the disposal of water after it has been used. The largest park in my constituency, Valentine's park contains Valentine's mansion, from which a cutting was given to Hampton court for its vine. The park has a large, impressive lake. When I was a child I used to be able to paddle in the stream that fed that lake. That stream has now been cut off from the public and fenced round because too many false connections have been made to the surface water drainage system, which now takes foul water into the lake. That is totally unacceptable. Is my hon. Friend the Minister certain that the Government attach enough importance to ensuring that only qualified people have the right to connect up to both the water supply and water disposal systems?

My hon. Friend raises an important matter, but I hope that the general thrust of my remarks will assure him that the Government attach sufficient importance to the need for well-qualified and well-trained plumbers to carry out those important tasks.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch will be interested to know that over the past three years some 1,500 water industry employees have undergone one-week training courses; 150 plumbing teachers from technical colleges have also been given training on water byelaws and 1,000 employees from the public and private sector have attended overview courses.

My hon. Friend asked about the number of byelaw inspections, the incidence of backflow contamination, health problems associated with water quality in buildings and byelaw enforcement. I am sorry to say that such information is not available centrally and cannot be provided in a form that relates solely to water byelaws. He also mentioned that the water industry is reviewing the future of water byelaws. My Department provides an observer to the committee that has been established for

that purpose. The Government will be interested in the committee's findings and conclusions. However, until they are available, it would be inappropriate for the Government to promote an investigation.

My hon. Friend mentioned the implications of European Community legislation. The Water Act 1989 made provision for water byelaws to be replaced in due course by national regulations. Those arrangements are having to be reviewed in the light of developments in the EC. One vital function of the present United Kingdom water byelaws is to prevent waste and undue consumption of water. The importance of conserving our supplies has been emphasised by our recent experiences of successive years of drought. I hope that that matter will be given its proper weight in Community legislation. The European committee for standardisation covers not only the European Community but the European Free Trade Area as well. The successful harmonisation of product standards across 18 diverse states is difficult.

It has been contended that the lack of a statutory registration scheme in this country places United Kingdom plumbers at a disadvantage when seeking work in other European Community countries. I do not agree. I am in favour of measures to bring down the bureaucratic barriers to the movement of labour throughout the European Community. It would be inappropriate for the United Kingdom to erect barriers of our own.

Of course, I would not argue with my hon. Friend that plumbing work should be carried out by competent plumbers with the necessary qualifications and that the public should be able to identify those plumbers easily. As I mentioned, the Office of Fair Trading is working closely with the industry to improve such recognition.

Self-regulation by the industry is the key. The Institute of Plumbing has maintained a voluntary register of plumbers since 1886, which I commend. The 11,000 plumbers on the register today must be appropriately qualified and undertake, at all times, to uphold the dignity and reputation of the craft of plumbing and safeguard the public interest in matters of health and safety.

I believe that the best route to higher standards is through the marketplace. I want a consumer-driven process, under which well-informed customers demand well-qualified plumbers to carry out good-quality work for everyone's benefit, so that the customer has a choice. If the consumer is not prepared to pay a little extra for some assurance of quality and standards, no amount of regulation imposed by the Government will force him or her to do so. Additional regulation measures would face some of the enforcement problems to which my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch referred. I am convinced that the industry would not gain further freedom of movement in the EC by introducing statutory registration in the United Kingdom. The Government and the water industry are ensuring the continued protection of public health and safety through the water byelaws and building regulations. It is far better that we should do so in a free and open market.