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

I wish to thank the co-sponsors of the Bill, for without their support its passage to Second Reading would have been immeasurably more difficult.

I also wish to record the support of two friends of the House whose loss we have had to bear in recent weeks. I know that, like me, Members on both sides of the House regret their absence. Jo Richardson, the late Member of Parliament for Barking, in spite of being so ill, wrote to me on 24 January saying that she would certainly vote with me today, but would have to be nodded through the Division Lobby; and Jimmy Boyce, the late Member of Parliament for Rotherham, had pledged his support for the Bill. I hope that the House can quickly conclude the business today to allow time for many Members who are travelling to Rotherham to be in time for Jimmy's memorial service, which is being held later today.

The Bill has been brought before the House because it is an essential public health measure, one which was first recommended to the Government in 1962 by the Royal College of Physicians, when it published its first report on the health effects of smoking. Since then, both Labour and Conservative parties have occupied the Government Benches, and we still await a total ban on tobacco advertising and promotion.

Since 1962, according to the Royal College of Physicians, more than 4 million citizens of the Uniied Kingdom have died from lung cancer, heart diseases, stroke, emphysema and other diseases caused by smoking. The House now has a real chance to put to an end the promotion of the cause of those diseases.

The hon. Member mentioned the Conservative and Labour parties. Does he think that it might be helpful if there was a register of interests of the leaders of parties who smoke? I know that the leader of the Labour party does not smoke, and we know that the Prime Minister does not smoke, but I believe that the leader of the Liberal Democrats is a smoker. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that that will contribute to the debate?

The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field) should wait to see what the Bill is about before he makes such ill-informed comments. This is not a party political issue. Those who have died and who continue to die from diseases caused by smoking were or are supporters of all political parties. The children who are being recruited to smoking—500 every day on average—have parents who support all political parties. This is an issue of public health and, as such, should not divide the House.

I have had several letters from interested parties suggesting that the Bill is about banning smoking or banning freedom. The Bill is not about banning smoking. Adult smokers who are properly informed of the dangers of smoking have a right to smoke, provided that they do not cause harm to other people. However, the individual right to smoke does not extend to children, and it does not extend to the unrestricted advertising and promotion of the product.

Some 400 or 500 of my constituents are employed by Gallaghers; I have no commercial interest of my own. I do not smoke, and I have caned children for smoking because I do not believe that children should smoke—[Interruption.] Let it be noted. The hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) rightly says that people must have the freedom to choose whether to smoke. Why does he object to the argument of the Pre-School Playgroups Association, which talks of advertising freedom? It is an important freedom, and it must be wrong to dictate to advertisers. I wait to be convinced.

I am coming to that point now. If the House gives me 10 minutes in which to explain what the Bill is about, I shall be more than pleased to give way to any hon. Member who wants to ask about the intention of the Bill.

There is no fundamental right to advertise and promote products in our society. It is a commercial privilege to advertise—a privilege that carries certain responsibilities. The advertising and promotion of tobacco products is already banned on radio and television, and is further restricted by clauses in the voluntary agreement. The argument against a ban on tobacco advertising has already been conceded. It was conceded in this country in 1965 when we took cigarette advertising off television. I hope, therefore, that the House is clear what the Bill is not about.

I now come to what the Bill is about. Clause 1 makes it an offence to publish or cause to be published an advertisement for a tobacco product. The object of the Bill is to put an end to the promotion of an addictive and dangerous drug; half-measures are not enough. The definition needs to cover not only posters and press advertisements, but publicity linked to sponsorship of events and other such devices for getting round a ban. That is the fundamental aim of the Bill.

Under clause 1(2), some point of sale advertising is exempted. Point of sale advertising is allowed for specialist tobacconists, but it must not be visible from outside the shop. For the ordinary retailer, who also sells sweets and comics to children, the Bill states that only a notice of brands and their prices, complete with a health warning, is permissible.

The Bill also gives a definition of what is meant by an advertisement for a tobacco product. The wide definition in clause 1(6) covers

"any form of communication which might reasonably be considered to promote…smoking."

Subsection (7) gives guidance on how to interpret that definition. The wide definition is vital, and experience abroad shows why. One would scarely know that there was a ban on tobacco advertising in Italy, as tens of million of pounds are spent every year on television commercials and other promotions for Marlboro shirts and Camel watches.

One has to read the small print on television screens to see that one Marlboro advertisement is purportedly for racing helmets for grand prix drivers. I do not believe that Italy is a nation of grand prix drivers. Such advertisements are the means of getting round advertising bans.

Tobacco companies sponsor sports and arts events, not as an act of corporate generosity, but as an advertising opportunity. M. Whitehead from Gallagher International said

"Sports sponsorship…is a form of advertising which enables us to introduce glamour and excitement."

A Rothmans spokesman said:

"No one hands over big cheques just to give themselves a warm fuzzy feeling."

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I will give way in a minute. I want first to address some of the comments made about the Bill this week by the hon. Member for Luton, North (Mr. Carlisle).

The tobacco industry spends about £8 million a year on sponsorship. It is limited to that amount by the current voluntary agreement. That figure represents about 3 per cent. of commercial sponsorship of sport and should not be too difficult to replace. It was the Government supported by the hon. Gentleman who, in 1985, introduced the restrictions on sports advertising precisely because Gallagher International and others were using sport to promote tobacco.

The hon. Gentleman and other Opposition Members should make two points clear from the start. First, is the Bill part of Labour party policy? There seems to be some disparity of opinion between the hon. Gentleman, his hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) and his hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ms Mowlam).

The Labour party did not mention a ban on advertising in its manifesto or in its charter for sport. Are Labour Members now saying that it is party policy that sports promotion by tobacco companies will be banned under a future Labour Government?

Secondly, is the hon. Gentleman—

Order. Interventions should, by their nature, be short. That intervention is long enough.

It is interesting that the hon. Member for Luton, North seems to have become a custodian of Labour party policy. He seems to have stepped away from the position in party politics that I thought he held.

The hon. Gentleman cannot have been listening earlier, because I said that the Bill was a private Member's Bill. The only people I consulted before introducing the Bill were those concerned about public health. Whether the Bill is part of Labour party policy is not a matter for me. It is an issue of public health, and I believe that that should override all party politics in the House.

The Test and County Cricket Board has written to me recently saying that it is opposed to a ban on sports sponsorship by tobacco companies. The letter may have been prompted by a radio interview I gave a few days ago. Although the board may be opposed to a ban, it has previously said that other sponsors could be found to take the place of Benson and Hedges. Its spokesman, Peter Smith, said in an article in the Yorkshire Postin May 1971:

"We get a number of inquiries asking when a contract comes to an end. I expect we would be able to sell the Benson and Hedges again to a new sponsor."

Similarly, David Harrison, the chief executive of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association said in the same article:

"If we had to replace our tobacco sponsor, we believe we could do so".

A number of other options are clearly becoming available. Perhaps the new national lottery could provide a valuable bridge. I want hon. Members to remember that only 3 per cent. of sports sponsorship is tobacco advertising. The Bill would not prejudice sport. I have been active in sport in an amateur capacity for most of my life, and I watch one of the finest football teams in Great Britain—Rotherham United. It is a non-smoking club; that is its policy. We do not need smoking to be involved in sport.

The consequence of the wide definition of tobacco advertising, especially taken with the wide definition of the word "published" in English law, is that the Bill excludes innocent activities such as mentioning the name "Rothmans" in a conversation. That might otherwise be penalised. Clause 1(3) sets out the circumstances in which an offence will not be committed. Paragraph (a) exempts personal, unpaid endorsements of a tobacco product in conversation or letters and the like.

Paragraph (b) exempts communications that are not paid for by the tobacco industry and do not aim to promote a specific tobacco product. That covers journalism and innocent republications of tobacco advertisements in health, educational or historical contexts and the like. Sub-paragraph (c) exempts trade advertisements. Tobacco manufacturers would still be allowed to advertise to the retail trade. Sub-paragraph (d) exempts small-scale imports of foreign publications. Sub-paragraph (e) exempts materials produced in the United Kingdom for export.

In both sub-paragraphs (d) and (e), the limit is set at 5 per cent. of the total number of copies, or 1,000 copies, whichever is the lower. I recognise that that would be a point of debate if the Bill became law, and at some later stage I would be prepared to consider that issue.

Does the hon. Gentleman realise that, if his Bill becomes law, it will be a devastating blow to health education? Is he aware that 17 per cent. of the space on most posters is taken up by the Government health warning and, in many cases, the message of the other 83 per cent. of the space is so obscure that one does not even know what product is advertised? He claims that £100 million a year is spent by the tobacco companies. Therefore, it could be suggested that 17 million will be lost to health education, which is 1·7 times as much as the Health Education Authority spends on preventing the promotion of tobacco.

I shall move on to that subject, but I agree with two words of the hon. Gentleman's intervention: "so obscure".

Paragraph (4) of clause 1 recognises a difficulty that would otherwise arise from the ban of indirect advertising using tobacco names or non-tobacco goods. As far as I see, it would affect one company only—Alfred Dunhill Ltd., which began as a luxury goods business and has remained so, but which has licensed its name to a tobacco company for many years. The paragraph will allow Alfred Dunhill Ltd. to continue to advertise its luxury goods but will not, of course, allow Rothmans International plc to advertise Dunhill cigarettes.

On a point of clarification, would the Dunhill masters golf championships be able to continue?

That is sports sponsorship, and it would be stopped. Did not the hon. Gentleman hear what I said earlier in relation to sports sponsorship?

Paragraph (5) provides transitional exemptions, and would allow a year's grace for permanent structures of advertisements such as those at Piccadilly circus. Clause 1 covers the great majority of tobacco promotion, but clause 2 deals with free samples, coupon schemes, gifts and other promotions that tobacco companies use. I do not know whether any Conservative Members have ever been to Silk Cut discos, which are promoted to encourage young kids to get to know product names.

To sum up the rest of the Bill, clause 3 provides powers for the Secretary of State to make further regulations if anybody is trying to avoid the implications of the Bill. "Clause 4 lays down the penalties and the policing of it, clause 5 gives a simple definition of a tobacco product, and clauses 6 and 7 deal with the usual formalities.

I agree that this is a cross-party Bill, but will the hon. Gentleman accept that, in Northern Ireland, there 17 times more victims of tobacco-related diseases than of terrorism? Is it possible that those Conservative Members who are objecting to the Bill are reflecting the view of a former Secretary of State who talked about an "acceptable level of violence"?

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. It sums up the crux of the Bill and what it fundamentally attacks in public health in the United Kingdom.

Why ban tobacco advertising? While adult smoking rates are falling, smoking rates in children are not. In 1982, according to the Office of Population, Census and Statistics, 35 per cent. of adults were regular smokers, and by 1992, the figure had fallen to 28 per cent.—a significant improvement.

For 15-year-olds in 1982, regular smokers made up 24 per cent. of the population and 23 per cent. in 1992. There has been no real change. By the age of 15, eight out of 10 people who become regular adult smokers have begun smoking. It is clearly not a mature decision that those people reach. At a rate of 500 per day, those children are replacing the smokers who quit or die.

Much research has been conducted on the factors that influence the uptake and maintenance of smoking by children. The major influences include smoking by parents and friends, health education, the price of tobacco, its availability and advertising and promotion. I shall take each of those in turn.

There is a limit on what the House can do about the smoking behaviour of parents and friends of would-be smokers. The House has made appropriations to support health education on smoking, and the Government have anounced a new programme targeted at parents, which will cost £4 million each year for the next three years. Although that expenditure is welcome, it is small compared with the £100 million spent every year on tobacco advertising and sponsorship.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

In a few minutes.

The Government's long-standing record on price policy is commendable, especially in the light of the Chancellor's latest commitment to increase tobacco duties by at least 3 per cent. a year in real terms in future. However, price policy alone will not work. It has not worked to reduce teenage smoking rates—15-year-olds smoke as much today as they did 10 years ago.

The hon. Gentleman comes from a northern consitutency, so he will be aware of the "Reg" campaign. Does he agree that that was in breach of the voluntary code and was targeted at children? All those advertisements plastered on billboards near schools must have had an effect on children.

Since I am from a northern constituency, the hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to know that I shall be mentioning "Reg" and the Advertising Standards Authority later.

Would the hon. Gentleman address two points before he moves on? First, does he agree that his Bill is a private Member's Bill, that it is not a matter for party politics, and that the House should be clear on that? Secondly, does he agree that his Bill is sincerely aimed at reducing and stopping the take-up of smoking among 15-year-olds and those below that age? If he does agree, it is a wholly laudable, key aim to the Bill, since, if those 15-year-olds smoke for 40 years and do not die of heart disease or lung cancer, they are likely to become respiratory cripples.

The hon. Gentleman's intervention identifies the main issues of public health, especially that of young and vulnerable children, which are addressed by the Bill.

The third reason for young people smoking concerns availability, by which I mean the illegal sales of tobacco to children under 16. That issue has been addressed and was initiated by the private Member's Bill sponsored by my hon. Friend the Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds). That Bill was warmly supported by the House, and has been admirably backed by the imaginative initiatives of Parents Against Tobacco and the Health Education Authority, with the full support of the Secretary of State for Health.

There is too much evidence for me to review of the influence that tobacco advertising has on consumption by young people. The most recent comprehensive review of the evidence was undertaken by the Department of Health and its chief economic advertiser, Dr. Clive Smee.

The Smee report found that tobacco advertising affected total consumption, not just brand share. There were 68 statistically significant results which pointed to a connection between advertising spending and tobacco consumption and only two indicating the opposite. The report also found that countries with stronger controls on advertising for the purpose of protecting public health and not trade monopolies tended to have lower consumption of tobacco. The report found that, in individual countries, the balance of evidence based on a study of the relationship between advertising spending and consumption over time showed that advertising had a positive effect on consumption.

When enough detailed evidence was gathered for a proper study, it was found that in four countries, advertising bans—excluding the effects of other factors—produced a significant drop in consumption. In Canada, tobacco consumption fell by 4 per cent., in New Zealand by 5·5 per cent., in Finland by 6·7 per cent., and in Norway by 9 per cent.

The hon. Gentleman rightly quotes the Smee report, which includes some of the arguments that he has advanced. Does he concede that page 15 of the Smee report states that, although some other studies have found statistically significant links between advertising and consumption, his study failed to do so? Is it not about time that proponents of an advertising ban quoted accurately from the Smee report?

Before I end my speech, I shall quote not only from the Smee report, but from a Government publication that the hon. Gentleman received this week about the implications of the Smee report on public health.

Other figures that I have received this week—not represented in the Smee report—showed that the drop in tobacco consumption following advertising bans in France was 5·2 per cent. and in Australia 6 per cent.

I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware that, in the conclusion to the report, Clive Smee, the Government chief health economist, said:

"The balance of evidence thus supports the conclusion that advertising does have a positive effect on consumption."

He reviewed the position in other countries and concluded:

"In each case the banning of advertising was followed by a fall in smoking on a scale which cannot reasonably be attributed to other factors."

Does he agree that it is possible for Conservative Members to pick odd sentences from the report, but the key factor is to study its conclusions and those of the Government chief health economist? They conclude that there is a link between advertising and smoking.

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. We should also consider the Government view on the Smee report, and the material that they have published this week.

It is not difficult to conclude that, if similar effects were seen in the United Kingdom following an advertising ban, between 4,400 and 9,900 premature deaths from tobacco-related diseases could be avoided each year. As the effects of an advertising ban would be expected to work with other programmes designed to reduce smoking, the reductions in deaths might be even greater.

Critics of an advertising ban say that advertising does not influence consumption and has no effect on children. The evidence suggests otherwise. A study conducted by MORI for the Health Education Authority in 1990 found that children smoked the most heavily advertised brands at higher rates than among adults.

In 1990, £15 million was spent advertising Benson and Hedges and 47 per cent. of 11 to 14-year-olds chose that brand compared with 21 per cent. of adult smokers. Embassy spent £10 million, and was chosen by 22 per cent. of child smokers compared with 15 per cent of adult smokers. Silk Cut spent £9·9 million and was chosen by 29 per cent. of child smokers and 12 per cent. of adult smokers. Marlboro spent £5 million and was chosen by 13 per cent. of child smokers and 4 per cent. of adult smokers. In each case, a greater proportion of child smokers than adult smokers preferred the most heavily advertised brands.

The Advertising Association sent a booklet to all Members of Parliament this week, claiming that the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys had found that some of the most important factors in the uptake of smoking were, first, being a girl, secondly, having brothers or sisters who smoked, thirdly, having parents who smoked and fourthly, having relatively less negative views about smoking.

It is understandable that children should have negative views about smoking. It would seem that the advice of parents, teachers and health education campaigns are having an effect. How does a child acquire a less negative view on smoking? What instruments exist that help to form their opinions? Clearly, advertising is important in the formation of less negative views on smoking, and the Advertising Association has been damned by its own booklet.

A research study from Australia found that, while teacher-led education programmes can reduce the rate of smoking by up to 6 per cent., advertising encourages it in both sexes by about 15 per cent. Tobacco advertising works against education. That is obvious if one looks at the matter in any detail.

There is unacceptable competition for the hearts and lungs of our children if tobacco advertisers spend £10 for every £1 spent by health educators. It is a disadvantage, and it should not continue. We should either increase expenditure on education on the dangers of smoking to the level spent by the tobacco industry, or we should get rid of the counter-education. If we do not, smokers will continue to be recruited from our children at the current rate.

My constituency of Rother Valley provides a good example, as do those of other hon. Members. There are about 1,300 15-year-olds in my constituency, of whom about 300 are regular smokers. If they keep smoking and stay brand-loyal for the rest of their lives, which is what the tobacco companies want them to do, at least one in three, or about 100, will die from cancer, heart disease or other diseases caused by smoking.

No other threat of that size, including those posed by hard drugs, alcohol and motor vehicles, faces the children in the Rother Valley or in any other constituency. For every 1 per cent. reduction in consumption in the Rother Valley, one premature death will be prevented. Across the country, a 1 per cent. fall in tobacco could be expected to prevent 1,100 premature deaths. The House should be proud to be responsible for lessening smoke-related deaths.

The hon. Gentleman enjoys widespread and strong support on both sides of the House. Is he aware that eight directors of health in the Mersey region have issued figures that show that of the 480,000 children, some 80,000 of them—one in six—are likely to die of smoking-related diseases? Hon. Members should take notice of those statistics, and not the blandishments of the advertising industry.

I agree with every word that the hon. Gentleman said.

Monday's Government press release on the voluntary agreement is full of inconsistencies—I hope that the Minister does not mind me saying that. In that release, the Minister referred to effective and long-standing voluntary agreements that have "served us well". It goes on to say that the agreement is to be strengthened. Why does it need to be strengthened if it has worked so well? It does not work well, and has not. Children's smoking rates have not changed in the past 10 years.

The voluntary agreement covers women's magazines. It prohibits cigarette advertising in magazines

"whose primary readership is women in the age range from 15 to 24 years."

Despite that, tobacco advertisers still promote the leading cause of lung cancer among more than 7 million female readers of other magazines. They do so at a time when female lung cancer death rates are rising and have overtaken breast cancer death rates as the no. 1 cause of cancer death in some parts of the United Kingdom. It borders on lunacy to continue to allow the promotion of a major cause of an increasing epidemic of lung cancer in women. When asked about that, the advertising industry ducks for cover and says, "We cannot possibly comment, because we are not health experts." As long as the industry can continue to advertise cigarettes, it does not care.

Recently, there has been the appalling farce of 'Reg', a comic character used to promote Regal cigarettes in the north of England, Scotland and Wales. Despite warnings 12 months ago from Action on Smoking and Health and Campaign about Reg's popular appeal to children, the Advertising Standards Authority did nothing about the 'Reg' campaign until it was confronted with excellent research commissioned at a cost of £20,000 by the Health Education Authority. That research showed that Reg was recognised by 91 per cent. of children as promoting cigarettes, but that he was recognised by only 48 per cent. of adults. He was twice as popular with children.

The ASA recommended that the 'Reg' campaign be withdrawn, and Imperial Tobacco, the maker of Regal, apparently obliged. In fact, at the press conference that I held to announce my intention to introduce the Bill, it was mentioned to me for the first time that 'Reg' was going to be withdrawn because of what was happening with the campaign in certain parts of Britain.

One month later, a mother from Cardiff brought to my attention an advertisement for the 'Reg' Welsh snooker challenge. That advertisement was given to her in a busy shopping centre, when many children were present. On her behalf, I complained to the Advertising Standards Authority, and last week I was advised that that campaign was the only exemption because the promotion had commenced before the ASA's ruling in December.

Last week, we found billboards in the same areas of Britain where 'Reg' is well known by children—that is, Scotland, the north of England and Wales—advertising "a farewell address". The advertisement is in the same colour and in the same style as the previous 'Reg' campaign.

On Monday morning, I was involved in a discussion on Radio Leeds. The presenter of the programme, Stephen Le Fevre, questioned Caroline Crawford from the Advertising Standards Authority about the new campaign that had come about in the north. As for the farewell address, Le Fevre said:

"It has got 'Reg' in there-are they not just making a fool of your recommendations?"

Caroline Crawford replied:

"Certainly, they are in a way, saying goodbye to the 'Reg' campaign."

People are flouting a sensible interpretation of the code, or the code is so defective that all that one has to do is to remove Reg's face from a poster, and the poster falls within the voluntary agreement.

How long will it before young people do not recognise that advertising campaign? How many others will be encouraged to smoke? It has been confirmed this week that removing the face from the poster enables the poster to be within the voluntary agreement, and that will make fools of us, the voluntary agreements and the Advertising Standards Authority for ever and a day. The campaign is also making a fool of attempted restriction.

There is confusion among hon. Members. Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that the ban on radio and television advertising of cigarettes and, more recently, cigars is not voluntary, but is a Government ban?

There is speculation in the media that, as a consequence of my Bill, there might be further Government bans. Perhaps we should go one step further.

The essence of the cigarette code is:

"advertisements should not encourage people, particularly the young, to start smoking. People who already smoke should not be enticed to increase their level of smoking or to smoke to excess".

That objective is contradicted by the Government's action plan.

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. I am glad that he has started to comment more fully on the 'Reg' campaign. I have just received a note from Hansard, asking what the 'Reg' campaign stands for and to confirm the 'Reg' campaign. It is clear that people in the south of England are not familiar with that campaign.

They do not know the extent to which it is plastered over billboards, certainly in my constituency, near schools, and is clearly aimed at youngsters. There might be hon. Members who still do not understand exactly what the campaign is. It concerns a balding, somewhat absurd character who thinks—[Interruption.] Perhaps I should leave it to the hon. Gentleman to continue his speech and make it clear exactly what 'Reg' means.

I gratefully accept that invitation. The hon. Gentleman correctly described Reg. He wants people to smoke Regal cigarettes. The first Reg advert showed a Regal cigarette packet, with Reg's finger covering the letters A and L. Reg says:

"I smoke 'em because my name's on 'em."

He then went on to "party politics", did our character Reg.

He said:

"If you drop ash on the carpet, you won't get invited again."

We then go on to Reg on the greenhouse effect. He said:

"My tomatoes seem to grow better under glass."

Reg on television:

"No, I'm not. I'm on a poster."

Reg on train spotting:

"There's one."

That is Reg's schoolground humour to induce young people to recognise that as cigarette advertising, and 91 per cent. of them do. Now we have everything but Reg. An advertisement shows a suitcase with a label stating "Dunadvertisin' Bognor Regis"—some people in the north might say "Bognor Reg's"—and it flouts anything that we can do to protect young people from tobacco. That is what voluntary agreements are delivering, and it is not good enough. We must protect young children.

When I explained the cigarette code, I said that it contradicted the Government's action plan. Paragraph 4.52 of the Smee report states:

"The review supports the Government view that there is a relationship between tobacco advertising and total tobacco consumption".

It further states:

"the Government believes that it would be desirable to take further steps to reduce the potential for tobacco advertising to encourage people to start smoking or to smoke more".

It is my firm belief, given the way that the voluntary agreement has failed to protect children from Reg, that the only way to ensure that tobacco advertisements do not have any influence on our children is to get rid of them. I invite hon. Members to join me, all the royal medical colleges, the National Consumer Council and, more important, the 60 per cent. of the British public who, in every survey, have said that they want to ban tobacco advertising.

I invite hon. Members to join me not only in the Lobby today but throughout the passage of the Bill, so that we can provide proper protection for the nation, not the half-hearted protection that we have in voluntary codes.

rose—

Order. It must be clear that there is great interest in the Bill. Therefore, I ask succeeding speakers to be as brief as possible, so that as many hon. Members as possible may contribute.

I must make it clear that I am the unpaid national chairman of the National Asthma Campaign. Although that is not a declarable interest, I do not want anybody to be under any misapprehension.

Let us stop some of the cackle. I congratulate the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) on bringing forward the Bill and on an extensive speech in which he dealt with many interruptions. In cutting the cackle, let us be in no doubt: smoking is unpleasant, it is dirty, it is physically dangerous, and now, with conclusive evidence of the effect of passive smoking, it is an anti-social habit when carried out in public.

Those are some of the basic reasons why we want to ensure that smoke decreases. No one supporting the Bill wishes to ban smoking—that must be left to individuals to decide. However, people should not be lulled into smoking by advertising that suggests that it is socially an advantage to smoke, that smoking makes young people become members of a peer group, that it somehow enhances a person's attraction to the opposite sex or, indeed, that it relieves stress. None of those things are true and they need to be nailed immediately.

In passing, I pay a tribute on the death of Josephine Richardson. I knew Josephine probably better than any other hon. Members in her early days because we fought our first political battle over a seat on the Hornsey borough council back in 1951. She was the thorn in my flesh when I was the chairman of the Hornsey housing committee for many years. She suffered a great deal in the latter part of her life but still gave service to the House, and hon. Members should give credit to her.

If what I previously suggested is not true, what is true? Smoking is the largest preventable cause of death. Hundreds of people die from smoking-related diseases every day. Smoking is also a major cause of serious ill health, and it is estimated that more than 250,000 admissions to hospital every year are due to smoking-related illness. It is increasingly clear that smoking not only affects the health of those who smoke; passive smoking has become a significant public health issue. Those are not my words; they are the Government's words contained in a booklet.

My right hon. Friend has talked about passive smoking and made some very dogmatic comments about it. Did he read the article in The Times this week which suggested that medically the evidence is less strong than he is dogmatically asserting?

I did not read the article in The Times. All I can say is that all the medical evidence on asthma—I can talk about that from personal experience—is that asthmatics find that passive smoking is a specific trigger for further asthma attacks. There is no doubt about that—it is factually correct.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one of the most moving occasions in the House was about a year ago in the Jubilee room when Roy Castle, the entertainer, came here? Someone who had never smoked in his entire life had lung cancer as a direct result of passive smoking.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his added support and the evidence that he has provided.

"Smoking causes cancer". "Smoking causes heart disease". "Smoking causes fatal diseases". "Smoking kills". "Smoking when pregnant harms your baby". "Do not make children breathe your smoke". Those are not my statements, but they are fairly damaging. It has now been agreed legally that those statements will be rotated on all cigarette packets. Surely that is a sign that even tobacco companies accept that those statements have to be made and are, indeed, true.

Is not my right hon. Friend defeating his own object, as it is understood that the vast majority of people in this country understand the dangers of smoking because advertising has put across the message about smoking harming health?

I like my hon. Friend very much but I find the logic of that question slightly absurd. If it is proved—as it is—that advertising must have some effect on increasing smoking, whatever the advertisements say, they are still being put forward with the intention of making people smoke more. Otherwise, why do companies advertise? I shall come to that point in a moment.

I shall add to the important evidence in the Smee report, which was referred to by the hon. Member for Rother Valley. That report

"concluded that the evidence from four countries where tobacco advertising has been banned indicated a 'significant effect' on tobacco consumption."

That is not a fool making that assumption; it is the economic adviser to the Department of Health. At the behest of the Government, he made this report. I quote:

"He noted that advertising could persuade children or adults to start smoking, smokers to smoke more or to continue, and quitters to start again. One study, quoted by Mr. Smee, showed that 44 per cent. of smokers agreed that 'smoking can't really be dangerous or the Government would ban cigarette smoking'.

In a recent survey carried out by the National Asthma Campaign, 57 per cent. of people with asthma showed that passive smoking caused them difficulties. In July 1993, Dr. John Britton, of Nottingham University, working with National Asthma Campaign funding, announced his findings that women who smoke during pregnancy are significantly more likely to produce children with asthma than women who do not. These women may unwittingly be precipitating in their unborn child the occurrence of a potentially fatal illness."

Surely, we should look at that instance.

The British Thoracic Society, meeting in Dublin this year, made it clear that

"Children whose mothers smoked heavily during pregnancy, and during their child's early years, are over 30 per cent. more likely to develop asthma or experience wheezing by the time they are 16."

The study was not small; it was carried out among 15,000 children who were born in one week in 1970. I quote:

"Among children not exposed to cigarette smoke, 29 per cent. were reported to have asthma symptoms by the age of 16. Among children whose mothers smoked 25 or more cigarettes a day during pregnancy and early childhood, 39 per cent. had asthma symptoms—an increase of over 30 per cent. Low birth weight babies were also much more likely to develop asthma. Fifty per cent. of those in the study born under 1·5 kg had experienced wheezing illness by the age of 16."

Those are some of the results of cigarette smoking.

If we break down the figures for advertising, £60·4 million is spent on press advertising, £11 million on television, £16 million on posters—I am delighted that the Government are moving in this direction and we must give them credit for that; I hope that our action is hastening them along in this way—and about £14 million on other promotions. Can any hon. Member honestly put his hand on his heart and tell me that that money is being spent not to encourage people to smoke? What is it not meant to encourage—anyone to take up smoking? I am more likely to believe that the money is being given as a gift to the advertising agencies than that cigarette companies are spending the money not to encourage people to smoke.

I have a convenience store in Swansea, and I sell tobacco products.

Drug pusher.[Laughter.]

It is a legal product. During the past 10 years, the turnover of my business of tobacco products has fallen from about two thirds to one third. That is fine, because the business has diversified into other products. There is not a monopoly of tobacco producers in this country and there are competing firms with competing brands. Is not advertising a way by which those firms include people who already smoke to switch brands, and not an inducement to non-smokers to take up tobacco?

I am sorry that I gave way before my next sentence, which was to deal with that subject. I cannot accept that this immense sum is spent to fulfil brand image between different brands of cigarettes. Of course, there may be some aspect of that, but the concept that that is the main reason for spending £100 million on advertising is nonsense.

I worked for many years in the advertising and public relations business. On one occasion, I had to turn down—because I could not touch it—an account from the Freedom Association for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco. FOREST is a front organisation for the tobacco industry, and I think that it now stands for the freedom for the right to eliminate somebody else's throat.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the sole reason for the industry investing such huge sums in advertising has nothing to do with brand loyalty, but is to replace with younger people those of their customers who are dying at the upper end of the age range?

I am interested in what the hon. Gentleman has to say. There is certainly a suggestion of that, although, as yet, there is no statistical proof. The House will take the point made by the hon. Gentleman from his own experience.

It is argued that we would be interfering with the liberty of people if we limited advertising. That might be true if the Government had not already taken the steps so to do. However, the Government have taken such steps. The libertarian argument is that if something is legal, it ought to be able to be advertised. That is the type of statement that we hear from those people.

There are a number of things that are legal but which cannot be advertised. That is not anything unusual. A barrister is legal—in more senses than one—but he is not allowed to advertise. [HON. MEMBERS: "They are."] If, in fact, one looks at the structure of law societies one will find that that is still discouraged. Sanitary products were initially banned, and those products are only allowed to be advertised on television only at certain times later at night. The concept that there are no controls over advertising for legal things does not hold water.

The House should examine the argument that because something is legal it is permissible. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that if tobacco were a new drug coming on to the market, it would not be licensed by the Government? Does he also agree that it has been known for drugs to be taken off the market when they are found to be dangerous?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

I wish to deal with one aspect of costs about which I know personally. It is widely accepted that passive smoking and smoking have an effect on asthma. The direct cost to the NHS of drugs and admissions to hospitals is £473 million a year on asthma, the estimated amount lost to industry because of the illness is £400 million, and the social security costs of sickness and invalidity benefit are £70 million.

That is a cost of just under £1 billion because of the problems of asthma in this country. There is positive proof that smoking is causing those difficulties to be accentuated, so surely we should take every step to discourage smoking. I am not alone in saying that—the Government are also saying it. They have produced smoking-related literature which outlines a strategy to reduce smoking. The Government have described their future action, and the effect of the price of tobacco. They have given a commitment to work with the European Community to encourage other European countries with prices lower than the United Kingdom to raise them to match our own.

The Government have dealt with the illegal sales of tobacco, health education, banning harmful new products, action in schools, health warnings, Government support to the voluntary sector—[Interruption.] I just want to build up a case, which hon. Members may not like. This is not my case, but the Government's. I am doing the Government's job.

The Government's strategy also deals with insurance premiums. The Department of Health will provide advice to insurance companies on the health effects of smoking, and will encourage them to consider whether they should introduce or extend preferential treatment to non-smokers. The strategy contains a commitment to effective controls of advertising, smoking in public places, smoking in the workplace, action in Government Departments, action to ensure a virtually smoke-free NHS and action on a research programme.

In all those positive moves to ensure that smoking is decreasing, the one thing that the Government have left out is advertising. They know and I know that advertising encourages people to smoke. The real problem that must be faced is the £7·5 billion which comes in tax on tobacco products.

My right hon. Friend has done a most marvellous job of reviewing the Government's strategy. In a desire to be helpful to him, I will inform him that he will find that advertising is included in that strategy.

I think that I did refer to it. [HON. MEMBERS: "You said that it had been left out."] I did refer to effective controls on advertising. Hansard will tell us whether I did refer to advertising. [Interruption.]

Order. Seated interventions from hon. Members trying to assist another Member with a speech are not helpful.

Even if they are trying to assist, they are not helpful.

I was trying to say that the Government are building up a massive case against smoking. I do not think that the Government will actually approve the Bill, although I believe that they are willing to see that it goes to Committee. That would allow greater discussion on the matter, even among those people who are against it. We can argue the matter better in Committee than we can on the Floor of the House.

The real reason why the Government cannot support the Bill is because £7·5 billion comes in tax. If advertising were to be banned and cigarettes were to fail absolutely, where would that money come from? Would taxes have to be increased?

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, in their "Health of the Nation" programme, the Government have set a target of reducing the number of cigarettes sold from 98 billion in 1990 to, I believe, 57 billion in 2000? The Secretary of State for Health, in setting that target, must have spoken to the Chancellor and explained to him the tax implications of the Government's policy for reducing the number of cigarettes sold. Will not the Treasury have taken account of that already?

I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Indeed, it is the Government's policy to attempt to reduce smoking by about 40 per cent. by the turn of the century. What I am saying to the Government is that considerable financial benefits would accrue to the Treasury from moving more quickly than the Government propose. That is why I gave the list of the costs of just asthma to the nation, amounting to almost £1 billion. The Bill would assist in bringing at least the 40 per cent. reduction through more quickly. The financial benefits to the nation would balance the loss in taxation.

We must consider the factors that I have listed. If we do not, we do not look at the whole picture.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I am sorry. I am just coming to a conclusion.

I have set out the various factors: the difficulties, the effect on health, the moves that the Government are gladly making to discourage smoking, the difficulties in carrying those moves through, but also the benefits that would accrue from reducing smoking. I have tried to bring a balance to the problems of the finance. I hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading. In Committee, there may be ways of making alterations to promotion or advertising only of cigarettes. We can debate all that not on the Floor of the House, but in Committee. Therefore, I hope that we can obtain a Second Reading for what is in many ways an admirable Bill.

I agree with the comments of the right hon. Member for Honiton (Sir Peter Emery). I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) on introducing the Bill. Despite the many interventions that he faced, he knows and the whole House knows that there is widespread agreement throughout the country among parents of young children, teachers in the schools that those children attend and, most certainly, the medical profession. There is no doubt that such agreement exists.

Some three years ago I was a member of the Standing Committee considering the Children and Young Persons (Protection from Tobacco) Bill, which was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds). That Bill, like the Bill that we are discussing today, had massive support. It went into Committee and we had some interesting discussions. I am sure that if my hon. Friend catches your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, he will elaborate on what happened. The only way in which we could make progress on that Bill in Committee was by accepting amendments and making concessions that those of us on the Committee who supported the Bill did not want to make. Afterwards, we found that there was widespread annoyance among people outside who had been associated with the Bill, especially parents, about the concessions that had to be made so that the Bill would at least get through its Committee stage. I hope that we have learnt from those experiences.

I take the comments that you have made, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I realise that a great many hon. Members on both sides of the House wish to speak. I do not intend to speak for long, but I want to make a few comments that are relevant to the debate. In the past few days we have all received a document from the Minister for Health entitled "Smoke-free for Health". With that document he sent a letter in which the following statement was made:

"The voluntary agreements have served us well and the Government has no reason to believe that they will not be effective in delivering the firmer controls which are needed in some areas, particularly in respect of exposing children to tobacco advertising. We believe that they are preferable to a statutory ban."

We received that letter on 7 February.

It so happens that on 2 February I received a letter from St. George's hospital in my constituency, one of the major hospitals in the United Kingdom. The letter was from Sandra Legg, the chief nurse and chairman of the smoking policy committee of St. George's hospital. What she said contradicted completely what the Minister said. Her leiter came three or four days before the letter and booklet sent to all Members of Parliament by the Minister. She said:

"As health care providers, St. George's Healthcare is keen to support any measures which promote health. There is, I believe, evidence to support a view that imposing a ban on tobacco advertising would decrease cigarette smoking and I would therefore welcome such a move … The Trust has taken steps to reduce smoking amongst its own staff, patients and visitors. From January 1st 1994 a total ban on smoking was introduced in all Trust buildings".

So there we have a senior member of staff in one of the major hospitals of Britain stating a view based on her and her colleagues' experience, which is contrary to the line that we have been given by the Minister for Health. The Minister says that a voluntary ban would succeed. But Sandra Legg, with the support of her colleagues, on the basis of her experience, doubts what the Minister seeks to tell us and sell to us.

I am sure that many Members of Parliament, irrespective of party, and people outside the House will take far more notice of highly qualified people in our health service who say that the voluntary basis has been tried before and, sadly, just has not succeeded. Now is the time for the Government to give support to this Bill.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that many items for sale in shops—I probably sell most of them—would damage the health of the nation, particularly youngsters, if over-consumed. I am thinking of confectionery. Over-consumption might be said to damage the health of young people. Does the hon. Gentleman th ink that it would improve the health of the nation to ban or control advertising of any other items?

I certainly believe that there must be a much greater campaign on the effects of excessive drinking. [HON. MEMBERS: "Ah."] Yes, most certainly. I should have thought that all of us in the House know that we are repeatedly told that we should do this or that in our health service. Of course we should. The problem is the expenditure that such action would incur. That is why I believe that we are right to look at other products the consumption and use of which affects people's health. Possibly, at some future date we should deal with issues such as that named by the hon. Gentleman.

Today, however, we are considering smoking and the effect that my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley seeks to make in introducing the Bill. There is ample evidence of the danger of smoking and, sadly, the damage that is caused to millions of people throughout Britain.

In an intervention on the right hon. Member for Honiton (Sir. P. Emery) I mentioned Roy Castle's visit. He has never smoked but throughout his life he entertained in clubs where the atmosphere was polluted by smoke. Sadly, that is how he developed cancer—through passive smoking. [Interruption.] It is no use hon. Members waffling on from a sedentary position. If they want me to give way, I will do so.

(Hexham): How does the hon. Gentleman know that?

If the hon. Gentleman is referring to my comments about Roy Castle's sad illness, he was told that that was the cause after extensive medical examinations and opinions when he was treated by the national health service. To its credit, Roy Castle's very serious illness was detected, but the cost to the health service must have been substantial. I would be shocked if the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) objected to someone who had never smoked but became very ill having the opportunity to go to hospital to find out what was wrong with him.

Is it not true that the hon. Gentleman did not know that that was the reason, but that medical experts stated it? We cannot substitute our amateur knowledge for that of the medical experts in that case or in any other.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that comment. I received a letter from the British Medical Association—I am sure that it was sent to other hon. Members—dated 8 February. The Association is no doubt about what it wants. It writes:

"The BMA, on behalf of doctors, has always taken a very public stance in support of tobacco advertising being banned. There is overwhelming evidence which shows that advertising does attract new smokers, particularly among the young."

As my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley outlined, there is clear evidence that advertising affects young people and we have such evidence from many different sources.

If hon. Members listen to people outside this place, who look to us to introduce legislation that will benefit not merely their families but society, I believe that the Bill should get a Second Reading and go into Committee.

I was here last Friday when we debated the Energy Conservation Bill. No one seems to have argued today as they did then that, although the Bill contains many good measures, we must question its cost. That sort of blue herring has not been floated during today's debate and I hope that it will not be a consideration in a vote—it would be regrettable if we were forced to divide on the Bill. The Government have the opportunity to show their concern on this important issue and to respond to requests that the general public have made. The real test of the Bill will be in Standing Committee.

Heaven only knows how much this publication—"Smoke-Free for Health"—cost. I welcome it because there are times when Governments can say that they believe that it is essential to prepare the case and make it available for everyone to read, even though that may be expensive. I have already quoted one of the Minister for Health's comments in the document. That comment is totally denied by national health service workers.

I warmly support the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley, who presented this Bill, and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Warley, East three years ago. He did a great service to this country and was widely supported both by people and by organisations who understood the damage that he was seeking to overcome through the introduction of his Bill.

I hope that this Bill will not be opposed. Hon. Members who have been in the House for some time know that Standing Committees are the real place for discussion. Even if some of us have reservations, we do not want a good Bill to be killed off by bringing in the payroll vote who, if they were honest with themselves, would support the Bill.

I hope that the Minister for Health will not say that the Bill is good but that the Government have reservations about it. I also hope that if there is a Division the payroll vote will not be forced into the Lobby to vote against the Bill. I want the Bill to be given an unopposed Second Reading and to go into Committee, where the main issues can be discussed properly.

I have no connection with the tobacco or advertising industries now, although I spent most of my business life in advertising and marketing, and therfore hope that I can speak with some background knowledge.

I yield to no one in my keenness to dissuade people from smoking, in spite of the fact that I have the occasional small cigar—that applies particularly to dissuading young people from smoking. The House will know of my interest in the problems of drug misuse. There is a definite link between the propensity to smoke and the chances of being lured into taking drugs, especially those that are smoked.

This debate is not about smoking, but about advertising and its probable effects, particularly on increasing the likelihood of people smoking cigarettes, I feel that I can make the most useful contribution by concentrating on advertising.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Why does my hon. Friend not hang on, because he does not even know what I am going to say? I I certainly will give way later.

The arguments against banning tobacco advertising do not rest on whether a link can be found between advertising and total consumption, although it is significant that there is no good evidence for such a link.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Please may I make some headway?

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I resisted the temptation to intervene during the hon. Gentleman's speech.

Do not resist the temptation to give way.

I shall do so in a moment.

In mature markets, the role of advertising is almost always to focus on brand share—on growth among users, rather than generic market growth. That means manufacturers going after the people who use a product and want to buy it and persuading them to buy their brand. Even among market leaders, brand switching is a more common marketing objective than market building—that is an important point—whether they are marketing soap, automobiles, the use of energy, airline tickets, toothpaste or cigarettes.

It is interesting to note that 25 per cent. of smokers change brands once a year.

I do not wish to get into a philosophical debate about advertising in general. The Bill is about tobacco advertising. How can the hon. Gentleman stand up and say that, when all the evidence shows the contrary? The Government's publication, which we received this week, says that the Smee review

"supports the Government view that there is a relationship between tobacco advertising and total tobacco consumption."

This is not a philosophical debate about advertising and take-up, but about studies directly related to advertising and the tobacco habit.

I knew that I was right to resist the temptation to give way to the hon. Gentleman earlier. If the hon. Gentleman, who gets frightfully over-excited about his Bill—I do not blame him, as everybody gets over-excited about their own babies—would listen to the arguments—

With permission, I wish to make a statement about Sir Cecil Clothier's inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the murder by Beverly Allitt of four children and the injuring of nine others in the children's ward of Grantham and Kesteven general hospital in 1991.

Following the trial and conviction of Beverly Allitt, I instructed an independent inquiry to be set up in May 1993, chaired by Sir Cecil Clothier QC, to examine the issues raised by the case and what lessons for the future could be learnt from them. I have now received Sir Cecil's report. I am today publishing it in full. Copies have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses. I should like to thank Sir Cecil and the two members of his inquiry team, Miss Anne MacDonald and Professor David Shaw, for the efficient and effective way in which they have conducted the inquiry and produced their report. I am sure that all who read the report will welcome it as a fair and thorough account of the events.

From the outset, we must all acknowledge, as the report does, that the tragic events in Grantham were the product of a malevolent, deranged criminal mind. Everything must be seen in that light.

Before saying more about the report's findings, I know that Members on both sides of the House will wish to join me in conveying our deep sympathies to all whose lives have been blighted by these tragic events, and particularly to the families of the victims of Beverly Allitt's crimes. The least we owe those families is an explanation of how Allitt's crimes went unchecked for so long and an assurance, from which I hope they will be able to take some comfort, that everything possible will be done to prevent such a tragedy ever happening again.

I welcome the thoroughness of Sir Cecil's report and the speed with which it has been produced. What is important is that his findings and recommendations are absorbed and applied throughout the health service with equal diligence and dispatch.

The report emphasises that the events described were extraordinary and unprecedented in this country. It considers whether prompter action could reasonably have been expected to detect Allitt and stop her doing further harm—and there are criticisms of the speed of the hospital's response. However, its main conclusion is:

"a determined and secret criminal may defeat the best regulated organisation in the pursuit of his or her purpose".

It goes on:

"no measures can afford complete protection against a determined miscreant. The main lesson from our Inquiry and our principal recommendation is that the Grantham disaster should serve to heighten awareness in all those caring for children of the possibility of malevolent intervention as a cause of unexplained clinical events."

The report makes 12 detailed recommendations to tighten procedures to safeguard children in hospital. I have instructed immediate action to be taken on the 11 that are my responsibility. The Home Secretary has accepted the recommendation concerning coroners. I have placed in the Libraries of both Houses a paper setting out the detailed response to each recommendation. The chief executive of the national health service, Sir Duncan Nichol, has also written today to all health authorities and trusts to draw the report to their attention.

The work that I am now setting in hand in response to the report is in addition to the action that has already been taken following the earlier inquiry commissioned by the Trent regional health authority. Action has been taken forward in all that report's 51 recommendations. In particular, changes were introduced to the management at Grantham and Kesteven hospital and responsibility for the provision of paediatric service at Grantham was transferred to the University hospital NHS trust at Nottingham.

The Clothier report identifies and criticises failures of management and communications in the hospital, and it is important that lessons are learned from these throughout the service. It draws attention to the failure to take quicker action after the first evidence of possible foul play. However, it refutes any suggestion that Allitt could easily have been detected or stopped.

There are references to the parts played by individuals, but the report concludes that the main failure was collective. It describes a

"general lack in the qualities of leadership, energy and drive in all those most closely associated with the management of ward four".

There have been suggestions in the press that the Clothier report makes scapegoats, particularly of individual consultants or nurses. I hope that those fears can now be allayed. The report repeatedly refers to the dangers of hindsight and the temptation to seek individuals to blame and, although it does not shrink from making criticisms where those are considered justified, it is conspicuously fair and balanced throughout.

The report has important things to say about nursing staffing levels in the children's ward at Grantham. At the same time of the events, the specialist children's nurse staffing for ward 4 was below the standard recommended by the region at the time, and also well below the higher standard for two qualified sick children's nurses to be available, which the Department subsequently recommended to health authorities and hospitals.

The inquiry report recommends that the Department of Health should take steps to see that the guidance is more closely observed throughout the health service than the evidence suggests it is at present. There is a steady increase in nurses qualifying as children's nurses, with a 47 per cent. increase over the four years up to 1992–93, and we expect that number to continue to increase. But, as the Audit Commission has confirmed, there is considerable variation across the country in the numbers of registered sick children's nurses working in children's wards.

Sir Duncan Nichol has therefore today instructed district health authorities, in consultation with hospitals, to report by 1 May on the local position with regard to the standard. Further action will be based on that information. The objective needs to be considered in the light of local circumstances, particularly the number of high-dependency children on a ward. As far as the children's ward at Grantham is concerned, the number of registered sick children's nurses has more than doubled since 1991.

Four new consultant paediatricians have been appointed to work at Grantham; three are already in post, and a fourth will take up post on 1 May. I cannot comment at this stage on the two paediatric consultants mentioned in the report, since they have appeals to me pending under paragraph 190 of the terms and conditions of service for hospital medical and dental staff.

The circumstances surrounding Beverly Allitt's crimes have been exhaustively examined: during a three-month trial, under the glare of publicity; during the regional health authority's own inquiry; and, in particular, by the independent inquiry chaired by Sir Cecil Clothier. A thorough job has been done to identify the facts and report them to the public.

Ultimately, the responsibility for what happened rested with Allitt herself. If it were not for her grotesque actions, four children would be alive today and nine would be free from the injuries that she inflicted on them. It is the duty of Grantham and Kesteven hospital, and every other hospital, to read, absorb and apply the lessons which Sir Cecil Clothier and his team have so skilfully identified. We must leave nothing to chance in minimising the opportunities open to another Beverly Allitt.

I thank the Secretary of State for making the Clothier inquiry report available to me in time so that I could read it before she made her statement.

Clearly, party-political rhetoric would not be appropriate or acceptable on this issue. I concur with the Secretary of State, on behalf of myself and my colleagues, in saying that our hearts go out to the families and parents of the children who went through the nightmare on ward 4 at the Grantham and Kesteven general hospital.

I must deal with a number of issues that relate to the inquiry's recommendations and the Secretary of State's response. We give a partial welcome to the recommendations and her response. Given that she has rightly come to the House to make a statement and has acknowledged that there are lessons for the whole of the national health service, does she not agree that a statutory public inquiry should have been held openly, so that evidence could have been presented with representation and in a manner that gave full confidence to the parents and the public as a whole?

I should like the Secretary of State to deal with the final area of the terms of reference of the Clothier inquiry and its wider implications. We agree that it was right for Sir Cecil Clothier not to seek scapegoats and pinpoint individuals. Clearly, there are lessons to be learned from the events that are wider than the question of a malevolent presence in the hospital. There were 26 incidents involving' 13 children over 61 days. Those incidents were not acted on in a way that would have been expected, irrespective of their cause. Something is seriously wrong when the crash team from the Queen's medical centre is called out four times in the space of two and a half weeks, when the norm is once a year.

As well as the issues related to Grantham and Kesteven hospital, will the Secretary of State take on board the comments made in the Clothier inquiry about radiology and other co-ordination action, which were highlighted at a well-staffed professionally run centre—Queen's medical centre in Nottingham? I ask her to deal particularly with recommendation 10, about which she has spoken, in relation to staffing levels of trained registered sick children's nurses. It recommends that there should be at least two on duty on the ward. The Secretary of State asked Sir Duncan Nichol, the NHS chief executive, to examine the issue and report back. I quote her words from the statement

"The objective needs to be considered in the light of local circumstances, particularly the number of high-dependency children on a ward".

In responding, perhaps the Secretary of State will reflect on the fact that many of the children affected on ward 4 were not high dependency when they went into the hospital. They needed nursing and care. They needed to be brought back to health. They were not in the same position as that mentioned in the report of the British Paediatric Association on intensive care nursing facilities, which we dealt with only a few months ago.

Will the Secretary of State reverse her response to recommendation 10 and acknowledge that well-trained nurses and well-staffed wards for children are absolute priorities for the NHS and that it will not be left to the vagaries of the market or decisions of local purchasers? The NHS is far too important for that to happen. Her recommendation and response this morning are inadequate on that point.

Does the Secretary of State also agree that there is a need to review the whole of the occupational health strategy of the NHS to ensure not only that another Allitt could not be recruited but that there would be no necessity for one to be deployed on a ward? The truth is—I hope that the Secretary of State will respond to this—that had there been adequately trained children's nurses available, Beverly Allitt would not have got anywhere near ward 4 of the Grantham and Kesteven hospital, because a state-enrolled nurse would never have been employed in those circumstances.

Will the Secretary of State respond to the fact that there is no recommendation in the report, or a response from her, on the need to train and retrain management to deal with situations that may not arise from a murderer but from inadequacies in procedures and practice on the ward? Does she accept the question that has been put by the parents: was Grantham different from any other hospital in Britain in terms of staffing, qualification, training and the practices and procedures that were adopted?

Does she accept that we know that Grantham was not different? That is why the report must be taken seriously, not only to deal with a potential crisis or malevolent spirit but to put right what is wrong throughout the NHS. In that way, we can ensure that the confidence that is rightly there for all those who work in the NHS can be reinforced, and we can put this tragic incident behind us.

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's response to my statement and the seriousness with which he quite rightly takes this matter.

I shall first speak on the nature of the inquiry. It is important that the parents and others involved believe that the full facts have been revealed. I must tell the hon. Gentleman and the House that, having myself been involved in a number of inquiries concerning child abuse, I know the way that an adversarial public inquiry, in the blaze of publicity, can frequently intimidate witnesses, maximise distress and, far from exposing the full facts, result in a report that many believe fails to get to the bottom of these sensitive matters. Debate will continue about the right form of inquiry when such tragic cases of a very sensitive nature take place.

I commend to the hon. Gentleman and the House an editorial from the Solicitors Journal in which it is said that the adversarial system of examination of witnesses in public in such matters has major drawbacks: potential witnesses whose existence is not at present known may be reluctant to come forward if they are to endure public examination, and their evidence then will remain untold; known witnesses may be reluctant to tell the whole truth and will hold back information. The key criteria to be satisfied should be that the inquiry team is competent and independent, that it has access to information, that witnesses are confident to come forward and give their evidence, and that the report is published in full.

Those criteria particularly influenced me in the decision that it was the best form of inquiry to get to the bottom of those desperate facts. Sir Cecil and his team interviewed 94 witnesses, all of whom were willing to come forward. Thousands of pages of documentation were studied. There was no problem in obtaining documents. Had there been any difficulty with the powers under the inquiry, Sir Cecil would, of course, have come back and I would have been able to reconsider the basis of the inquiry. The single and only purpose in my mind as Secretary of State was to establish the facts in the most effective way. The fact that the inquiry was supported by the community health council, Sir Louis Blom-Cooper and others from an authoritative position was encouraging. I believe that the report vindicates the means of the inquiry and establishes it as a good model for the future.

The hon. Gentleman raised a series of other important matters. I shall quote from the report, which I believe is central to the issue of how 26 incidents could have taken place without being identified. Sir Cecil says:

"The idea of a nurse deliberately taking the lives of children under her charge is almost unthinkable."

It was as though the staff there were paralysed from looking to the area they needed to look to for the source of those crimes. Although there has been speculation about her absence record, the report also says that there was nothing to suggest that Beverly Allitt, with all her record of sickness absence, would have been a danger to those children on the ward.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about occupational health. It is an extremely important area. We will provide new guidance, but we must work with other agencies and authorities before we produce that final guidance.—particularly on the question of people with a severe personality disorder—about the appropriateness of contracting GPs to ask medical questions which may conflict with medical confidentiality about staff who work in the health service. There is more work to be done before that final guidance can go out now that the report is in the public domain. The same applies to staffing.

There has been a 60 per cent. increase in the number of sick children's nurses in training over the past four years. That is a substantial rise. The number of registered sick children's nurses in the wards has risen from 3·5 to 8·4. There has also been a substantial increase in the number of paediatric consultants: the total number of medical staff in paediatrics has risen by more than a third in the past five years. There will be an extra 1,000 qualified children's nurses this year, an extra 1,200 next year and an extra 1,300 the following year. The challenge is to ensure that those who qualify as registered sick children's nurses stay on children's wards; if that is to be delivered in practice, more work must be done with the profession.

Sir Cecil Clothier says:

"No single circumstance or individual can be held responsible for what happened. But taken together, the catalogue of lapses from the high standards to which the National Health Service aspires point to lessons which need to be heeded if every effort is to be made to contain such a catastrophe should it strike again."

The chief executive of the NHS has written to people throughout the health service, to be certain that management, nurses, doctors and all concerned study and absorb the lessons of the inquiry.

The parents of one of the children involved are my constituents. May I echo the condolence that has been expressed so far? Let me also express the condolences of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg), who, although he is present, is unable, by convention, to take part in exchanges such as this because he is a senior Minister.

It is some small comfort to know that, as soon as these dreadful incidents came to light, the health authority took prompt action to try to reassure patients, potential patients and their parents. It is also very satisfactory that four paediatric consultants from the Queen's medical centre in Nottingham—a centre of excellence in our region—are now running that department. It is hoped that that will reassure those who may wish to use Grantham and Kesteven in the future, particularly its paediatric department.

I thank my hon. Friend for what he has said. A determined effort has been made to improve services on many fronts at Grantham and Kesteven hospital. The hospital will hold a press conference later today, at which it will report not only changes on the children's ward—my hon. Friend rightly cited the management control from Queen's medical centre in Nottingham—but improvements to services generally. In regard to waiting times and many other matters, it now leads the region.

My hon. Friend rightly commended the work of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg). He has been a diligent, dutiful and determined constituency Member of Parliament throughout these events, and has engaged in regular discussions with me—and with others concerned—about the deep anxiety felt by parents and many others.

The distress felt by other staff at the hospital is formidable. The affair has been a great shock to all concerned, but the staff are determined to put it behind them, and to ensure that the hospital continues to flourish and to serve the community. Above all, I hope that the report will lay to rest parents' deep unhappiness, which has been exacerbated by the feeling of not knowing the full facts about how these events could possibly have occurred.

I, too, welcome the report, and extend my sympathies to the parents involved. I only wish that the inquiry had been public, as the parents wished it to be.

I am glad that the Secretary of State agrees that understaffing was one of the problems. How will she address the understaffing problems that exist throughout the country? She has told us that four paediatric consultants have been engaged; will she tell us the number of hours for which they will work?

I have already made it clear that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of children's nurses being trained, partly as a result of the extremely successful Project 2000 initiative. As the hon. Lady will know, we have put £321 million into that project, which includes a component specifically for children's nurses. That has made it possible to increase substantially the number of sick children's nurses being trained: there will be a 9 per cent. increase this year alone. As I have said, in the past four years there has been a 47 per cent. increase in the number of qualified children's nurses.

As is made clear in the Audit Commission's report "Children First", we must ensure that, once children's nurses have qualified, they are encouraged to work on children's wards. It is a question not just of supply, but of recruitment and retention. On the basis of the mapping of the present position contained in Sir Duncan Nichol's inquiry report, we shall also want to talk to members of the profession about how we can encourage retention on the children's wards. Consultants are also working at Queen's medical centre, to secure the best possible standard of care and state-of-the-art help for children.

Will my right hon. Friend confirm, in fairness to them, that no individual doctors can be held directly responsible for these tragic events—although, as I am sure she will agree, all doctors must learn from them?

I can indeed confirm that. I hope that there will be opportunities to read the report more fully. According to Sir Cecil,

"There was certainly no evidence of lack of clinical skill and conscientious care on the part of the Consultants. The fact that more of the children did not suffer death or permanent injury can largely be attributed to their skill and persistence. Their failure was not to grasp with energy the problem presented by the highly unusual events that they were witnessing and to take systematic and decisive steps to elucidate their cause."

As those matters are subject to an appeal under section 190, I cannot comment further at this stage.

The whole House will agree that this appalling tragedy is every parent's nightmare. Now that the Secretary of State has published the report in full, may I point out that the parents—who are the people of whom we should be thinking—desperately wanted a public inquiry, as did their supporters? Surely they have as much right to the upholding of their views as have the professionals, however well meaning was the advice of those professionals.

Sometimes, the grieving process is helped if parents can go through events stage by stage. Access to a public inquiry might have provided the whole country with a lesson for the future.

It is a question of judgment, and my judgment is that, if 94 witnesses had been interviewed in the glare of publicity, the distress felt by many of the parties would have been exacerbated. Anyone who wished to make evidence public was free to do so. I have made it clear that if we want witnesses to speak freely and openly, we must ensure that they do not feel inhibited—as they frequently do—by the pressure of cross-examination, and the sense that every detail will be reported in the press, if not on television that night. Such an atmosphere is not conducive to free and open speaking.

There had already been a lengthy trial, and all the publicity associated with it; in a public inquiry, many of those elements would have been repeated. It is important, however, that parents study the report. If they have further questions, the various parties involved will be more than happy to see them. We must find the most effective and speedy way of getting to the bottom of these events. When the hon. Lady studies the report, she will be impressed by the rigour and determination with which the inquiry team undertook its task.

I must first apologise for not realising that you, Madam Speaker, wished to intervene in my speech.

I was saying that advertising in mature markets, whatever the product or service, is almost always tuned to the development and capturing of market share rather than to market development.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Will my hon. Friend forgive me if I do not do so? If I do not make headway, I fear that I shall not say everything that I want. I am afraid that it is rather factual, heavy stuff but it deals with the thrust of the Bill.

The Smee report, which has been mentioned, is seen by many proponents of an advertising ban as evidence of a link between developing consumption and advertising, but the opposite is true. Interestingly, the Smee report states that it is most true in the United Kingdom. It categorically states that its own statistical research exercise established that there was no such link in the United Kingdom, and it noted that independent research shows that advertising has no discernible effect on persuading children to start smoking.

These are statements in the Smee report. It is not peculiar, therefore, that Clive Smee has stated his believe that much more work needs to be done before any link could ever be established. It is interesting that many current advertising campaigns for cigarettes are unintelligible for those other than smokers of the brand.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I will not.

You are chicken—that is why.

If I am a chicken, it would be unparliamentary to describe what the hon. Gentleman is.

Argument for a ban would lead to much more pressure for such a step if a link were ever established. It is unlikely that it will be, but that is purely conjecture, and it is important to keep a perspective on the issue as a whole.

Advertising is permitted in the United Kingdom, yet cigarette consumption is declining faster here than in any other European country except Holland, where advertising is allowed. That is a considerable achievement, not least because of the positive contribution of the Health Education Authority. I defer to its efforts to improve health in this country, and to reduce the propensity to smoke. It needs our support.

It would be sad if that achievement were put at risk by freezing the market, which would be likely to stop the decline. The Health Education Authority says:

"all available measures which reduce smoking should be taken."

I absolutely agree, but an advertising ban would be as likely to have the opposite effect as it would be to have a beneficial effect. That is an extremely important point to make to all hon. Members who are concerned, as I am, about smoking and its effects but who have misunderstood the Bill as making the contribution that it aims to make.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I have to give way to my right hon. Friend.

I rise to interrupt because I know that my hon. Friend would not want to mislead the House. He has quoted conclusively from the Smee report. It has been pointed out, but I must point it out to him again, that, in his conclusion on the effect of advertising on the consumption of cigarettes, Smee says:

"The balance of evidence thus supports the conclusion that advertising does have a positive effect on consumption."

It would not be right for my hon. Friend to advance evidence without giving the conclusion of the Smee report. I am certain that he does not wish to mislead the House.

Smee has also expressed his belief that much more work needs to be done before any link can be established. Either of the statements can be interpreted in any way, and each side of the argument will do so, but Smee's belief is as true as the conclusion that my right hon. Friend quoted.

Could the hon. Gentleman possibly give way?

No, I could not possibly.

It is interesting that the four European Community countries with the best record on reducing smoking oppose further restrictions on cigarette advertising. It is not by chance that none of the four owns or has a monopoly in tobacco production and distribution, as is found in other countries. The power of advertising, in helping to sell a brand into a market, is clearly an insidious one as far as some countries' domestic trade is concerned. That influences their support of an advertising ban much more than any health circumstances.

The hon. Members for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) arid for Tooting (Mr. Cox) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery) have said that the case for health must be given priority. It is extremely important to analyse the experience of other countries where an advertising ban has been put into effect and what other influences have come into play. I say that particularly because I believe that our Chancellor of the Exchequer has applied the most serious, strongest and successful determinant in deterring people from smoking cigarettes—putting up their price.

New Zealand was mentioned by the hon. Member for Rother Valley. A partial ban on advertising was introduced there in December 1990. The British Medical Journal made much of the effect of the ban and declining consumption thereafter, but at the same time, and predating that Bill, there was a massive series of increases in excise tax.

These figures will shock my hon. Friends who are worried about indirect taxation or taxation of any kind: excise tax was increased in July 1989 by 28 per cent. and again by 110 per cent., in September 1989 by 112 per cent, in March 1990 by 115 per cent., in September 1990 by 118 per cent., in March 1991 by 121 per cent., and in July 1991 by 146 per cent.

Tobacco consumption had been falling since 1975—long before the increases started—but it was given added impetus by them. It is not peculiar, therefore, that the New Zealand Health Minister commented in November 1991:

"Changes in New Zealand's attitude to smoking led to a decline in tobacco consumption before the imposition of a ban and this decline has continued. At the same time economic factors such as a fall in incomes have had an effect on consumption."

Price increases, economic recession and changes in attitudes are responsible for the decline in overall consumption, rather than a partial advertising ban.

Let us go right the way round the world—to Canada, where there are similar circumstances. An advertising ban came into effect there in 1989. Simultaneously, excise tax was increased by more than 50 per cent. In 1990, the majority of provinces increased excise taxes by between 10 and 50 per cent. In 1991, the Federal Government increased their excise tax by another 58 per cent., and nine out of the 10 provinces increased excise tax by 20 to 40 per cent.

It is no wonder, therefore, that a recent appraisal by the Canadian Superior Court found

"the possibility (that advertising may affect overall consumption) goes no further than speculation and certainly does not rise to the level of probability."

Hon. Members may say that those are instances from other parts of the world, so let us return to an instance in our continent. An analysis of consumption for the period 1973 to 1990, carried out by the Institute for Youth Research for the German Federal Office for Health Education, concluded that there is no link between advertising for cigarettes and their consumption. Indeed, smoking had been decreasing among young people even though—

That defies logic.

The hon. Member might listen rather than always interjecting from a seated position.

Smoking among young people had declined even though the weight of advertising had substantially increased. That is very important.

I therefore remain committed to the reduction of smoking, but, contrary to popular opinion, and contrary to some of the arguments put in the House—in speeches and from a sedentary position—there is no case that will hold water that shows that the banning of tobacco advertising will contribute to that commitment. The gist of the Bill is that there is a link.

I share with other hon. Members considerable regret that so many children smoke, but all research shows that peer group pressure and parental influence are, and always were, the predominant factors in the problem. It is completely unproven, so it should not, especially when considering legislation, be unquestioningly accepted that advertising plays any significant part.

Of course children see advertising wherever they go—we all do—but that is because advertising is widespread in our daily life and is an expression of commercial freedom that allows our free market to operate. If ever advertising were restricted on the basis that children might see it, a peculiar foundation would have been laid for similar restrictions on all products that are inappropriate for sale to children, not always for reasons of health promotion.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No; the hon. Gentleman has already interjected enough from a sedentary position.

Seeing is not the same as being influenced to consume. Advertising's task would be much simpler if that were the case. Further, in pursuing such an argument in the case of tobacco, one should not ignore the publicity given to health risks through the advertised health warning, an argument that was made in an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Couchman).

One must, I believe, pay a compliment to the Government for the progress that has been made. It is well outlined in the "Smoke-free for Health" publication. I cite two items. There has been a decrease in smoking in the United Kingdom from 45 per cent. of the population in 1974 to 30 per cent. in 1990. A linear extrapolation of that line will lead to a rate of only 20 per cent. in the year 2000.

Another item to which I draw the House's attention is the effect of the Children and Young Persons (Protection from Tobacco) Act 1991. That gives additional protection to children at the point of sale, and it is crucial that they are protected at the point of sale.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I should like to draw the attention of the House—

Will the hon. Gentleman give way? It was my Bill—

Order.

I should like to draw the attention of the House to the importance of that Act. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds), who promoted the Bill and who is trying to draw attention to the fact now.

The freedom to communicate is what is at stake in the Bill. That must remain an extremely high priority for products that are legally and generally available. In a matter as important as that, I feel that the case for banning advertising has to be made—I believe that it has not been made in this case—before the Bill is given a Second Reading.

On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I am extremely happy to welcome the Bill. I wish the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) every success during its passage through Parliament. I also hope that the Government will allow hon. Members to express their own views rather than trying to impose the view of a section of the Cabinet. I have been part of the campaign against tobacco advertising for many years—long before I was elected. I am sure that many other right hon. and hon. Members have waited even longer for an opportunity to introduce a ban on tobacco advertising.

There is widespread evidence that tobacco advertising has an effect on consumption, whatever some right hon. and hon. Members may say. There is evidence that the Government themselves accept. Despite that, the Department of Health has failed to act decisively. The body of people—and organisations—who have come out in favour of a ban has been growing daily. I am sure that most hon. Members here have received information from various groups urging us to support a ban. One group in favour of a ban is the Conservative Medical Society. The patrons of that esteemed organisation are the Prime Minister and his immediate predecessor, who is not exactly well known for her anti-smoking stance. Even the Cabinet is split on the issue, with senior Ministers such as the President of the Board of Trade, the Secretary of State for the Environment and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a former Secretary of State for Health, being reported as being in favour of a ban.

Despite the groundswell of support, the Government have failed to act. In its recent document, "Smoke-Free for Health", the Department of Health admitted that smoking and its consequences for the health of the nation were still a major problem and that it was especially unhappy that smoking levels among 11 to 15-year-olds were not declining as much as it would like. The Government's response to the news—proposals to tax advertising or a levy on hoardings—will merely swell the Treasury coffers. Despite accepting the link between advertising and consumption, all that the Department has given us is an action plan which plans to take no effective action.

What is the extent of the health problems related to smoking? There are some useful statistics on this, courtesy of the Department of Health. Every year, more than 100,000 people die from tobacco-related diseases, more than 1,100 of them in my constituency of Rochdale. One non-smoker dies each day from lung cancer as a result of inhaling other people's smoke.

About 50 children under five are admitted each clay to hospital suffering from illnesses related to passive smoking. Those children also have more respiratory diseases than children from families who do not smoke. At a recent conference, it was declared that passive smoking was the biggest single factor in cot deaths. It is clear from those figures and many others that smoking is a major health hazard. Should we, therefore, be encouraging people to take up that addictive and dangerous habit? I think not.

The hon. Lady has produced some figures, but she has not substantiated them. She has not explained how they have been evaluated or whether we can be sure about them. Will she enlighten us?

I suggest that the hon. Member for Harrogate (Mr. Banks) contacts the Department of Health. I am sure that the Department will give him all the statistics that he needs. Nobody here today is arguing that people should not have the right to choose to smoke.

I am.

I take the hon. Gentleman's point. We may in future want to consider measures such as those that the United States Government are proposing whereby smokers are limited to smoking in certain places. Today, we are simply talking about a ban on advertising tobacco products. Given that most of us agree that smoking is harmful, it must be questionable whether such activities should be advertised on that basis alone.

I admit that the evidence on the effects of a ban is mixed. However, it is clear that in many places a ban has been successful. In Norway, smoking has decreased by 9 per cent. since the introduction of a ban. In New Zealand, it has decreased by 5·5 per cent. and in Canada by 4 per cent. Of course I accept that there are other influences that lead people to smoke, such as parental example, which may be more important. However, that alone is not an adequate excuse for not tackling the problem of tobacco advertising.

If, as many people argue, tobacco advertising is of little consequence and merely encourages people to change brands, why do tobacco companies spend about £100 million a year advertising their products? If the general public are so immune to advertising in general, why are the Government spending £12 million on an advertising and publicity campaign against smoking? Clearly, advertising does have an effect on people's behaviour. If it does not, the tobacco companies and the Department of Health are wasting an awful lot of money.

The final argument against banning tobacco advertising is that it is a terrible affront to freedom. As a Liberal Democrat, I am naturally concerned about attacks on individual liberties. However, we should consider whether it is more important for tobacco companies to have the freedom to advertise their wares or for individual citizens to have the freedom to live long and healthy lives. To my mind, a long and healthy life is of greater importance.

We have long had restrictions on the freedom of tobacco companies to advertise their products. Cigarette advertising, as has been mentioned, was banned on television in 1964 and the ban was extended to other tobacco products in 1991. Essentially, the theoretical argument for banning advertising was won more than 30 years ago. The Government's weak-kneed response to these arguments and to others that have been put by other hon. Members is that the voluntary controls that they have agreed with the industry are perfectly adequate. I would dispute that.

If the argument that the advertising of tobacco was all about brands, would it not be true to say that if all brands were banned from advertising they would have nothing to lose? Does the hon. Lady agree that the reason why hon. Members are arguing against the Bill is that they want to atttract new people to smoking?

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point with which I agree. Although the cigarette advertising code of practice says that adverts must not appeal more to the young than to the rest of the population, it is clear, as has been stated before, that the "Reg" campaign for Embassy Regal cigarettes did so. We all know that the series of advertisements was eventually withdrawn under pressure from the regulators. However, as the hon. Member for Rother Valley said, the adverts are back in a different form. The problem with regulations, voluntary or otherwise, is that advertisers will do their best to get around them and will often succeed in subtle ways which are not noticed by the regulator until it is too late.

What would happen if we banned the advertising of tobacco products and therefore the Government health warning disappeared from magazines and billboards? What impact would that have?

It would mean that a lot of young people especially would not take up smoking. If they could not see the tobacco advertising hoardings, we would not need the Government health warning.

The health risks involved mean that smoking is not a habit that we should be encouraging people to take up. If tobacco had been discovered in the past 100 years, rather than in the time of Elizabeth I, it would have been declared illegal. The number of teenage smokers shows that current campaigns and regulations do not work among the group of people about which we should be most concerned. The freedom of potential smokers to live a long and healthy life and the freedom of their children or partners to be unaffected by passive smoking for outweigh the freedom of the tobacco industry to market their products.

I therefore urge the House to support the Bill for the sake of the health of nation.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) on securing a place in the ballot and also on the selection of such an important subject for his Bill. Many of us have had the opportunity to promote private Members Bills in the past, but no one has had such an opportunity to save hundreds and possibly thousands of lives through such a Bill.

It is important for the House to remember that the Bill is an attempt not to remove an essential freedom from the individual, but to protect the susceptible individual from the dangers of addiction to a dangerous drug through subtle advertising. John Stuart Mill wrote on liberty:

"as soon as any part of a person's conduct affects prejudicially the interests of others, society has jurisdiction over it, and the question whether the general welfare will or will not be promoted by interfering with it, becomes open to discussion … Whenever, in short, there is a definite damage or a definite risk of damage, either to an individual or to the public, the case is taken out of the province of liberty and placed in that of morality or law".

There are plenty of precedents for such limitations in the promotion of other goods. Prescription medicines are not allowed by law to be advertised to the general public, and under the British code of advertising practice, no advertisement to the lay public is allowed in respect of a long list of diseases and conditions including cataracts, glaucoma, kidney disease, tuberculosis, any heart disease, diabetes, cancer and a number of others. It is extremely ironic that it is illegal to advertise cures for cancer, but legal to advertise and promote the agent that causes it.

Every year, 110,000 people die from smoking-related diseases in Britain. Smoking is the greatest preventable threat to health in the developed world. It kills 21 times as many people as road accidents and 15 times as many people as those who die of suicide, murder or manslaughter. Smoking is responsible for approximately one third of all cancers. Lung cancer kills more people than any other type of cancer, and 81 per cent. of lung cancer deaths are caused by smoking.

The younger the person when he or she begins smoking, the greater the risk of developing lung cancer. When I see young boys and girls puffing away at cigarettes, I feel a deep sense of anguish at the dangers they are facing.

On that point, I am fortunate to have as one of my constituents Professor Baum, professor of surgery and director of clinical research at the Royal Marsden hospital. In a letter to me, he says that he was especially in favour of banning tobacco advertising, and says that it could prevent young people from developing the habit. The letter states:

"this could lead to the saving of say 20,000 premature deaths a year. This simple expedient could achieve more than the sum total of our research efforts into cancer".

The hon. Lady is right to produce that evidence. All hon. Members have received a wide range of representations from medical experts that give the same message. There are other common killers in our lives, one of which is coronary heart disease. That is the leading cause of death in the United Kingdom, and smoking is responsible for at least 20 per cent. of those 175,000 deaths.

My father died of a coronary attack 10 years before his normal life expectation. He was a chain smoker who smoked 50 or more a day. He was encouraged to smoke during the first world war, in which he served, by the free issue of good old Woodbine cigarettes to all service men. We talked about parental influence—I grew up with my two brothers and my sister to the sound each morning of a wracking smoker's cough. The effect of my father smoking meant that none of us ever smoked a cigarette in our lives.

In recent years, medical evidence has accumulated to the stage where any measure to prevent smoking addiction surely must have the support of anyone interested in preventive care.

My hon. Friend has read out figures on the causes of death that are probably not in dispute. He mentioned coronary diseases and heart problems. To provide a sense of balance, he should inform us—if he knows the figures—how many diseases are alcohol-related, particularly in relation to young people. If, as I suspect, those figures are comparable with the ones that he has given on tobacco-related illness, would he follow the same course of action suggested in the Bill and ban the advertising of alcohol?

I shall leave the hon. Gentleman to make the points that he wants to make in his own speech. As someone who is interested in preventing illness, disease and death, I find it astonishing that people should use another activity that also causes deaths to argue against a measure that could prevent hundreds and thousands of deaths.

We now know that unborn children are affected by their mothers smoking, just as non-smokers are affected by smokers in confined spaces. With all that evidence, I am amazed that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health still defends the present position, although she is beginning to meet our wishes with the voluntary code. I am amazed that the Government oppose the European draft directive to ban tobacco advertising.

The costs to the health service are enormous. About 10,000 hospital beds are occupied daily by people suffering from smoking-related diseases, at an annual cost to the NHS of more than £325 million. The Government have set "Health of the Nation" targets for the reduction in the morbidity and mortality patterns in heart disease, cancers, HIV and AIDS, sexual health, accidents and mental illness. Smoking has been implicated directly or indirectly—including social settings—in the epidemiology of those diseases. If there is no ban on tobacco advertising, the Government's own good intentions for health of the nation issues will be seriously undermined.

If the Department of Health wishes to decrease the incidents and prevalence of those diseases, but stands out against banning advertisements, it sets up a contradiction. It is strange that, while the Department of Health pays lip service to the problem, I, and I expect other hon. Members, have received impassioned pleas from our constituency health organisations asking us to support the Bill.

I have received letters from the Devon family health services authority, the Royal Devon and Exeter health care trust, the Exeter and district community health service trust, the Exeter and North Devon health authorities, the Exeter and district branch of the National Council of Women of Great Britain and the local office of the Royal College of General Practitioners. Surely that combined call from integral parrts of our national health service should convince the Government of the need for a complete ban on tobacco advertising.

I received a letter from the British Thoracic Society which stated:

"In our work as respiratory physicians we are all too aware of the tragic consequences of smoking. Every year over 40,000 men and women die from lung cancer, and in 90 per cent. of these people the condition is caused by smoking. On top of this, 75 per cent. of the 22,000 people who die from chronic bronchitis and emphysema can blame their condition on smoking, and we know and see much of the long-term breathlessness and suffering which precedes death."

This is the important bit:

"It seems most unlikely that the Government's White Paper targets for smoking reduction among children will be achieved without a major new initiative particularly to reduce the alarming levels of children and especially young girls who continue to take up smoking. The Government's advisers, in the Smee Report, concluded after a full appraisal of the evidence that one of the most effective ways of reducing the uptake of smoking among young people would be a complete ban on all forms of tobacco advertising and promotion."

I am sorry to intervene on my hon. Friend and take up time, but as two and a half hours have passed and only one speech has been made against the Bill, I hope that I will be allowed to make a point.

Surely my hon. Friend, who is a reasonable man, will accept that, notwithstanding one's disapproval of smoking—I do not smoke, either—there is a fundamental civil liberties point; that never before have we banned advertising of something that was freely available over the counter, not on a prescription and not on a licence. It is truly a mark of a free society that one is prepared to tolerate other people's practices and opinions, even if one disapproves of them.

If that was a correct statement, I would agree with it, but it is not. There are bans on advertising in a wide range of areas.

Where?

On television and on radio. We have bans, in effect. As I have mentioned, we have bans on the promotion of all sorts of other products. My hon. Friend's argument does not apply.

I do not want to labour the point, but does my hon. Friend accept that restrictions are different from total bans, and that there is no example of a product which has a total ban on advertising and yet is freely available? That is a crucial point.

There is a total ban on the advertising of cigarattes on television and radio. There is a ban, in effect. It is untrue that it does not exist—it does exist. The Bill would extend the ban to try to alleviate a grave threat to the nation's health.

The question is whether a ban would work and effectively reduce smoking. The fact that the Government are pursuing wide-ranging controls through their voluntary agreement with the tobacco industry shows that they believe that bans work.

In any case, the chief economic adviser of the Department of Health, who has been quoted several times, in his survey on the effectiveness of such bans, reported that other countries have introduced bans on advertising and that there have been evident significant drops in consumption. He has reported on four countries, but others, such as France, Italy, Australia, Sweden and Portugal, also now have bans on advertising, so we are not treading a lone course in following the proposal.

In this country, such a ban would replace the voluntary agreements between the Government and the tobacco industry which currently control tobacco advertising. All are agreed, I believe, that that self-regulatory system is flawed, as it regulates only the style and the media of tobacco advertising. Such advertising is banned on television and radio, but it is legal elsewhere. It is legal in streets, shops, cinemas, sponsored sports and entertainment venues. As we know, every year the tobacco industry spends more than £100 million on advertisements which help to recruit new users, usually young children arid young adults.

If there is a problem with a loss of tax revenue, it is misplaced. The saving in health costs and in the health of the nation will more than outweigh the tax revenue lost through the introduction of the measure. In any case, the Government have power to adjust tax revenue through the tobacco duties that they apply.

We in the all-party disablement group place at the top of the list the prevention of illness, disease and disability. Prevention is absolutely at the top of the list. I passionately believe that the House should support the measure, and I ask hon. Members to give it a Second Reading today.

This Bill, like the one introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Warley, West (Mr. Faulds), is partly aimed at the rights and protection of the health of children. This is one of the areas on which I wish to concentrate.

Hon. Members may have seen the report from the Royal College of Physicians, a "Charter for children's rights to freedom from tobacco". Essentially, the message of the royal college, which is backed by a range of organisations such as the British Cardiac Society, the British Heart Foundation, the British Lung Foundation, the British Thoracic Society and numerous organisations concerned with health, is that they expect public health to reflect those rights.

There has been some discussion about who is influenced by advertising. There is no doubt that young people are especially susceptible to being affected by advertising. Eighty-four per cent. of regular smokers say that they became regular smokers before the age of 20. Forty-five per cent. of male smokers and 39 per cent. of female smokers say that they became regular smokers before the age of 16—before the age below which it is now illegal for retailers to sell and supply the product.

It has been suggested by those who speak for the advertising industry and the tobacco industry that tobacco advertising only increases the market share, not the total consumption. All the evidence points to the fact that the advertising of cigarettes has a particular effect, both in terms of total consumption and market share, on young people, especially those under the age of 16.

When we talk about this product, and whether it is right or wrong to ban specific products, we must examine the specific nature of tobacco. Can hon. Members name any other manufactured product that, if used according to the manufacturer's instructions, is likely to kill one in four of the people who use it? Tobacco must be seen in a specific light.

We know that the largest cause of preventable ill health is smoking. Each year, 110,000 premature deaths are caused by and linked directly to smoking. A comparison has been made between deaths from smoking and deaths from other causes such as road accidents and suicides. If we add together all the deaths from road accidents, suicides, murder, manslaughter, fires, the use of illicit drugs and AIDS, we still find that there are six times more premature deaths from smoking than the total number of deaths from those other causes.

We are talking about 300 deaths a day—that is 300 customers a day that the tobacco industry loses. To maintain its market, the industry needs to recruit 300 new smokers a day. Who are those new smokers whom the industry recruits? Are they people my age? Are they people of your age, Madam Deputy Speaker? Are they people of the age of the Minister? No. The people who are recruited daily are young people—and predominantly those under the age of 16.

All the advertising—it may have been banned on television and radio—is geared in its imagery to appeal to young people. Tory Members say that perhaps we should leave this to the good sense and trust of the tobacco industry. My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley showed through the "Reg" campaign how much we can trust the tobacco industry. The industry will use every method available to get round the voluntary regulations.

In 1990, the Secretary of State said:

"if cigarettes were introduced today, their production and sale would probably be banned".—[Official Report, 20 July 1990; Vol. 176, c. 1340.]

Tory Members have said that the sale and consumption of tobacco is not illegal. The sale of tobacco products to persons under 16 is unlawful, yet the basis of advertising campaigns is to attract people to whom it is illegal to sell the product. I do not believe that children, through advertising—

The hon. Gentleman puts a persuasive case, which is widely accepted, about the health damage caused by smoking, and suggests that, if tobacco were a new product, it would not be legal in the first place. Is he therefore saying that he supports making the product illegal—and if not, why not?

That is a wider debate. I am concerned today with getting through a Bill which will make a major contribution to saving lives, and particularly the lives of young people.

All the advertising industry and most of the imagery in advertising is geared towards young people. I believe that that is inherently evil, and hon. Members have a responsibility to try to stop it. The Government have accepted the principle that it is right to put controls on advertising, because they have accepted that cigarettes and tobacco should be banned from advertising on radio and television.

The hon. Gentleman says emphatically that advertising is aimed specifically at young people, and he mentioned the "Reg" campaign. "Reg", as we have heard, was an old and balding man, who I hardly think would appeal to young people. Will the hon. Gentleman explain how advertisements such as the one in which a dog was cocking its leg against a bollard and other tobacco advertisements which mystify the majority of the population, including children, actually influence young people to take up cigarette smoking?

The hon. Gentleman may find that children and young people are more adept at interpreting the messages which are concealed behind advertisements than perhaps people of his own age and generation.

One year ago, Kirklees council conducted research on the effects of the "Reg" campaign among young people. In a sample of young people aged between 14 and 15, 43 per cent. said that the "Reg" advertisements would make them more likely to smoke, while 5 per cent. said that the advertisements would make them less likely to smoke.

The research was done long before the Health Education Authority research, and the tobacco companies said at the time that the research was flawed, and that it should be chucked into the waste bin and ignored. However, the HEA produced research later which was so damning, and which backed up those early findings so strongly, that the "Reg" campaign was banned.

I am grateful for my hon. Friend's intervention, and I agree with him.

I draw the House's attention to a resume of the academic research on the influence of advertising on children. The document is called "From the Billboard to the Playground", and was produced by the Cancer Research Campaign. It concentrated on the particular impact of advertising on young children.

The research shows that young people more readily remember advertisements. They can identify the product with its slogan; the research shows that 83 per cent. of 11 to 14-year-olds recall seeing at least one cigarette advert, and over half remember seeing two or more. When those same children were shown examples of cigarette adverts, they were, on average, able to recognise as many as five different adverts.

Hon. Members should look at the interviews with children themselves, when they were asked what images they see from advertising. The children replied:

"hard men smoke this cigarette … the advert was telling you that if you smoke them you are going to be a macho he-man … it is colourful, like all cigaretts ads … trying to associate the products with glamour … glamourising cigarettes—cocktails and all that fanciness".

There is a suggestion that advertising is directed at young people to make smoking appear smart or cool because the tobacco industry needs to recruit those 300 new smokers a day.

The issue of advertising and young people is clearly critical. The Smee report has been referred to by hon. Members in the debate. Although it is true that advertising increases the awareness of young people, the report suggests that it is not reliable evidence that advertising increases consumption among young people. What does the hon. Gentleman have to say about that?

The hon. Gentleman ought to read some of the statements by Ministers. One of the things on which all hon. Members agree is that we must be clear in the messages we give to young peole and children. Children need clear messages. As a result of the current state of public policy, children are receiving mixed messages. The advertising from the tobacco industry contradicts the advertising of the Government's health message. A ban on cigarette and tobacco advertising would be just about the most powerful health message that the Government could give.

Yesterday, the Secretary of State for Health came to the House to talk about health in London. She made a statement about the importance of primary care services and the prevention of ill-health. The biggest contribution she could make to combating ill-health in the nation would be to put a ban on cigarette advertising.

Every Member of Parliament could point to the impact of cigarette smoking on their constituencies. Of the 792 people who die in Woolwich every year, one in five dies as a result of cigarette smoking. Each year, 458 residents of Woolwich go into a national health service hospital because of smoking-related illnesses. Twelve beds every day are taken up by people with smoking-related illnesses.

The Secretary of State said yesterday that some of us in London were obsessed with beds. I can tell her one way of reducing the need for beds. It is to reduce the consumption of cigarettes. She could make a major contribution by supporting my hon. Friend's Bill.

On that point, has the hon. Gentleman found, as I have, that many people who work in the health service have written pleading with us to support the Bill? They appreciate how many lives it will save and how much it will reduce the pressure on our valuable national health service resources.

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's intervention. I was about to refer to the £325 million direct cost to the national health service of tobacco-related illness. I draw in aid and support the comments which consultant physicians in my area have made to me, as they have to other hon. Members. I have received a letter signed by every consultant in the department of respiratory and general medicine of the Greenwich health care trust urging me to come to the House today to support my hon. Friend's Bill.

I have received a letter from a consultant physician at the Brook hospital. He says

"As a Chest Physician, virtually every day I see both in my Out-patient clinics and as In-patients… the effect that smoking has had on my middle-aged and elderly patients who have gradually become incapacitated with chronic bronchitis and emphysema which has progressed to respiratory failure … In addition, I have a substantial number of young patients with asthma, many of whom have taken up smoking in their teens. These individuals as well as risking the medium and long-term consequences of smoking, already in a minor way exhibit the detrimental effects of the habit on the frequency and severity of their attacks of asthma. Like most health professionals"—

in this case we ought to listen to those people who are involved at the sharp end in dealing with the menace of tobacco smoking—

"I feel exasperated and frustrated by the unwillingness of the Department of Health to support proposals to ban tobacco advertising; indeed, the perception is that the Department is more interested in the promotion of the tobacco industry than good health."

If the Minister wants to show that that is not true, and end the exasperation and frustration of consultants, he should give his whole-hearted and unqualified support to my hon. Friend's Bill.

There is concrete evidence. Some people will deny evidence, no matter how strong. If they do not believe that the evidence is absolutely foolproof, I ask them to examine the evidence on the basis of reasonableness and probability. No one who takes an objective view could come to any other conclusion than, first, that smoking kills, and secondly, that advertising tobacco increases the take-up of smoking.

As the hon Member for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone) said, other factors may lead to an increase or decrease in smoking. Price, taxation and Government health education campaigns may all have an effect, but advertising presents smoking as an apparently normal and socially acceptable habit, and it swamps the health message that the Government are trying to convey. Will the Minister consider how many children could be saved from thinking that smoking is okay, cool and a smart habit?

As the Smee report suggests, smokers feel that smoking cannot be as dangerous as the Government point out, if they allow the product to be advertised so freely. The Government spend an important sum on tobacco-linked health education, but it is a pittance compared to the resources of the tobacco industry against which they are competing.

The Government report states that the existence of pro-smoking advertising dilutes the impact of the health education message. Other factors may lead to a decline in smoking, as the hon. Member for Lewes said, but Smee concludes in the Government's own report that in those countries where a ban has been imposed, taking into account all the other factors, such as price, taxation and health education,

"the banning of advertising was followed by a fall … which cannot reasonably be attributed to other factors."

The Conservative party derives much of its income from the tobacco industry. One wonders whether some Conservative Members might be more concerned about the health of the Tory party than the health of the nation. [Interruption.] If Conservative Members believe that that is a slur on their integrity, they can prove it by voting for my hon. Friend's Bill.

I have always been surprised at the convention of the House by which we congratulate an hon. Member on his success in the ballot, bearing in mind that it was a ballot, but I congratulate the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) on the way in which he introduced his Bill. As one who has introduced a private Member's Bill and seen it through to the statute book I appreciate the commitment and emotion associated with the introduction of his Bill.

First, I shall try to make as much common cause as possible with some of the comments of the hon. Member for Rother Valley. I am sure that everyone would wish to endorse his generous comments about the late Jo Richardson and Jimmy Boyce. I did not know Jo Richardson very well, but it is one of the pleasures of this House that friendships can strike up across the Floor between Members of opposite parties. I should like to think that Jimmy Boyce and I would have considered ourselves friends and just before his death we were discussing the possibility of my visiting his constituency with him. As the hon. Gentleman knows, it is not a matter for me, but I hope that it will be possible for those hon. Members who so wish to attend his memorial service later this afternoon.

There are many areas of common cause between us. First, there is no debate about the fact that we want to reduce tobacco consumption. Our record in this country is impressive and I shall return to it. However, the Bill is not about reducing, or not reducing, tobacco consumption as that is a given.

Secondly, I agree that it is not a party political issue and I regret the end of the speech by the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Austin-Walker). In three hours, that was the first attempt to make a party political point on an issue which is not party political.

Another issue on which we agree is that advertising is an important influence. As the hon. Member for Rother Valley pointed out, we said so ourselves on Monday in paragraph 4.52 of the document to which reference has been made. So there is no disagreement among us about whether advertising is a legitimate area of concern-we agree that it is.

This manifestly difficult issue generates strong feelings and views, some of which have been expressed this morning. Others will no doubt be expressed before the end of the debate. The Government believe that the existing voluntary agreements, which we intend to strengthen, have been effective and have served us well, that they can achieve the necessary protection and that they are preferable to the legislative route. But I wish to deal with that matter as helpfully as I can.

Clearly, there is no quick fix to this problem. Long-term concerted action will be more effective than just slogans, so I want to show that the Government have identified the main issues that affect tobacco consumption. We are trying to take, and believe that we are taking, effective action on all fronts. It will range from the £12 million three-year advertising programme to be launched later this year, to which the hon. Member for Rother Valley referred, to improving the material to be made available by general practitioners to people who visit their surgeries.

Controls on advertising are one element in that picture. I shall seek to explain why we believe that our proposed course of opening negotiations with the tobacco industry to strengthen the present voluntary agreement is preferable to a ban.

As my right hon. Friend will know, I am a sponsor of the Bill. Is he aware that, seven or eight years ago, when I was a Minister at the Department, I made speeches using exactly the same words as he is now using about the value of the voluntary ban, how the Department of Health itself would spend more money on advertising to persuade youngsters not to smoke, and how the legislative route was not the right way to proceed? Does he now agree that the seven or eight years that have elapsed and the extraordinary body of evidence that has been presented so effectively by the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) show that it is now time to think again?

I agree with my hon. Friend that, since she was a distinguished Minister in this Department, the level of tobacco consumption has fallen considerably under the measures which she endorsed for this House. What she advocated at the Dispatch Box has proved to be effective in the years since she stood here.

If we depart from the voluntary approach and ban advertising for a product that is and will remain legal to sell, significant evidence would be needed to convince us that that would deliver more effective results. The element of the speech of the hon. Member for Rother Valley that was significant by its absence was the fact that he did not say whether he felt comfortable about seeking to make illegal the advertising of something that is legal.

Does my right hon. Friend accept that many Conservative Members are concerned that this could be the thin end of a rather nasty wedge? Has he seen the comment of the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) in which he asked the junior Minister at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to

"examine the possibility of promoting a ban on the advertising of alcohol products"?—[Official Report, 28 October 1993; Vol. 230, c. 967.]

Is there not a danger that a ban on tobacco advertising may be followed by a similar ban on the advertising of whisky, beer and tens of other products of which the hon. Member disapproves?

I understand that concern. It is shared by some in the House and outside, but I shall concentrate on the Bill that is before us. No doubt, when right hon. and hon. Members make their judgment at the end of the debate, they will play a number of arguments in their minds. For some, the hon. Gentleman's argument may be one that they wish to play.

The Minister's argument about freedom and of things that are able to be bought legally could well have been argued in 1965 when the Government and subsequent Governments decided that they would not allow the advertising of cigarettes on radio and television, because of public health implications. What has altered?

I think that the hon. Gentleman made that point earlier, but I am happy to have given him the opportunity to make it again.

It is already known—I repeated it on Monday—that we are making good progress on three of the four targets that we set out in "Health of the Nation". One target on which we are not making good progress is in young people aged 11 to 15. That is a matter of concern. I have been able to tell the House of some interesting new information. Within that age group, the children whose parents do not smoke have reached the target of 6 per cent. The percentage of children of parents who smoke has not shown any movement. I put that point to the House because no one has yet sought to make a differential advertising argument in relation to whether advertising would be effective for the children of parents who smoke compared with children of those who do not. The House will want to bear that piece of relevant information in mind.

Does the Minister agree that factors that dissuade people from taking up smoking tend to reinforce themselves? In families where neither parent smokes, there will be strong pressure on the children not to smoke. Therefore, those children will be less susceptible to the effects of tobacco advertising. All the evidence shows that those who are most affected by advertising are those who grow up in a smoke-filled environment. Therefore, it is important to ban advertising, because that group are most at risk of smoking, are affected by advertising and take up smoking in greatest numbers.

When the hon. Gentleman comes to reflect on what he has just said, he will find that, in a perverse sort of way, he is reinforcing the point that I am putting to the House.

I shall deal later with parental behaviour and attitude, about which there is common ground across the House. I have not yet heard it argued that there is some differential advertising effect. In the light of the new information, that needs to be argued. About 20 years ago, 45 per cent. of this country's population smoked. In 1990, the figure was 30 per cent. In 1992, 28 per cent. smoked.

That is a very impressive record, not because the statistics look good or that it shines a lamp of glory on the Government, but because it has been achieved by the combined effects of many people and represents lives saved and ill health avoided. We need to examine the way in which that was achieved, and whether any improve-ments are necessary.

I do not think that there is any argument about the reduction in smoking. Is my hon. Friend aware, however, of a disturbing trend among young people? The lung cancer death rate among women under 45 is 50 per cent. higher in some parts of Yorkshire than elsewhere in the country. Many of us are worried about the number of young people, particularly girls—not even women—who are taking up smoking after seeing all the advertising.

I am aware of that problem, and I am no less concerned about it than my hon. Friend. We are all concerned. Concern about ill health is not a party political issue; all Members of Parliament feel such concern—on behalf of their constituents, and as a result of their corporate responsibility for the well-being of the country.

The issue is not whether lung cancer is caused by smoking. I was brought up in a family of non-smokers, but my uncle died of lung cancer, having smoked about 80 cigarettes a day. As a teenager, I visited him in hospital shortly before he died. Like many hon. Members, I need no instruction about the link between lung cancer and smoking. The issue, however, is much narrower—whether the Bill would improve the existing arrangements, which we are reviewing and some of which we intend to tighten so as to reduce tobacco consumption even further.

I thank my hon. Friend for the useful statistics that he gave. Two factors, however, should be borne in mind. First, a voluntary arrangement has been working very well in the United Kingdom; it has been revised nine times, and honed down. Secondly, action is being taken in regard to advertising. The Bill is, after all, about advertising. Despite the confluence of those two factors, Opposition Members say that advertising is causing the trouble, but obviously it is not.

As I have said, I do not consider this a party political issue. Hon. Members on both sides of the House feel strongly about it, and I respect their views.

Smoking-related diseases still account for about 110,000 premature and avoidable deaths a year. It is estimated that some 50 million working days may be lost annually because of smoking. My right hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery) dealt with all the health issues with his customary skill.

Evidence also suggests—it is more recent evidence, but it is important—that perhaps one non-smoker a day dies as a consequence of inhaling other people's tobacco smoke. The hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) made that point, citing Roy Castle. Every day, about 50 children under five are admitted to hospital suffering from illnesses related to passive smoking; children that age are almost certainly inhaling smoke from their parents' cigarettes.

There is no difference between hon. Members on this point. The White Paper, "The Health of the Nation", set out for the first time specific, quantified targets for reducing smoking, and the Government as a whole are committed to those targets. They have been widely welcomed by everyone with an interest in health. The targets are ambitious but, given the seriousness of the subject, they should be. They are not simply a forward projection of historic trends and the Government are determined to meet them.

I am sure that the House will agree that the statistic of 110,000 people a year dying from smoking-related diseases is appalling. Why, then, does hardly anyone die from the smoking or using of cannabis? If we treat this as a health issue, cannot a case be made for banning nicotine and legalising cannabis?

I have a vague memory that I have heard the hon. Gentleman on this point before. However, I suspect that our agenda today is full enough without wandering down that byway.

My right hon. Friend has outlined the success of the Government's voluntary policy in many respects. He will be aware that, nationally, the infant mortality rate has declined but that Bolton has a rising rate of infant mortality. It is now twice as high as the national average, which is causing concern. Will he confirm the link between maternal smoking and low birth-weight babies and that infant mortality is linked to the incidence of low birth-weight babies? Is he aware of the strength of feeling in Bolton about the "Reg" targeted advertising campaign, which without doubt is in breach of the voluntary code because of its impact on young people? Will he consider asking tobacco and advertising companies to make Bolton an oasis free of advertising and to conduct a health education campaign to see whether we can reduce diseases and the effects of tobacco smoking?

On the first of my hon. Friend's three questions, yes, there is evidence linking maternal smoking to low birth-weight babies and other problems with new-born children. Secondly, I am aware of the effects of the "Reg" campaign in Bolton, not least because he and my fellow Minister in the Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Sackville), have assiduously informed me of it on behalf of their constituents, and I pay tribute to them for doing so. Thirdly, as my hon. Friend will know, and he will be encouraged that I know, he has written to me in the past couple of days suggesting the oasis idea. I shall reflect on it and write to him.

I am beginning to develop a problem. Let me share it with the House. It has always been my view that, especially on private Member's Bills, Ministers presenting the Government's case should be as open and as active in the debate as it is possible to be, and I have sought to do that in the past 20 minutes. The consequence is that we shall not make as much progress and other hon. Members will not be able to make the speeches that they should like. I leave it to the House to decide. I shall seek to be as responsive and helpful as I can, but there is a price to be paid by other hon. Members and they will have to decide how they wish to handle the matter.

Recognising that 110,000 deaths a year are attributed to smoking-related diseases and that progress as a result of Government action to date has been rather slow in solving the problem, will the Minister make a dramatic gesture to show clearly today that the Government are taking this seriously, because it will become increasingly difficult for small measures to have any real impact in the future?

The difficulty is that the hon. Gentleman's point does not stand robustly against the evidence. We are not making slow progress. Other than the Netherlands, to which I shall return later, we have the best record in Europe and one of the best in the world for reducing tobacco consumption. The hon. Gentleman knows me well enough to know that I am not given to dramatic gestures most of the time.

On Monday, the Government published "Smoke-free for Health", an action plan to achieve the "Health of the Nation" targets on smoking. It shows that we are on track for three of the four main targets, which is encouraging, but we need to build on that momentum. We also need to recognise that there are sectors in which we are not making the progress that we should like to make, and that is especially so in the 11 to 15 age group. That is a key concern for hon. and right hon. Members and it has been reinforced in the debate. I want the House to know that it is a key concern of Ministers also.

Because we recognise the need for continuing action, the plan sets out the key elements of what we believe to be a strategic and comprehensive approach to achieve the targets. That approach extends throughout Government, and comment has already been made, not least by the hon. Member for Rother Valley, about the involvement of the Treasury in that policy. Controls on tobacco advertising are one element of that strategy, but they are only one element. There are others.

We are taking action on price because we know that there is good, solid evidence that price influences consumption. We are taking action to ensure that tobacco products are not sold to children; I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds), whose Bill—which became the Children and Young Persons (Protection from Tobacco) Act 1991—made that possible.

We are also taking action to tell smokers and non-smokers about the health risk and trying to put in place helplines and other forms of help to people who wish to quit smoking. We are trying to take action to protect non-smokers from passive smoking. We are trying to take action to improve scientific understanding of the risks from tobacco and to reduce the harm from tobacco products, and I was glad that several people welcomed my announcement on Monday of the setting up of the new scientific committee. We are also taking action to ensure effective controls on advertising and promotion.

Cutting smoking does not require action from Government only. It is a challenge for everyone. One ill-informed newspaper report accused me of passing the buck when I said that on Monday. It is a fallacy that the Government, by themselves, have the ability to reduce tobacco consumption. All of us have a part to play. I will discuss that in more detail later, but parents should realise how strong an influence they have on their children's smoking habits.

There seems to be no argument to enable us to discount the evidence that children with parents who both smoke are two and a half times as likely to be regular smokers as children with non-smoking parents. One study has shown that children who believe that their parents strongly disapprove of them smoking are seven times less likely to become smokers than children who think that their parents do not care. Whatever else may divide the House today, as the message goes out to the country I hope that there is no ambiguity about the message that parents' behaviour and attitude to their children and to whether their children smoke is one of the most powerful ways of trying to stop that crucial 11 to 15 age group from adopting the habit.

One of my constituents, Mr. Tim Graham, is a founder member of Parents Against Tobacco. He asks the Government to help parents to convince their children of the dangers of smoking. He says

"It is very difficult to convince young people that we are serious about the risks of smoking, when they can see striking adverts for cigarettes on the streets where they play, in the shops where they buy their sweets, and when they watch sport on TV."

If the Government are serious about assisting parents they should respond to that cry from parents who are fighting that battle, and ban tobacco advertising.

The hon. Lady has twice made interventions that are essentially the same as her speech. I understand her point and I want her to know that my discussions at constituency level with my local Parents Against Tobacco group are constructive. Both she and I are committed in a variety of ways to trying to strengthen the influence of parents, which is crucial for this age group.

We look to teachers and school governors to give a lead by adopting policies on smoking and by taking action on health education in schools. They are talking to the crucial 11 to 15 age group. The nation curriculum now requires children between the ages of 7 and 16 to be taught about the harmful effects of smoking. I suspect that that requirement finds broad agreement across the House.

We expect retailers to obey the law which prevents sales of tobacco to children under 16. If they fail to do so, we expect local authorities to discharge their responsibilities. We also urge employers to introduce written policies and to restrict smoking throughout the workplace. The "Health of the Nation" working group devoted to workplace health, which includes representatives from industry, small business, the Confederation of British Industry and the Trades Union Congress, is advising on how best to take that aspect forward.

We are encouraging managers of public places to continue to think about the merits of introducing smoke-free areas and then to act. There has been a remarkable increase in the percentage of smoke-free public places over the past 10 years. That change has been carried forward because people with a sense of ownership of their public places have made judgments about how they wish them to be. I continue to believe that that is an effective way forward. We want areas to cater for the interests of non-smokers. We expect health professionals to take every opportunity to use their special position to advise people about the damage done by smoking and to help them give up.

Does my right hon. Friend recall a written answer to me that revealed that many more youngsters are prosecuted for under-age drinking than for buying cigarettes under age? Chief constables and local authorities should address that problem. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend recognises that parental responsibility is the key factor in this equation. The major aim of the Bill must be to prevent people of 15 and younger from starting smoking.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that even though cigarette advertisements have not been allowed on television in this country since 1965, Sir Donald Maitland, the chairman of the Health Education Authority, told us that 64 per cent. of children between nine and 14 honestly believed that they had seen advertising on television during the past week—

Order

That was because—

Order. If I call order, I expect hon. Members to resume their seats.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Dr. Spink) for his comments.

I now turn more specifically to the policy on tobacco advertising. As the "Health of the Nation" White Paper and the action plan on smoking make clear, the Government recognise—the hon. Member for Rother Valley was right—the importance of effective controls on tobacco advertising and promotion. As has been said, the advertising of cigarettes on television has been banned since 1964. The ban was extended to all tobacco products in 1991. Other advertising and promotional activities have been controlled since 1971 under Governments of both parties through voluntary agreements between Health Ministers and the tobacco industry. The sponsorship of sport by the tobacco industry is also controlled through a separate voluntary agreement which is now the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for National Heritage.

The agreements already provide wide-ranging and strict controls on tobacco advertising. The main provisions of them include the stipulation that the content of all advertisements must comply with the cigarette advertising code of practice. Advertisements must not, for example, appeal more to the young than to the general population and they must not associate smoking with success of sex appeal. I listened carefully to what the hon. Member for Rother Valley said about the "Reg" advertising campaign and what may or may not be the re-emergence of that campaign.

Yesterday, the Advertising Standards Authority replied to my letter about that recent advertisement and defended it. The only difference between that advertisement and the four adverts that it said in December had to be withdrawn is the absence of that man's face. Does the Minister honestly think that we can have confidence in an authority if it polices matters in that way?

I was careful to say to the hon. Gentleman that I listened carefully to the points that he made, not only about the campaign but about what he believed was its re-emergence.

The second part of the agreement is that all press and poster advertising must carry health warnings covering 17·5 per cent. of the area and advertising is not allowed in magazines where more than 25 per cent. of the readership are women aged between 15 and 24. The number of shop-front advertisements will be reduced by 50 per cent. from the 1991 level in five years and the voluntary agreement on sport precludes tobacco companies from sponsoring activities in which the majority of participants are under 18 or which are designed to appeal mainly to the under-18 age bracket.

The system of voluntary agreements has proved to be sufficiently flexible to respond to special concerns. One example is that when the voluntary agreement first came into effect, the area of posters which had to be covered with a health warning was 6 per cent. Now it is 17·5 per cent. The Government are concerned that the impact of the Bill would be to replace that flexible, voluntary system, based on negotiations in response to particular concerns, with a statutory ban on the advertising of that which, as I have said, it is and will remain legal to sell.

I fully accept that the Bill is motivated by concerns over public health. We share and applaud those concerns.

My right hon. Friend' s speech is completely consistent with the case which the Government have made for some years, especially with regard to a voluntary agreement. However, many of us feel that that case has within it gross inconsistency. It must be evident to him from the many speeches that he has heard this morning, that there is strong support in the House for the Bill. We all hope very much—[HoN. MEMBERS: "No, we do not."] A clear majority of Members who have spoken have indicated their support for the Bill and we hope that it will go into Committee. If, nevertheless, some of my hon. Friends choose to divide the House on Second Reading, will my hon. Friend the Minister indicate what course he will take?

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend said that the overwhelming feeling is in favour of the Bill. It is because only one speech has been allowed that is against the Bill. There are a number of hon. Members who will not be called.

The longer we take on such unnecessary interventions, the fewer hon. Members I can call.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wish to agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh) has just said. It is a fact that the hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) made a statement and was obviously waiting for the Minister to respond. There has been a desperate imbalance in argument allowed from this side of the House and—

Order. I hope that hon. Members are not criticising the Chair. I notice that the speeches have been over-long. I am looking forward to the next speeches being short because I have a long list of Members who wish to speak and I imagine that some will speak for and some against.

I will take from that an indication that it may be better for me to get on and take fewer interventions, although I would wish to try to be as helpful as possible. It is not a matter for me, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) knows, whether the House will divide or not or what the judgment of the House will be on the Bill. I am seeking to put the Government's case as clearly and as persuasively as I can. I am content that hon. Members will come to a judgment on it.

A lot of comment has been made about the Smee report. As I was the person who asked Dr. Smee to conduct the report, perhaps I too may be permitted to say a word or two on it. In the White Paper, "The Health of the Nation", the Government recognised widespread concern that controls on tobacco advertising and promotion should be strong and effective. We gave a commitment to review the effects of tobacco advertising and to consider further steps. The Smee report, as it has become called, if not known, reviewed the available evidence thoroughly.

The Government have also considered the many comments on the report. The review supports the Government's view that there is a relationship between tobacco advertising and consumption—indeed, that is the rationale for the existing controls. We find little, however, to support the argument that a statutory ban would have a dramatic effect on further reducing smoking. That view is reinforced when we consider that other measures, such as price and parental influence, have a much greater impact than a statutory ban. We were also unconvinced by international evidence that a ban was necessary if we were to achieve our targets, which are the common ground at the heart of the debate.

I want to consider those arguments in more detail. I fear that some supporters of an advertising ban often appear to overstate the evidence about its possible impact. We need to put that in perspective.

Will my right hon. Friend give way?.

If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I want to make progress.

The studies reviewed in the Department of Health discussion document consider ban-related reductions in smoking using data collated over different periods. It is an interesting way to consider the matter and I want to bring to the attention of hon. Members the evidence from surveys in the United Kingdom.

That evidence is clear. Dr. Smee said that, according to surveys of the time, if a ban had been imposed 30 years ago, the reduction in tobacco consumption would have been about 7 per cent. and that, if it had been introduced about 20 years ago, the reduction would have been about half that amount. But the two most recent studies in the United Kingdom both showed that there was no significant statistical link between the banning of advertising and the consumption of tobacco. People will have different interpretations of why that should be so.

Having taught a little medical statistics in my time, my interpretation is that the increasingly stringent voluntary ban of the past 20 years has almost certainly squeezed out of the system any benefit that a ban would be likely to produce.

That is a misreading of the surveys.

The most recent surveys, which showed no statistically significant link, were not Government surveys, but were carried out independently and reported by Dr. Smee.

Consumption fell from 45 to 28 per cent. in this country during the period referred to in the Smee report. Without a ban, which the evidence suggests would have had increasingly little effect with the passage of time, the consumption of tobacco dropped. To claim in the face of that evidence, as some health campaigners seem to do, that an advertising ban would have a dramatic effect in reducing smoking is not obviously supportable. It is arguable that the United Kingdom approach, which, through the voluntary system, employs a range of effective measures and places tough controls on tobacco advertising, is the most effective. It is noticeable and notable that, among European Union member states, only the Netherlands, which also relies on the voluntary approach, has a better record on reducing smoking than the United Kingdom.

The international comparisons that have been men-tioned are also interesting. They show that a statutory ban does not guarantee success in reducing smoking. Supporters of a ban are fond of quoting the figures in the Smee report on the effects of banning advertising in other countries. Not only the hon. Member for Rother Valley but other hon. Members have quoted such figures.

I confirm, as the hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms Lynne) did, that in Norway there was a 9 per cent. reduction in consumption associated with a ban. In Finland, there was a 7 per cent. reduction, and in Canada there was a 4 per cent. reduction. As my hon. Friend for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone) said, price might also have been associated with that reduction. However—this information might be new to the House—only Norway and Finland have had advertising bans in place for sufficient time to allow sensible comparisons of their changes in smoking prevalence with the changes in this country over similar periods.

As I have said, in Norway, smoking prevalence has fallen by nine percentage points since advertising was banned in 1975. The House will wish to know that, over the same period, smoking prevalence in this country fell not by 9 per cent. but by 12 per cent. In Finland, smoking prevalence fell by three percentage points in the eight years following the ban. Over the same period in this country, it fell not by 3 per cent. but by 8 per cent. Over the same period, without a statutory ban, we have achieved a greater fall in smoking prevalence than those countries have achieved.

There is no doubt that some of the Government's proposals work excellently. The policy was actually carried through in Norway and Finland. If we had an advertising ban, would we not have had a greater decrease in smoking in Britain than we achieved? We are left with a judgment, and I think that my right hon. Friend would accept that.

As is often the case, my right hon. Friend is exactly right. I was seeking to show that, when other countries are prayed in aid in support of a judgment, evidence in this country suggests that, with our own arrangements, we are doing better in percentage terms than countries which claim some success following the application of a ban.

I am not saying whether those countries were right to introduce a ban; that is a matter for them. However, the hon. Member for Rother Valley is inviting us to impose a ban. If we are to take such a serious step and deem to be illegal advertisements for a product which itself is legal, the evidence will need to be sufficiently persuasive. I am sure that my right hon. Friend clearly understands that point.

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

No, I should like to make progress, if I may. I have already given way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery).

Within the European Union, as I have said, the two countries with the best record for reducing smoking in recent years are the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, which favour voluntary controls on tobacco advertising. Our consumption has dropped from 45 per cent. to 28 per cent., and in the Netherlands it has fallen from 59 per cent. of the adult population in 1970 to 34 per cent. in 1992.

Indeed, it is instructive to examine progress in reducing smoking in the European Union generally and other countries' attitudes to advertising bans. Countries that support a ban tend to have low prices for tobacco products. We know that every 10 per cent. increase in price produces about a 3 per cent. to 6 per cent. decrease in consumption. Those countries also tend to have nationalised industries and receive European Union subsidies for growing tobacco—in some cases, huge subsidies. Italy receives £450 million and Greece receives £300 million. In contrast, the United Kingdom has the third highest cigarette prices in the EC and a further commitment to increase tobacco taxes in real terms by at least 3 per cent. Budget by Budget—a commitment that is unmatched in the European Union. That is why I say that the voluntary system has served the United Kingdom well. However, we recognise the need to ensure that the system evolves to reflect specific concerns.

As I announced on Monday, the Government believe that it is desirable to take further steps to control some aspects of tobacco advertising. One specific concern is the exposure of children to such advertising. I have noted tobacco companies saying that they have a concern about children. They need to understand that I have a concern about children. Whatever the outcome of this debate, I am grateful to the House for reinforcing that it has a concern about children, and I shall enter the negotiations fortified by that support.

We shall open negotiations with the tobacco industry to strengthen the existing agreement. I want hon. Members and people outside the House to understand that the negotiations are not an easy option. They will be tough because the issues that we must debate are serious, but they will also be fair. The Government have no reason to believe that voluntary agreements will not be effective in delivering further controls.

The Government believe that this way forward is preferable to a statutory ban. It represents action on advertising and promotion which is in proportion to the available evidence on the possible impact of advertising on smoking behaviour. What is important is reducing smoking and meeting the targets set out in "The Health of the Nation"—we agree on that much. We shall continue to focus on effective measures to ensure that we do so, arid I commend the Government's policy to the House.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) and hon. Members on both sides of the House on sponsoring this Bill. It is not only a public health measure; it is a child protection measure. It can be targeted at and easily attributable to assisting children not to become involved with tobacco and other substance abuse. It is also a measure that will assist parents who do not smoke to encourage their children not to become involved in such abuses. The banning of advertising would reinforce that positive measure.

Before I comment on the Bill, I must tell right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House that this is the first occasion I have had since I had tuberculosis that I have spoken from the Dispatch Box. I thank all those who sent me letters, cards and telephone messages—they were much appreciated by my wife and me. I thank hon. Members for their concern and interest.

I hope that, by the end of May, I will be fully back in action, fit and raring to tackle the Minister's activities. The Minister was more subdued than his usual boisterous attempts to defend Government policy. I am sure that all hon. Members were surprised by his low-key attempt to defend the Government's policy in this morning's debate.

With my Glaswegian accent, I may not be associated with cricket, but I recognise a tail-end batsman being put in on a sticky wicket by the captain. He must hang around for some time in the hope that things will improve the following day. The Minister did exactly that—and he did it somewhat better than perhaps the evidence of his case suggested.

It is clear from this debate that there is a desire and a demand for further positive action to end the scandal of the smoking epidemic. When the Minister was at the Dispatch Box a few weeks ago, he used an analogy about Wembley with regard to statistics. It was effective in terms of his case, although I did not agree with a word of it. I thought that I had better add that in case I was misquoted, in the way that the Smee report has been misquoted by Government Members in the debate.

I thought of using the Minister's analogy to bring home in graphic terms the imbalance not only in terms of advertising, but in the resources which are being used to discourage and to encourage children to become involved in smoking. We could fill Wembley stadium one and a half times each year with the number of people who die from smoking-related diseases in Britain. If we add our European partners, we can fill Wembley seven times.

Every time a match is played at Wembley, 20 of our fellow citizens will have died because of tobacco products, and two babies will have been admitted to hospital by the time of the final whistle.

Most staggering of all is the £1 billion a year which is given to tobacco growers in the European Community. That is equivalent to a subsidy of £1·25 million to every single one of the 80,000 seats in Wembley. The Government are spending £5 million on publicity to prevent children from smoking; that is equivalent to buying four seats at Wembley out of a capacity crowd of 80,000.

The Government's announcement on Monday, which the Minister has again trumpeted, was that they were to target parents and adults during the next three years to assist in health education to prevent smoking. The figure of £12 million during three years is equivalent to 11 season tickets for Wembley over three seasons for a capacity crowd of 80,000. That shows the lack of investment and the inequality in the debate with regard to trying to prevent young people and adults from being involved in the abuse of tobacco.

We should not leave some mistaken idea in the minds of hon. and right hon. Members, much less the public. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will also mention the figure of more than £30 million a year which we give to the HEA. I hope that he is also going to mention the millions of pounds which we give in health promotion payments to general practitioners to address the issue. There is a variety of other means of expenditure, which are not part of the advertising budget but which are crucial to the delivery of the aim that he and I share, which is to reduce the number of people who die from smoking.

I am glad that the Minister referred to the HEA. The authority, and all who work with it, support the Bill. The Government are investing that amount of money to take advice and to assist in activities to prevent smoking. I should have thought that, if they are investing that kind of money, they would support the conclusions and recommendations of the HEA. It has said that banning advertising is a positive incentive to reducing the involvement of children in smoking in the first place.

Prevention is better than cure and there is a spirit of all-party co-operation on the issue which has been made clear by the quality of the debate. The spirit is so overwhelming that there should be no further prevarication about what we need to do.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I will give way in a minute.

That is not just the view of Conservative Back Benchers, or of right hon. Members who were previously in the Government but are now Back Benchers: it is also the view of members of the Cabinet.

I will quote from a letter of 16 November from the President of the Board of Trade to the Prime Minister. The letter had this to say in respect of the Government's current policy, which was reinforced by the Minister this morning

"I am persuaded by the medical evidence, acknowledged in Virginia's paper, that a ban on tobacco advertising would not only further reduce smoking but would contribute to the improvements in people's health and avoid the damaging economic burdens which the consequences of ill health place on business … if the Governmnent really wishes to demonstrate its commitment to achieving the Health of the Nation targets, and to inspire confidence in its actions on reducing smoking and illegal sales, an outright ban instead of some half-way house of severely constrained advertising is the credible way forward."

That was the view of a frontline batsman, not someone sent in to defend the case between now and the close of play.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the comment of the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron)—I hope that I quote him correctly—"There is no fundamental right to advertise; it is a privilege"? If he agrees, who will give that privilege and take it away? Does that square with the right of free speech?

The hon. Gentleman's comments are a red herring. The comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley were clear and specific, and I support them. He rightly said that hon. Members on both sides of the House were frustrated that, having given the privilege and freedom to the tobacco industry to act responsibly, its record shows that it has targeted children continuously, and sought to encourage them to smoke. It has targeted people in poor environments in the north of England, in areas which are already deprived of health and social facilities.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I will not give way. The hon. Gentleman may be an apologist for the tobacco industry, and I will not give him any further time in the debate.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman to refer to me as an apologist for the tobacco industry when I sought to intervene as someone whose father died of cancer when I was a teenager, and who refused to work on a tobacco account when I was asked to do so?

I heard the hon. Gentleman say "may be", but it is not very helpful to make any assertions.

I certainly said "may be": you are absolutely right, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman can make his own speech in his own time. I will try to ensure that he and others are able to do so.

Further to the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Mr. Hendry). Surely this is an occasion for an apology to be made.

The hon. Gentleman is wasting the time of the House. The position is clear.

Be generous.

I have been generous, and I am continuing to be generous to hon. Members on both sides of the House. But I become extremely frustrated, as other hon. Members do, when we have before us a piece of legislation that so clearly would save hundreds, if not thousands, of lives, and hon. Members make snide, quickshot remarks and points of order which are irrelevant. We are in the business of saving countless lives. Let us remember what the debate is about.

Hon. Members will say that the Bill should be seen as an isolated measure. Yet hon. Members who support the Bill also support the concept that the Minister of State outlined earlier—that the policy on smoking is a family of measures.

The Bill is part and parcel of a preventative health strategy designed to discourage and dissuade people from smoking and prevent people starting to smoke. It includes health education programmes to encourage those who smoke to stop. Any measure within that family of measures clearly has a health gain. I cannot understand for the life of me why the Government do not seize it with both hands and run with both Opposition and Conservative Members who support the Bill.

We must take measures to stop people starting to smoke, and assist people to stop smoking. More importantly, if that is to succeed—this is the kernel of the argument—we must change the ethos and culture of smoking in society. The banning of advertisements changes that concept dramatically. We can then argue for a non-smoking, tobacco-free society. We can link death and ill health with tobacco, and fitness and leisure with not smoking. That is important.

Why do tobacco companies advertise? It is simple. They have to replace the 300 customers a day that the product kills. Increasingly, mature adults recognise the dangers of smoking and, once they have given up, do not return to the habit. Therefore, the tobacco companies have to turn to the vulnerable. That vulnerable community is our children—not only 11 to 15-year-olds, but older children.

Advertisements are designed to link smoking with sport and good images. They use peer pressure and undermine the family's messages to children about smoking. It is therefore vital for us to make it clear that advertising is about recruiting new customers for an industry which kills its customers because of the nature of the product that it sells.

Is it not incredible that 50 million packets of cigarettes are sold each year in the United Kingdom to children between the ages of 11 and 15? Those sales raise about £96·5 million in taxation for the Treasury, but only £5 million is spent on smoking prevention work with children. Is not that an indictment of our society and of the tobacco culture that advertising continues to promote and enhance?

Those facts cannot be disputed, but we can dispute why the Government will not give the Bill a fair wind.

The hon. Gentleman speaks with great passion. He mentioned sports. Would he therefore give us an absolute guarantee that those Opposition Members who share his views—he has given the impression that all Members on the Opposition Front Bench fully support the Bill—will not accept the hospitality of tobacco companies at sporting events they sponsor, or at which they take a hospitality tent? Will he also guarantee that Opposition Members will not attend sporting events that are sponsored by tobacco companies?

The hon. Gentleman is a master of subterfuge. I shall come to sports sponsorship in a minute, because I am chairman of the rugby group in Parliament. When I go to Wembley to watch my favourite team, I do so despite tobacco advertising. I go to watch sportspeople, as do many families. The sooner we can get rid of tobacco advertising at such wonderful events the better.

I shall now point out a few statistics that the hon. Member for Luton, North (Mr. Carlisle) failed to give the House during his many interventions. The statistics are interesting and important and concern his constituency, where 138 people died last year because of smoking; 503 people were admitted to national health service hospitals because of illnesses caused by smoking; and 12 hospital beds have to be kept vacant or used to deal with the ill effects of smoking on his constituents, at a cost of more than £0·5 million to his local NHS trust.

In the hon. Member's constituency, both male and female deaths from coronary heart disease, strokes, lung cancer, pulmonary disease and other diseases attributable to smoking are staggering. If the hon. Member for Luton, North intervenes again, he should do so on behalf of those of his constituents who have been killed by the tobacco industy that he seems so intent on protecting.

The Minister for Health spoke in his statement on Monday about the setting up of a new scientific committee on tobacco and health. In his press statement the emphasis was on the "new"—it was in quotations and underlined. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would care to listen for a moment, instead of talking to his Parliamentary Private Secretary, as this is important.

When the Minister launched the new committee on Monday, he failed to say in the press release that in fact the committee was not new. Previously, it was under the chairmanship of Sir Peter Froggatt, when it was called the Independent Scientific Committee on Smoking and Health. The Government have taken out the word "Smoking" and substituted the word "Tobacco".

The committee last met in 1988, when it recommended to the Government, in the report that I have here, the need to take further stringent measues on tobacco smoking. The Government did not announce the closure of the committee, but, when members' terms of reference ended in 1988, they did not reappoint those members or appoint new members, but allowed it to wither on the vine.

We have lost five vital years of independent scientific evidence and advice on this issue. It is simply riot acceptable for the Minister to announce, in this debate or on Monday, a new scientific committee when he destroyed the previous committee and its work. Let us hope that the new committee—or this reinvention of the old committee—will be given a fair wind and a fair opportunity. It should be publicly accountable, its recommendations should be brought forward more quickly than the Smee report, and there should be no attempt to suppress any of its work or evidence in support of further restrictions on the use of tobacco products.

On sports sponsorship, I am almost unique in the House, in that, as well as being party spokesman on health, I also chair the parliamentary rugby group. Indeed, I am one of the founding members of the group, whose constitution is to enhance and protect the game of rugby league. The parliamentary group unanimously supports the Bill, and I shall explain why. We think that it is an insult to the concept of sport as an effective means of maintaining mental and physical well-being to allow a product with such devastating consequences to our very being to use sport as a vehicle to hide its lethal effects.

In an average rugby league match, players run 5,000 m, and give or take 40 tackles. A 16-stone forward can run 100 m in 11 seconds. Contrast that with the image of smoking, emphysema, bronchitis, heart disease and the emaciated 31-year-old weighing six stones at the time of his death.

Only a few months ago, my personal friend, John Tierman, died at the age of 31 of cancer in both lungs through smoking. In his younger years, he was dedicated to sport and playing sport. He was over 6 ft tall, articulate, with a family and a future. He was interested in public life as a councillor, and was loved and respected in his community. He died an emaciated six-stone man because of smoking as a child of 13.

We cannot allow the tobacco industry to use sport and sporting personalities as a deliberate and cynical ploy to encourage positive images of its deadly product. The industry recruits 300 new customers a day because it has killed 300 people the previous day. Sport, especially rugby league, must never be bound hand and foot to the tobacco industry.

My sport recognises that changes are necessary and will go along with those changes. The sport will survive but, more important, thousands of young children in Britain will survive with it. That is the biggest health gain that we could ever have in this country.

By banning tobacco advertising, as part of a package of measures, we could save countless lives of young people and protect the well-being of their families. That goal is not only worth striving for, but is within the grasp of this House. I appeal to hon. Members to support the Bill.

I have listened to this debate with great interest and do not doubt the sincerity of hon. Members who have argued for a ban on advertising. But I am worried that this could be, as other hon. Members have said, the thin end of a long wedge.

The hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) made the revealing comment that he would support any measure in favour of a health gain. I understand that, but the danger of such an approach is that it can be used to justify bans on advertising and, indeed, bans of other products in the future.

In recent years I have watched with growing concern the amazing intolerance that people show towards smoking and smokers. I have no desire to smoke and do not find it attractive in others. We run the risk of showing a greater intolerance towards smokers than towards other parts of society. We should resist that trend. Once those who have adopted an intolerance towards smoking get their way, they will, in my view, move on to something else, whether it be alcohol, fatty foods or whatever. We should watch with great concern those who set themselves up as the health police of this country.

The reason why people—as I am—are so bitterly opposed to smoking is that it affects non-smokers. I do not care what the hon. Gentleman wants to do in private, because that has nothing to do with me, but when it starts impacting on my health and makes my clothes and hair stink, I have a right to say that I do not want someone smoking around me.

I am grateful for that intervention, because I was going to mention later passive smoking. I shall mention it now.

One of the disturbing things about intolerance, I have to say with great regret, is the way in which certain members of the medical and scientific establishment are prepared in many ways to distort the evidence and present passive smoking as though it is a great certainty. I share the concern of the hon. Member for Newham, North-West that, if one goes into a pub and everyone is smoking, it can affect one's eyes. That is an issue and I am delighted to see that some pubs and restaurants are restricting the level of smoking. But there is a difference between that and having a complete ban on smoking.

In relation to the wider issue of passive smoking, attempts have been made to portray it as though there is a clear and significant link between passive smoking and cancer. Indeed, the Government's own publication repeats that statement. An article by a doctor in The Times the other day casts doubt over that link. I am not a medical man, but he advised that there are two types of cancers. He said:

"The commonest are squamous and oat cell cancers…The second are adenocarcinomas".

The evidence shows that those who have cancer and have smoked have the first type of cancer cell present, but that non-smokers who have had cancer have the second. His view is that it is pretty unbelievable to suggest that the causes are identical.

That needs to be borne in mind, even though I share the concern of the hon. Member for Newham, North-West on the general issue of passive smoking. More research must be undertaken into exactly what the effect is. The most serious issue obviously is the individual's smoking and its impact on their health. Of course, they must be crazy to smoke. They know by now that it kills. I do not dispute that. I believe firmly in a free society and, if one wishes to smoke, the right to end up killing oneself. That is a right and a freedom that one should have.

I take issue with the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron), who is the promoter of the Bill. I agree with much of what he said, but he said that advertising is a privilege. I totally reject that view. In a society that depends on the marketing of goods to survive, it is crucial that advertisers have the right to advertise products unless those products are illegal or restricted.

Of course my hon. Friend is right that we should think carefully about limiting freedom of expression, but we do that in various ways. There are existing Government-imposed bans on advertising; we do not permit freedom of expression such as to incite religious or racial hatred; and we limit the freedom to breach personal confidence. The principle is not absolute.

I put it to my hon. Friend that it is beyond the bounds of what we should tolerate in a free society that vastly powerful corporations should use all the modern techniques of advertising to pressurise the immature and the impressionable into taking up a habit that is probably lethal to themselves, injurious at least and vastly costly to society. What kind of freedom of expression allows the powerful to pressurise the vulnerable into the "unfreedom" of addiction, that allows people to suffer ill health from passive smoking? Surely the issue is not so much freedom of expression as the abuse of power.

I respect my hon. Friend's views, but the way in which he presented them is revealing. I do not regard the use of advertising in a free society to influence people to use a particular product—or not to—as an abuse of power; it is their decision. It is nonsense to suggest that advertising somehow forces innocent people to go out and buy a packet of cigarettes.

While accepting the principle of freedom, my hon. Friend believes that it carries with it a certain responsibility. What action does he propose to prevent young people who do not make responsible decisions from taking up smoking in the first place?