2nd reading in the Lords
- Speaker
Lord Griffiths of Burry PortLabour- Quote
- My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Mitchell, and with the permission of the House, I rise to speak at this point in the debate and to move that the Bill be now read a second time. Some have greatness thrust upon them. I am glad that the Bill is of such a length that I could read it properly and prepare myself in a way that allows me to speak first on this issue. I was drawn to it as a subject when I believed that its field of application would be more widely drawn than has turned out to be the case. However, even this discrete area of proposed legislation allows me to consider the points that would have been perhaps more germane had there been a wider field of reference. I begin with both a disclaimer and an expression of interest. The disclaimer is that I speak, of course, as a Methodist—but a Methodist with a very nice wine cellar. In case there might be some misapprehension, I am proud of my church’s teaching on questions of social importance across the generations, but life is too short to go without the pleasures of life and we must find a proper way of enjoying them and, at the same time, safeguarding the vulnerable and the weak. I believe that the Bill makes one such proposal along those lines. The expression of interest is that our daughter will, within three or four weeks’ time, produce her first child. Our daughter loved the social life, which involved the consumption of alcohol and the smoking of cigarettes, prior to her pregnancy. My wife and I have watched with personal interest my daughter’s stance on those pleasures as she began, with her husband, to think of starting a family. With great pride we can say that her readiness and her ability to give up both habits have raised her considerably in our already rather aggrandised view of her qualities. As she is to give birth to her first child, our first grandchild, in Cambodia, I think that the misspelling of my title on the Order Paper suggests some kind of Freudian slip on someone’s part, but I am very grateful for the great care and attention that has been given to making me feel very much at home. Who can be against the proposal at the heart of the Bill? No one, I would have thought. It is sensible to give the right kind of warning and to display that warning in the proper place—visibly—to make its own point. I do not think the debate will involve noble Lords putting forward an opposing point of view. The reason I felt drawn to the debate is largely that I want us to remind ourselves that we should not imagine that by putting such a Bill on the statute book we will cure or solve the problem we are envisaging. In other areas of life in recent times, we can see where similar animadversions have been brought to bear on our social mores and have brought short-term benefits. For example, the safe sex campaign made a great impact when it was launched with all the advertising that went with it—some of it negative advertising showing the danger of HIV/AIDS—but more recent reports have shown that unsafe sex and sexually transmitted diseases are on the rise again. So there may well be a partial and immediate benefit to be gained from the Bill—I certainly want it to happen—but we should not imagine or delude ourselves that it will solve the problem once and for all. A similar thing has happened in the area of smoking, where health warnings abound. It is one of the ironies of life to see people clutching a packet of cigarettes that has a health warning which is visible to those looking at the smoker; whether it is visible to the smoker is another matter altogether. When one realises the recidivism and the dependency that are built into some of these pleasures, we should never imagine that what we are considering today will once and for all deal with the problem. How do we effect a change of culture? How do we create an ethos within which people recognise the choices available to them and choose sensibly? How do we avoid the repression of the culture I grew up in, which was so condemnatory of anything that purported to carry pleasurable connotations? How do we avoid the obvious negative aspects of that without just moving into a free-for-all ethos in which it seems that anything goes? In a post modern culture where we make up our own ethics as we go along, nothing can be supposed to be bad. How do we avoid those two extremes? It is a Scylla and Charybdis situation. Those of us who are associated with bodies that, in the public mind and common perception, are negative, condemnatory and judgmental institutions find it very difficult to persuade others that there might be proper and objective grounds for some of the restrictions and that the desire to rein back the licence is reasonable. I commend the Bill on behalf of my noble friend. I thank the House for giving me the delusion that I am a Front-Bench spokesman and I hope that the Bill will be warmly endorsed—with the caveats that I have described. Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Griffiths of Burry Port.)
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- 10:06
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Baroness CoussinsCrossbench- Quote
- My Lords, I agree absolutely that it is vital for women who are pregnant, or who are planning to be, to know about the effects of alcohol on the developing foetus so they can decide whether they should modify their drinking in the interests of the baby’s health. I also agree that putting information or advice on the labels of alcoholic drinks is one important way to promote awareness of that message. The question for me is only whether imposing a statutory duty is the most effective way to achieve that. I hope I might convince the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, when he reads this speech, that he would see his underlying objective amply fulfilled by placing his confidence in the voluntary labelling agreement announced last May by the Government and the industry. Legislation at this point would have a disproportionately adverse impact on the industry without achieving any significant increase in women’s awareness of the impact of alcohol on pregnancy and would almost certainly produce no change in their behaviour. Indeed, some evidence suggests that if consumers are presented with information cast as a warning, as proposed in the Bill, they are likely to react unfavourably, especially if the warning comes from the Government. If I thought that labelling was the only or the most effective way to inform women about alcohol and pregnancy, then I would have no reservations about supporting the Bill. If I thought that pregnancy labelling could be achieved only by forcing the industry to do it with legislation, I would again have no reservations. The fact is, however, that the industry has moved significantly on this issue since the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, last introduced his Bill a year ago. I know from my 10 years as chief executive of the Portman Group that the drinks industry can often be spurred into redoubling its efforts and speeding up its actions on social responsibility if there is the threat of legislation as a backstop. However, the situation on this issue is that voluntary commitment to pregnancy labelling, if I can call it that for short, is now so widespread that the disadvantages of legislation simply outweigh the benefits of having the threat of it waiting in the wings in case voluntary labelling fails. I want to develop my argument a little bit more. Your Lordships should know that although I no longer work for the Portman Group, I have an interest as a non-executive adviser on social responsibility to Brown-Forman, a global wines and spirits company. In my earlier career in the voluntary sector, I worked and campaigned with a number of organisations concerned with maternity and infants’ rights and welfare. First, there is the question of timing. The Government and the industry have agreed a five-point voluntary labelling scheme, one element of which is pregnancy information that is broadly in line with what the Bill proposes. The Department of Health will monitor compliance throughout 2008 and has said that it will decide at the end of the year whether legislation is justified. The noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, knows that when his Bill comes to Committee I shall be as helpful as possible, but in the light of this timetable for the voluntary agreement I am hoping he might agree that it is putting the cart before the horse to deal with the Bill now. Secondly, the industry is not just paying lip service. I shall illustrate with just a few figures. Taking the wine sector first, 23 per cent of the UK market is supermarkets’ own-label brands, and all these retailer chains have already begun the production process to include the pregnancy advice on the label. Some are in the shops already. The largest wine company in Europe, Constellation, has a further 22 per cent of the UK market. It already has the French logo on some brands and will include it on 80 per cent of its brands on the UK market by this autumn. Half a dozen other global companies have between about 1 per cent and about 8 per cent each of the wine market, and several of those have also already agreed that they will adopt the pregnancy labelling point within the voluntary agreement. Most of the remaining 35 per cent or so of wine here comes from French companies and is already labelled accordingly. In the spirits sector, the retailers’ own brands are over one-third of the UK market, and again are already carrying the pregnancy advice or will certainly do so shortly. Of the five or six major producer companies which, between them, account for virtually all the rest of the UK’s spirits market, half are already committed to including the pregnancy advice on the label, including, I am pleased to say, the company I advise. In the beer sector, supermarkets’ own brands are a very small part of the market, although all these now carry the pregnancy advice or have a production timetable in place to do so. It is the same with the two major producers whose brands between them make up 40 per cent of our beer market. Another two are actively considering it and others which are currently unwilling might well change their mind if there were consistent medical advice, a point I shall return to in a moment. I hope noble Lords will agree that this represents genuine progress. I believe that by the end of the year, when the department evaluates the scheme, a significant majority of total product in the UK market will carry the pregnancy advice. Ironically, if the Bill proceeds, progress is likely to dry up because companies will no longer be sure what is expected of them. They will not want to invest this year in one new label design only to face a new statutory scheme next year. Those already complying with the voluntary scheme would effectively be penalised by having to fund two changes. It is unfair to penalise the industry’s most responsible companies in this way. A key milestone which could trigger further compliance will be when we know the outcome of the review by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. At least two of the very largest drinks producers are currently holding back from pregnancy labelling because they are, quite defensibly, reluctant to put their reputation on the line and even risk legal action by carrying misleading or inaccurate information. In the past year we have seen conflicting advice from the Department of Health, NICE and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Although the chief medical officers are agreed, this really must be underpinned by a solid consensus among the scientists and practitioners, otherwise the reluctance of some drinks companies will remain with good reason, despite their genuine wish to play a part. Noble Lords might say that if the majority of the industry is so sympathetic to pregnancy labelling and so many are already doing it, why would it be so dreadful to make it mandatory? Legislation would not ask the good guys to do anything they are not doing already, so what is the problem? The problem is that the price of mandatory labelling for all brands of all alcoholic drinks would be a disproportionate cost and serious threat to the viability of many small businesses, with a consequent impact on consumer choice. This would apply particularly in the wine sector, where thousands of small producers from all over the world, using hundreds of UK agents, use the UK market to test thousands of new wines every year. We are talking about a very small percentage of the market in volume terms, but the cost to these companies of labelling for just one market would be prohibitive and might even raise questions about fair practice within the EU’s competition regime. It would also mean that choice for the vast majority of UK consumers—who are not pregnant—would be diminished. A regulatory impact assessment is needed to calculate the effects of what may seem like a modest labelling requirement but which could have much wider ramifications. I would happily argue that all this would be a price worth paying, and well worth paying, if it were the case that only by labelling could we inform women about the effects of alcohol on pregnancy, or even if it were the case that there was a vast knowledge gap that needed to be plugged. But neither of these things is true. In June, the Government published the revised National Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy, which revealed that the proportion of mothers who drink during pregnancy fell in the five years between 2000 and 2005. Some 46 per cent said that they did not drink anything at all and 92 per cent of the rest drank two units or less a week. This is absolutely in line with the advice endorsed by the chief medical officers; that is not surprising, as nearly three-quarters of mothers who drank said that they had received information about drinking in pregnancy, mainly from their midwives. The others may just have been following the message from their own body which, in my experience, stops you drinking the minute you are pregnant by making you feel nauseous at the very thought. The Government also said that they would be launching a new campaign in April this year to ensure that women are aware of the revised advice. Labelling is a sensible way of reinforcing this advice, but is by no means the primary source of information for women. Indeed, were it down to labelling alone, we should almost certainly not have such a positive story to tell. Research in the US and Denmark suggests that pregnant women’s attitudes are largely independent of the advice they get on health warning labels. So my conclusion is that the price of forcing every producer to label every brand is not justified either by the information gap among women or by the role played by labelling within the whole range of sources of advice available. The department seems to accept this point, because it stated in the voluntary agreement that, “it may not be practicable or may be disproportionately costly for labels of some products to carry all or any aspects of the sensible drinking message”. There is one other argument against legislation, to do with the principles of better regulation. If a policy objective can be achieved through voluntary action or self-regulation, it is surely a waste of public expenditure and an unwise use of parliamentary time to create, administer and police a system that the industry is demonstrably able to produce and pay for itself. I also think that there are ways in which the Bill could be more proportionate and consistent, and I will mention them in passing, leaving more detailed discussion for the Committee stage. For example, I should have thought that the guidance on legibility of labels from the Food Standards Agency would be perfectly adequate for drinks containers, without having to go further and be as prescriptive as the Bill. The penalties also seem excessively harsh, given the existing penalties. A lot of emphasis has been placed on action taken on labelling in other countries, particularly within the EU. But I think that the UK is leading, not catching up. France is currently the only other member state with a statutory requirement for pregnancy labelling. Finland and Sweden will follow suit, and there are discussions in a small number of other countries. But in this context, the UK’s voluntary scheme and its likely impact of a very high percentage of market volume being labelled by the end of this year looks pretty impressive to me. What would be unhelpful would be 27 different statutory schemes, each requiring a different format and different message. Already quite different labelling protocols are emerging in France, Finland and Poland. The Bill would add to the variety and the confusion. If there has to be legislation, it would be far better from the point of view of the industry and, I think, the consumer, for it to be a single piece of EU legislation prescribing a common and consistent approach across all markets. I think that the voluntary agreement on labelling will achieve the step change in information which the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, seeks through the Bill, but without the unintended consequences and disadvantages that I have outlined. As for improvements in behaviour in the light of that information, in the end that is down to women themselves.
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- 10:14
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The Earl of ListowelCrossbench- Quote
- My Lords, I support the Bill, as vice-chair of the Associate Parliamentary Group for Children and Young People In and Leaving Care and treasurer of the All-Party Group on Children. The noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, does a great service to the public by bringing this Bill forward and by his consistent pressure in this area. I listened with interest to my noble friend Lady Coussins. It is of great benefit to the House to have her expertise in this area brought to bear on this matter. I disagree with much of what she said, but I hope that the dynamic between support for the measure and a strong opposing voice will add value to the Bill as it goes through the House. I have been put in mind of the seductive commercials for advertising alcohol at Christmas. It is hard to reconcile the impetus from business to sell its product with the need to protect certain people from the harm that can arise. I am reminded of the work that Her Majesty’s Government have already done in introducing welcome measures to protect the public from the harms of cigarette smoking. I remember being horrified when I heard about the impact of tobacco smoking during pregnancy. I read about the likelihood of low birth rate, with all its associated risks. I learnt how exposure of the foetus to toxins from tobacco could lead to reduced intelligence and to the individual being of a smaller stature when he is fully grown. If the Government are to be consistent, they should accept this Bill, which should provide similar benefits for children. We are all aware of the increase in binge drinking and particularly of young women becoming less prudent in managing alcohol. I was grateful for the encouraging statistics from my noble friend on the number of women who have been listening to medical advice and reducing alcohol consumption while pregnant. I have a particular concern about those women who become dependent on alcohol; they need the strongest and most explicit message to ensure that they desist during pregnancy. Will the Minister say what the estimated level is of women who are alcohol dependent and what the trend has been in recent years with regard to those women? A year ago I had the opportunity to speak to some alcoholics and I was struck by two things. The first was the capacity of alcoholics to delude themselves. They would attempt to remain sober, but when they saw the opportunity for a drink they told themselves that to have one would not hurt—and then they would find themselves waking up in a park two days later. Secondly, I was struck when a woman said that when she was carrying her baby she reduced her alcohol intake, moving from spirits to wine and stout. She could see that in retrospect she had deluded herself and failed to protect her baby. I welcome the chance that this Bill offers to reinforce to women who are alcoholic or on the verge of being so the message that by drinking they are harming their baby. The more explicit one is about the risks to their child, the greater the chance that they may seek to desist from drinking. They may even approach an organisation such as Alcoholics Anonymous for help; it may even be the opportunity for them to stop drinking for good and spare their child the risks associated with being reared by an alcoholic mother. I would read to your Lordships some comments made during a conference on women and alcohol, led by Alcohol Concern—comments that were made by children on ChildLine—but I cannot find them in my notes at the moment. A significant number of those calls were associated with children talking about their parents’ alcohol problems. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I hope that she will lay out the timescale expected for the industry to implement what is proposed and that she will assure the House that the warnings coming from the industry will be as explicit and strong as possible.
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- 10:27
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- Speaker
- Lord MitchellLabour
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- My Lords, here was I thinking that I was 45 minutes early. I thank my noble friend Lord Griffiths for moving the Motion on Second Reading of this Bill and for the generosity of the House in allowing me to speak at this point. This Alcohol Labelling Bill is almost identical to the Bill that I introduced into your Lordships’ House last year. It differs in one respect only, which I will come to later. Last year’s Bill hit the buffers when an amendment was introduced by one noble Lord, which effectively killed it off; the usual channels told me that no time would be made available later in the parliamentary Session. This time around, I have reintroduced the Bill much earlier in the Session. Private Members’ Bills always have to battle against the constraints of parliamentary time both here and in the other place. Noble Lords will be delighted to hear that I am not going to repeat the speech that I gave at the previous Second Reading. The list of speakers today is relatively small, but noble Lords who are speaking have great expertise in this area and I am sure that all the issues will be addressed. What I will do is repeat in summary the background to the Bill, highlight how it differs from the previous one and go through the important developments that have taken place in the past year. Finally, I shall address the fair question of why am I introducing this Bill when the industry has already voluntarily agreed to a code to include labelling at the end of this year. We barely need reminding just how dire alcohol abuse is in our country. One comment that I made last time seems to have found a wider audience: that if at the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing binge drinking were to be an official event, our country would walk away not only with the gold medal, but also with the silver and bronze. It is not much to be proud of. In London just 18 days ago, during the first hours of 2008, calls to the ambulance service on drink-related incidents rose 16 per cent over the same period in 2007 and by 30 per cent over 2006. The epidemic continues. This epidemic is not just a male problem; more and more young women seem to regard each weekend as an opportunity to go out on the lash. We do not need to look too far to see how true that is. Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder occurs when alcohol passes from the mother’s bloodstream into the bloodstream of the foetus. Because the foetus has no functioning liver and because organ and neurological development proceeds throughout the pregnancy, extensive damage can be done to the unborn baby. FASD is the wider disorder affecting one in 100 babies. Sometimes its effect is mild; sometimes it is severe. Foetal alcohol syndrome is a severe disorder affecting one in 1,000 babies. Its effect is catastrophic. It causes brain damage and often organ malfunction resulting in a baby being born severely handicapped, mentally and sometimes physically. My Bill starts from the premise that we as a legislative assembly and the Government themselves have the duty to inform women, in particular young women, of the dangers of drinking any alcohol when pregnant. The Bill would make it compulsory for all containers of alcohol-related beverages to have a label printed on them with the wording, “Avoid alcohol if pregnant or trying to conceive”. That wording was agreed to by the Department of Health last year and I have included it in this Bill to replace alternative wording in the previous Bill. It is an unambiguous statement allowing no scope for misinterpretation. Why is it important to put this message across so starkly? The evidence now is strong that mothers who drink at any stage of their pregnancy run the risk that their baby can be damaged. This damage can be slight or severe and in its worse form can cause terrible damage. What is undeniable is that it is preventable. If a mother refrains from drinking during pregnancy, foetal alcohol spectrum disorder will not happen. That seems a pretty open and shut case, yet there are many who are against labelling, who say that it is one more instance of the nanny state interfering in our ancient liberties. They fail to appreciate that what is planned to be mandatory is labelling, not not drinking while pregnant. If a woman chooses to drink in these circumstances, that is her choice. I believe passionately that we as a Parliament have the duty to inform the public of the risks and how they might affect an unborn baby. Sadly, many women today are confused about the quantity that they can drink while pregnant. Sometimes the messages that are sent out by the authorities and the media are conflicting. This Bill seeks to remedy this confusion. It is not about more nannying; it is about more information. Many women believe that some alcohol consumption while pregnant is fine. Some say that a few units now and then are harmless. The medical profession itself sends out mixed messages. We measure alcohol consumption in units, as if members of the public have any idea what a unit is. Is it a glass of wine? Well, what is a glass of wine? Today a large glass of wine in a pub or bar can be as much as one-quarter of a litre. Moreover, are we talking about the kind of wine with which we are familiar, which has an alcohol content of 12 per cent, or is it some newer concoction that reaches 15 per cent? How about alcopops? How many units are there in a Bacardi Breezer? I must admit that I have no clue. I suspect that it is only human, when we use the number of units as a guide, to regard such advice with scepticism. If 14 units per week is the limit, what harm is 16? While we are at it, let us go for a round 20. Sometimes I have a vision of endless meetings at the Department of Health discussing the importance of units. I bet that officials get very worked up on the subject. Everything they do is reduced to the number of units. But I wonder just how many people in the King of Prussia on a Friday night have a clue what a unit is. When I have asked my friends, I have received blank stares. Since the Bill was previously introduced, there have been many developments. First, the Department of Health published its position that women who are pregnant or thinking of becoming pregnant should avoid all alcohol. “Avoid” is the key word. That was good news. It received massive publicity and, as a result, many more women have become aware of the issue and the dangers. But memories fade fast. Then, in June 2007, the British Medical Association’s board of science published a report entitled, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder—A Guide for Healthcare Professionals. It made many recommendations but recommended in particular that women who are pregnant, or who are considering a pregnancy, should be advised not to consume any alcohol and that consistent and clear advice be given to healthcare professionals and the general public regarding the sensible drinking message and the risks of alcohol consumption during pregnancy. There have been significant developments in other countries. In the United States, labelling has been compulsory since the passing of the Alcoholic Beverage Labeling Act in 1988. In France, labelling is compulsory. In South Africa, the Government plan to have compulsory labelling. In Finland, labelling is compulsory, as it is in Sweden on all products containing more than 2.25 per cent alcohol. Many other countries are moving in that direction. I remain sceptical about a voluntary code for labelling. I am no fan of self-regulation. I know that it is the preferred route of the Department of Health and I know that the industry, to its credit, is moving in that direction. But I simply do not believe that it is good enough; those who choose to ignore it will be able to do so. When we introduced labelling on tobacco products, we did not ask the tobacco manufacturers to volunteer to a labelling code, perhaps because we knew what the answer would be. We told them what they had to do, as did legislators in most other countries, and they did it. Surely the same should apply to this form of labelling. I fail to understand why the alcoholic beverage industry, which is compelled by law to include labelling of the type that we are suggesting in other countries, is kicking up such a fuss. I simply do not understand the logic that says that one consignment of Johnnie Walker Black Label whisky bound for New York has a label while the next consignment of an identical bottle of whisky bound for London does not. I see confusion everywhere. I see confusion on what constitutes a unit. How big is the glass and how potent is the brew? Also, as I have asked, what is a unit? I see confusion when the Government say, “Avoid all alcohol when pregnant”, but some commentators in the media say, “Drink sensibly”. I see confusion when, in October 2007, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence produced guidelines that stated that pregnant women can consume 1.5 units of alcohol per day after the first three months of pregnancy, whereas the BMA says, “Avoid all alcohol”. I see confusion when the Portman Group, the industry’s mouthpiece on social responsibility, says that it is holding back from labelling due to the uncertainties about the dangers of drinking when pregnant. If all the experts are confused, how about the young woman going out on a Friday night to enjoy herself? What is she supposed to make of it? What about the babies who in the mean time are being born with FASD and FAS, disorders that are totally preventable? It is simply not good enough for us to allow this confusion to continue. At Second Reading of the previous Bill in your Lordships’ House, the Minister, my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, concluded his wind-up speech by saying, “if talks became protracted and it looked as if there would not be a successful outcome, noble Lords would be absolutely right to come back and say to the Government, ‘The time for talking is over; let’s see some action’”.—[Official Report, 20/4/07; col. 479.] Well, here we are, nine months later. The voluntary code is less than certain and, when and if it comes into effect, it is clear that adherence will be less than 100 per cent. I end by saying to my noble friend the Minister, “The time for talking is over; let’s see some action”.
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- 10:33
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Lord AddingtonLiberal Democrat- Quote
- My Lords, the Bill before us is based on the concept that one has to do something to address a problem. The noble Lord has made a good job of describing the problem, but the question is: what is the correct action to be taken? An argument between self-regulation and compulsory regulation is going on. What will self-regulation do? How will the Government monitor it to see whether it is successful? About the confusion of information, the Government can do something: they can make sure that one message is coming out. That would help. Let us remember what we would achieve by having labelling on a bottle. It would be part of a drip-drip process to reinforce other messages at other points in the process. It will not be a cure-all. The ban on cigarette advertising took a long time to get anywhere. You build consensus; you then achieve something. I was recently in Brussels, where there is a smoking ban. Everybody lit up in a restaurant because it was not being enforced. How we address that and how we get into people’s minds is something that the Minister can start to tell us about in a few minutes. What is the process? The noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, did a good job in describing the problem. He said that it causes damage. He asked where we were going and said there was no absolutely safe limit in all cases. I am afraid that the answer is that most people will be able to get away with a little, but are we prepared to take the risk? That muddle might be addressed in a better campaign, of which it would be a small part. Without clarification on that, our arguments about self-regulation, when it will be reviewed and updated, about what is going on, about the Government’s current position and the message that must absolutely be enforced will go round in circles. Clarification will help us. We are all worried about alcohol, because it is misused and being consumed by people of younger ages, and because we have managed—I do not know how—to create a culture of binge drinking, which is blamed on 24-hour drinking, despite the fact that it existed long before that was introduced. Binge drinking was helped to be created by the “get your round in before the pub shuts early” culture. Anybody who has not seen that was not in a pub when it shut at 11 pm. And if you wanted something to encourage you to be wrecked in the afternoon, it was lunchtime drinking. How do we get the message across to society? If we are going to deal with excessive alcohol consumption, we have to address one of the big players in society; that is, supermarkets and retailers, which often use alcohol as loss leaders. We all saw it on television during the Christmas period: “Buy X cans at X price, and come in and do the rest of your shopping as well”. If the drinks industry really wants to address the drinking culture, I would take it much more seriously if it did something in that area. That might be a more constructive approach to the problem as a whole. I do not underestimate this element of the problem, but I am afraid that it must be seen as part of a whole at certain points. As the Bill progresses, I hope that the drinks industry and retailers will give me some idea of what they are going to do to address the problem. If you have a pile of cans at home, and your 14 year-old son or daughter grabs them to go out with their friends, somebody who is very young will be drinking out on the streets without any supervision. Many of the horror stories which the press delights in giving us may relate to those situations. The alcopop industry—or, to use the correct name, the pre-mix cocktail industry—initially aimed its products at people whose palates liked them. I have tried alcopops a couple of times and they suggest to me petrol mixed with syrup. Young palates apparently like them. The advertising goes along the lines of, “Are you a KWV moment?”, which means, “Are you prepared to wreck somebody else’s evening for a laugh?”. That sort of advertising and culture must be addressed at some point. Can the Government give us an idea about their overall strategy? They are doing something. They have good adverts which demonstrate what happens if you drink too much and what you look like. A friend of mine pointed out that these are great adverts, designed to be shown when people come in from the pub. Showing them slightly earlier might be better. Do the Government think that the industry has moved fast enough to achieve greater warnings in key areas? What is their monitoring process of that voluntary code, and how successful is it? At what point are they prepared to take action if it is not good enough? That would be very helpful to the debate.
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- 10:44
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Lord McColl of DulwichConservative- Quote
- My Lords, I too add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, for introducing this Bill and recognise his dogged determination and his splendid work with the National Organisation on Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. This Bill is about protecting the vulnerable because it is generally accepted that alcohol is a poison, although it is not included in the Poisons Act 1972. The mechanism by which it damages is not fully understood, but it probably disrupts the synthesis of protein. It may be related to poor diet, especially a deficiency of vitamin B. It depresses the functions of the body and it stimulates conversation by depressing our inhibitions. Lest your Lordships should think that I am about to recommend prohibition, I quote from the good book: “The Lord gave wine to gladden the heart”. When I mention another verse to my wife, which says, “Take a little wine for your stomach's sake”, she says, “Yes, and it says ‘a little’”. I always knew when she was pregnant because half a glass of sherry would make her very talkative. These comments simply emphasise the importance of the dosage of alcohol and its dangers during pregnancy. As it is not certain whether small doses are harmful, the advice of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of Midwives seems the most sensible: avoid alcohol in pregnancy altogether—a matter mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell. Binge drinking is especially harmful to both mother and baby, particularly around conception. As women are not aware of precisely when they are actually conceiving, all women of child-bearing age should avoid binge drinking like the plague. While we are dealing with the subject of dosage, I have noticed that there are many ex cathedra statements about how much alcohol one can drink, quite apart from pregnancy. We are told that women can have 14 units and men can have 21 units a week. What that completely fails to point out is that these figures refer only to those who weigh 11 stone or 70 kilos. A little old lady of 7 stone or 45 kilos should have only nine units per week and a man of 7 stone only 13 units a week. Would the Minister undertake to look into the anomaly of why there is no emphasis on the dose of alcohol? As far as concerns the actual labelling, have noble Lords noticed that many bottles of wine display a notice stating: “Contains sulphites”? The printing is usually 1 millimetre high. One bottle of Chianti had this notice in 17 different languages. Two points arise from that. If it is considered essential to put a notice about sulphites on bottles of wine, surely it must be much more important to indicate the more serious dangers of alcohol, especially in pregnancy. I have advised the Minister that I would like to know the history of the sulphites notice. Sulphites are added as a preservative. Some people believe that sulphites provoke an adverse respiratory effect in sensitive people, but this kind of reaction is complex and multifactorial and may be quite unrelated to the sulphites. When it becomes common practice to label bottles of alcohol, I hope that the size of the print can be at least 2 millimetres. Having gone to all this trouble it seems a shame if people cannot read the notice that has been put on there. Last weekend I scrutinised a number of wine bottles. My host was a little apprehensive as I went through his wine cellar. He thought that I had designs on it, but I was really scrutinising the labels. I was surprised at how much information is already displayed on bottles. On some French wine bottled in Manchester there is quite a large notice which reads: “BEFORE/DURING PREGNANCY: Most studies show that 1-2 units of alcohol once or twice a week do not cause any harm in pregnancy”. That is a positive approach, but I would have preferred a more cautious wording, such as: “Although some studies suggest that one to two units once or twice a week do not cause harm in pregnancy, the safest policy is to avoid it during the first half of pregnancy altogether”. The French have designed a wine bottle label with an unusual warning. It consists of a traffic “no entry” sign containing a silhouette of a pregnant lady with a glass of wine in her hand. I am not sure how well that will be received by the British wine industry, but one never knows. Some wine companies already indicate the number of units in a bottle. For instance, the Co-op in Manchester has on the back of its bottles of French wine a 3x4-inch notice entitled “Customer information”, which not only lists the ingredients but states the maximum safe number of units. It states: “Use the DAILY guidelines for sensible drinking. Refraining in one day should not mean excess on another”. It goes on further to list the number of units in each bottle, namely 10 units in a 750-millilitre bottle of wine, the calorie content and number of glasses. Many people are unaware of how many calories can be consumed by alcoholic drinks. Three Mai Tai cocktails contain 1,000 calories. The notice goes on to state: “DO NOT DRINK and drive, play sport or operate machinery”. Perhaps stimulated by this Bill, the wine industry has reached agreement with the Government, as has been said already, that by the end of the year all alcoholic drink labels will include information about the number of units. Recent surveys suggest that 75 per cent of the population agree with labelling and that 69 per cent know the maximum number of units which should be consumed. The problem is that only 13 per cent actually keep an eye on how much they drink. By displaying the number of units on the labels, together with the safe levels of consumption, we hope this will encourage people to avoid dangerous levels of drinking. Unfortunately, many people still think that a glass of wine is just one unit—a matter mentioned already. I have been unable to find a single glass in the Palace of Westminster that contains one unit. The standard glass in the Bishops’ Bar holds 175 millilitres, which is over two units if the wine is the usual 13.5 per cent strength. Of course 13.5 per cent means 13.5 grams per 100 millilitres. The largest glass is 250 millilitres, which is over three units. As there is little appreciation of how many units people are drinking, even in your Lordships' House, perhaps it is not surprising that more than 7 million people in this country drink in a harmful way. In conclusion, the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, have already been partially rewarded and by the end of the year most bottles will be labelled, but we still need to persuade the wine industry to include warnings about pregnancy. As far as mandatory labelling is concerned, I am very much inclined to agree with the views expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, in her excellent speech. The Bill seems to have been overtaken by events, making it unnecessary.
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- 10:50
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- Speaker
Baroness Royall of BlaisdonLabour- Quote
- My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Mitchell on introducing his Bill. I well understand that he must be extremely frustrated to have missed the first part of the debate. We well understand why that was the case. It is not a criticism but our noble friend Lord Griffiths did an excellent job with his reference to a minister with a wine cellar. He is absolutely right that no one can be against the important ethos behind this Bill. We wish his daughter well. My noble friend Lord Mitchell is a formidable standard bearer for the National Organisation for Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. We all admire his great and growing expertise. I commend him especially on his tenacity and commitment in seeking to place a legal obligation on alcohol producers to provide information on product labels warning women of the potential risks to the unborn child of alcohol misuse. As he mentioned, this is the second occasion within a year that he has presented such a Bill to this House. As he will know from his recent discussions with my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Public Health, the Government have considerable sympathy with the motivation behind his Bill. He will also know that the Government are seeking to encourage the alcohol industry to implement a more wide-ranging alcohol labelling regime, the details of which were set out by my noble friend Lord Hunt last April. In May 2007, the Government announced that we have reached an agreement with the industry to include health and other information on alcohol product labels. This will include: the drink's unit content and the recommended government sensible drinking guidelines; UK health departments recommend men do not regularly exceed three to four units daily and women two to three units daily; and the Drinkaware website address, detailing sensible drinking messages from the charity Drinkaware. For wines and spirits, unit information will normally be given per glass and per bottle, but I recognise the difficulties raised by the noble Lord, Lord McColl. We did not, unfortunately, reach full agreement with the trade associations to include the Government’s wording, or an alternative logo, on alcohol and pregnancy. We know that some trade associations are encouraging this, and a number of major producers and most supermarkets are willing to do this. We expect most of the industry to approach this positively. We are strongly encouraging all the others to do so as far as possible, and hope to see widespread implementation. We are very shortly to commission independent monitoring of the progress that is being made by the industry in fulfilling the terms of the agreement. I am aware that my noble friend is somewhat sceptical about the industry’s full commitment to fulfilling the agreement, and the likelihood of implementation of our wording on alcohol and pregnancy. For the Government’s part, I hope that this scepticism is unfounded and that the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, is correct. Certainly, from our dealings with them, there does seem to be a genuine desire by most sections of the alcohol and retail industries to promote more responsible drinking, and I welcome the generally constructive approach that the industry has taken. However, we have made clear in the Government’s renewed alcohol strategy, Safe. Sensible. Social. The next steps in the National Alcohol Strategy, and we have made the industry very well aware that we will not hesitate to introduce legislation if we are not satisfied with the industry’s efforts in ensuring that the majority of drinks labels are carrying the information required. The Government have indicated that they expect to see by the end of this year the majority of labels carrying health and other information. And, although it is not formally part of the agreement, we expect implementation to include information on alcohol and pregnancy. This will be part of our benchmark, as we have made clear to industry. A benchmark survey will be taken in February and a further survey in late winter. If it is considered that insufficient labels carry information, the Government will go ahead with their consultation on legislation before introducing that legislation. My noble friend Lord Mitchell and the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, referred to confusion about guidance to pregnant women. The new UK advice to women is that as a general rule pregnant women or women trying to conceive should avoid drinking alcohol. If they do choose to drink, to protect the baby they should not drink more than one to two units of alcohol once or twice a week and they should not get drunk. A short version of the revised message on pregnancy for inclusion on labels also agreed by the four UK chief medical officers was included in our February 2007 proposals to the alcohol industry for labelling. The message is, avoid alcohol if pregnant or trying to conceive. To date, NICE has consulted about its final guidance but I am confident that as both NICE and the four chief medical officers all base their evidence on the same scientific evidence, it is unlikely that there will be conflicting advice. I do not think that we can allow there to be conflicting advice. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, rightly has strong concern about pregnant women who are dependent on alcohol and asked how many there are. In 2005, one in five—20 per cent—of women in the UK drank more than the recommended guidance and it is estimated that more than 6,000 children are born each year with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. That is about 1 per cent of live births. This reflects the amount of alcohol consumed by pregnant women; that is, drinking at harmful levels, which includes those dependent on alcohol. However, an increasing number of women give up alcohol completely, as has the daughter of my noble friend. The noble Lord, Lord McColl, spoke of dosage and the link between a person’s weight and their tolerance—if I might put it like that—of alcohol. I shall give the noble Lord further details on that in writing, but I have to confess that, like his wife, I become talkative after one glass. He gave me advance warning, as he mentioned, about sulphites. The European Union, as part of its allergens labelling regulation for food and beverages, stipulated that all wine sold in the EU must include a statement that wine contains sulphites if there is any detectable presence of sulphites in the final product. Sulphite is one of 14 food allergens in the EU which have to be identified on the labelling of prepacked food. In the case of alcoholic drinks which do not have an ingredients list the rules require the presence of the allergen to be indicated with the prefix “contains” followed by the specific allergen, for example sulphites. I shall give the noble Lord further details on that. Much has been said about the need to examine the relationship between alcohol price, promotion, consumption and harm. Safe. Sensible. Social does, of course, include a commitment to carry out an independent review into this relationship. I am pleased to report to the House that a research team from the University of Sheffield has been selected to carry out this important work. The review will seek to establish, through a systematic review of the evidence, to what extent and in what circumstances price—including discounting, advertising and other forms of promotion—drives consumption of alcohol and all forms of alcohol-related harm. As part of this, the review team is asked to look at evidence on whether the current advertising restrictions are sufficient to protect children and young people, taking into account the work undertaken by Ofcom and the Advertising Standards Authority. The Government will use the review’s findings, which they expect to receive in July 2008, to assess whether particular types of discounting, linked to purchasing of bigger quantities, and promotional activities contribute to alcohol-related harm; and will, if necessary, consider the need for regulatory change in the future, following public consultation. Responsibility for the Alcohol Education and Research Council passed to the Department of Health at the beginning last year. For the past six years, it has been ably led by Dr Noel Olsen, during which time he oversaw an independent review of the council’s work and organisation and its transfer to the Department of Health. It is a testament to his chairmanship that the transfer of the council from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to the Department of Health passed off so smoothly. Unfortunately, his term of office comes to an end on 31 January. I am pleased to announce that Professor Robin Davidson has been appointed to succeed him as chairman of the Alcohol Education and Research Council for a period of three years effective from 1 February. The council has a strong reputation for delivering high quality, evidence-based research, and we look forward to working with him as we work to tackle the harms that are caused by alcohol misuse. Noble Lords will recall that we have debated issues surrounding misuse of alcohol on a number of occasions recently. I do not propose to rehearse those arguments, but I emphasise the Government’s commitment and determination to reducing the long-term harms caused by alcohol, both in dealing with specific harms such as foetal alcohol syndrome, as well as more generally seeking actively to encourage a culture that accepts sensible drinking as the norm and frowns on the excesses brought about by binge drinking. We see labelling as part of a wider programme of action by the Government and the alcohol industry to raise awareness of how much people drink and to encourage a sensible drinking culture, but labelling is not an answer of itself. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked about advertising. We will shortly be embarking on a sustained national £10 million communication campaign to challenge public tolerance of drunkenness and drinking that causes harm to health and to raise the public’s knowledge about units of alcohol and ensure that everyone has the information that they need to estimate how much they really drink. This has been an excellent debate, and I am grateful to my noble friend for his persistence in raising these important issues. It is clear that both the Government and this House want to ensure that information about pregnancy and alcohol consumption is on bottles. We differ slightly on the method of getting there, but get there we will.
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- 11:00
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- Speaker
- Lord MitchellLabour
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- My Lords, with the leave of the House and on behalf of my noble friend Lord Griffiths, who kindly moved the Second Reading on my behalf, I will now reply to the debate. I am very grateful to all noble Lords who participated in the debate. It was predictable beforehand and was true in reality that the quality was of the very highest order. I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, did not speak, but no doubt she has a speech that she will let me read, which would be useful. I missed the contribution made by my noble friend Lord Griffiths. I heard only half of what the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, said. She has tremendous experience in the industry; I think she was chief executive of the Portman Group at some point. She really understands the industry perspective, so I am very grateful for her contribution. I will read all the speeches in Hansard with great interest. At the end of the day, this Bill is about whether one believes that a voluntary code will work 100 per cent. As the Minister said, I am somewhat sceptical that it will work 100 per cent. In the case of tobacco, it was mandatory. All that I will say in summary is that it was a good debate. On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
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- 11:12
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