Certainly, online advertising takes up over half of all the ASA’s work. The self-regulating system allows for flexibility to take on additional responsibilities. The ASA has also developed new sanctions to help tackle harmful, offensive and misleading advertising contact online where there is no traditional gatekeeper. I may have to get back to the noble Lord on the question of tax, which is slightly beyond my brief.
Would the noble Baroness perhaps return to the original Question from my noble friend on the Front Bench regarding the effectiveness of any sanctions that the ASA may have at its disposal or, indeed, choose to use? As we have just heard, the online world is extremely fast-moving, so it is very hard for any organisation to have proper oversight of what is going on there because it is not very transparent. It is very difficult to see how consumers are getting effective redress, even when complaints are upheld.
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberI agree with the right reverend Prelate, but it is necessary for these drugs to be properly assessed in relation to cost and effectiveness, as I said. It is not up to government to decide this; it must be done between the clinicians and the NHS.
The Minister referred to the difficulty, as she saw it, of getting people who might benefit from PrEP to use it effectively. I am not entirely sure what that has to do with the Question. However, does she not think it more likely that people will make proper and effective use of these drugs if they are available on the NHS, so they do not have to go through a much more complicated and much less well-funded system to get them?
As I said, it is up to NICE and NHS England to decide whether these drugs can be used. Until we know the result of the NHS appeal, it is difficult for me to comment further.
(8 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberI thank my noble friend for that interjection, I think. However, we feel that this should be part of a larger reform, when that comes, but this is not the time to do that. On the other hand, the new Leader—
My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the Minister, but perhaps she could explain why this Bill, which is small and incremental, is different from the other small and incremental Bills that the Government supported in the last Parliament, presumably because they were small and incremental, as she has already said?
It just would change the whole position of the House, and this is not the time to do that. What we want to do is to keep talking about this problem.