Energy Bill

Debate between Lord Stoddart of Swindon and Lord Judd

Monday 4th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, with great respect, I do not follow the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. We are not talking about a chocolate factory or even a motorcar manufacturer: we are talking about highly sophisticated, advanced, cutting-edge science. It has the potential to adversely affect staff and the wider public acutely. It is not either/or; it is a matter of having people with wider experience. The noble Lord is right: that is the purpose of a non-executive director. However, there must be people on the board who know what they are talking about, if they talk about it, when we come to the specific issues of this special, advanced and potentially very dangerous new form of energy generation.

This is not, incidentally, just limited to the nuclear sphere. I remember very vividly many hours toiling home to the north-west finding myself isolated on Preston station in the small hours. Railtrack had built up a great record of property development and all the rest, but it was suddenly realised after Hatfield that it had neglected the very special knowledge about how to run the railways and what that is about. It is not just any industry: it is about having the knowledge and background to ask whether management is taking this or that into account. It is not an either/or.

In the case of the railways, with that awful Hatfield incident, we had reached a stage where virtually nobody knew where the danger spots were on the track across the country. If we take those experiences seriously, it is a matter of getting the right combination of knowledge and expertise. I realise that when you use the word “expertise” you are beginning to go down a questionable road, but there has to be enough real knowledge of the special tasks and hazards, together with the wider experience to which the noble Lord rightly referred.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon (Ind Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendment, especially subsection (3)(b) dealing with,

“representation of employees in health and safety”.

That is so important. I worked at a power station myself. It was not a nuclear power station, but it was a power station. I was also secretary of the local advisory committee. I therefore have some experience of how essential it is that working people are taken into account regarding management of a plant.

Those advisory committees, incidentally, both at national and local level, were set up under the electricity and gas Acts of, I think, 1949 and 1950. There was a statutory duty to provide opportunities for employees to be consulted, at least, not only on matters of health and safety but on the broader workings of power stations and other installations. Indeed, it is necessary for employees to have those powers because it is helpful to management to ensure that working at ground level is safe. Managers cannot know everything that goes on, but most of the employees do. I support the amendment simply and solely because the question of employee consultation should appear somewhere in the Bill.

Tobacco Advertising and Promotion (Display and Specialist Tobacconists) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2011

Debate between Lord Stoddart of Swindon and Lord Judd

Monday 11th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

My Lords, I had better declare an interest, as did the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, in that I am an associate member of the Lords and Commons Cigar and Pipe Smokers’ Club. I am an associate member because I do not smoke, and I therefore cannot be a full member. Nevertheless, I have sympathy with the club’s aims, which are to give some support and protection to people who smoke.

Smoking is, as we have heard tonight, perfectly legal. In spite of all the attacks made on smokers, at least 21 per cent of the population still decides to smoke. In spite of all the measures that have been taken and all the high costs of cigarettes, a fifth of the population still wishes to smoke. Their rights deserve just as much consideration as in any other practice, whatever that may be. They are entitled to the same consideration and protection.

I am most surprised that these regulations from the coalition Government are before the House tonight, because I well remember during our discussion in Committee on the Health Bill in 2009 that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, was very doubtful about these measures of screening tobacco products from the public. It really is an imposition that retailers are prohibited from displaying a legal commodity. That undermines freedom. Make no mistake about it; if you allow people to sell a product and say that it is legal to sell it, why on earth then say that although they want to sell it and advertise it, they may not do so—they may not display to people that they can buy a certain product in their shop?

There is a lot of hypocrisy about smoking. If people believe, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and others do, that this is the most dangerous product in the world, they ought to come forward bravely and ban it. That is the answer. Why is it not banned? There are probably two reasons. The first is because of the £10 billion which the Treasury gets every year from the sale of tobacco. The Treasury loves to have that money; make no mistake about that. The other reason is that the cost of enforcing the ban would be so high that it would probably have to spend another £10 billion doing so.

[Lord Judd]

Of course it is powerful to argue that people like me should come out for a ban. We recognise that there is a balance between individual freedom and what is decided about society. That arises in the context of smoking. We are dealing with measures that delay the introduction of a scheme to discourage people from taking up the habit. We are dealing with a proactive situation that is encouraging people to smoke. There is a fundamental difference here.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

There is absolutely no difference at all. The brewers and the distillers wish to promote their product. They want people to start drinking as soon as possible because they make big profits out of people drinking. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, waxed eloquent about the dangers of tobacco. I remind him about the even worse dangers of alcohol addiction. Why are we not doing the same about alcohol? If people smoke, they do not go home at night and beat their wives and children. People who drink too much alcohol do that. Indeed, they kill people outside pubs. Cirrhosis of the liver kills many people at a very young age. Why are we allowing drinks to be displayed? Why do we not tax alcohol in the way that tobacco is taxed?

There are lots of arguments against using this huge sledgehammer against tobacco retailers in particular. We know that a lot of pubs have closed because of the smoking ban in public places. How many retailers will go out of business because of this ban? I have been a small retailer myself, and not everyone realises that the very fact that cigarettes are on display and people go in and buy them helps retailers to sell other things as well. They are not just tobacco retailers, they retail a whole host of other things, and the fact that they are selling and displaying tobacco helps them to sell other products.

I really would like to speak for a long time about this—after all, so far the debate has been rather one-sided—but I realise that time is getting on, there is another Bill to be discussed and the Minister has yet to reply. I repeat that I am surprised that we have this legislation before us tonight, and I will allow the Minister to tell us all about it.