Health Bill [HL]

In my contribution last Thursday I referred to a speech in December 2006 by Geoff Good, the global brand director of Imperial Tobacco. It has been pointed out to me that I misinterpreted his speech when I reported him as saying that, ""new methods of maintaining sales and attracting young people to tobacco smoking must be devised".—[Official Report, 5/3/09; col. GC 371.]" His actual words were as follows: ""The reason I’ve chosen L & B is that the UK is now a Dark Market. In 2003 we saw the introduction of the Tobacco Advertising & Promotions Bill, which effectively banned us from promoting all tobacco products and means there is no main media advertising, no point-of-sale advertising (apart from one A5-size notice)"—" I would question that— ""no direct marketing and no promotions. In this challenging environment, the marketing team have to become more creative"." I agree that he did not mention "young people" or "children", and I apologise for implying that he did. Of course, he would not have been so unwise. However, I suggest that the word "creative" could, in these circumstances, include the sort of prominent display at point of sale that we have been discussing. I pointed out that the tobacco industry pays for these so-called gantries to be installed, and it is very unlikely that it would do so if market research did not show them to be effective in promoting sales. In fact, after the word "creative", this piece goes on to say: ""We therefore decided to look at the pack design. Although Lambert and Butler was clearly the No 1 brand in the UK with a perfectly good design, given the limitations, in 2004 we decided to research a new version which would celebrate the fact that the brand has been on the market for 25 years. The research surprised us"." I am nearly coming to an end. It continues: ""We looked at various alternative designs, and all the packs were rated very highly by smokers. However, the pack which became known internally as the ‘Celebration’ pack, was the winner—indeed it was the most positively received pack change we have had from consumers in the life of the brand"." I realise that we are to have an amendment later on this very topic but, unfortunately, I shall not be present. So my occupying the Committee’s time now will save time later.