Health Bill [HL]

I think that quite a good case could be made out to classify cigarettes as pariah groups. I take the Committee back to remarks which I made earlier. I quoted Mr Geoff Good, the brand director of Imperial Tobacco, speaking at a conference in December 2006. He spoke of the UK, as my noble friend Lord Walton pointed out, as a dark market, meaning that former open advertising channels had been blocked by the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002. He said that the industry had to be more creative in devising other methods of marketing. He then went on to show that Lambert and Butler had found that their new design for their celebration pack to mark their 25th anniversary had been most successful in increasing their brand share of the market. The pack design is recognised by the industry as a really important factor in increasing sales, especially now that all other forms of advertising have been prohibited.