Health Bill [Lords]

Thank you for that clarification, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was just elaborating on the Minister’s comments. New clauses 1 and 4 have the same ends—to bolster this rather feeble legislation and to make it into something a bit more meaningful. We are used to eye-catching initiatives from the Government, but the tobacco display ban is probably the first example of a non-eye-catching gimmick. The ban is a gimmick, and I speak as someone who regards themselves as a bit of a tobacco health fascist. I do not like the tobacco industry. I do not like anything it stands for. I have seen at first hand what tobacco has done to close relatives. One has only to go out the back door of any hospital to see people who can hardly walk but who have managed to stagger outside for their life-destroying cigarette. There is a problem. Ultimately, however, I am also a scientist and a Liberal, and we are talking about an adult product. The ban has been touted as a means of reducing smoking among the under-aged. If I felt for one moment that it would do that, I would support it, but it does not, so I will be supporting provisions to remove it. As I said, we are talking about an adult product that is sold to adults. It is rather disappointing, therefore, that the Government resisted attempts to introduce amendments in Committee to ban proxy sales of tobacco. A variation on new clause 1 was tabled in Committee, but the Minister rejected it. She outlined some interesting statistics from a tobacco smoking survey carried out in 2006—before the age for smoking was increased. She referred to 11 to 15-year-olds, 34 per cent. of whom bought from a shop, a fifth of whom were given cigarettes by friends, a tenth of whom were given them by family members and 18 per cent. of whom often bought them from other people. She claimed that the Conservative provision we were speaking to would not solve the problem, and she cited a number of incidences in which the proposed law could not be used. I therefore drafted new clause 4, which is based on the legislation that the Government use to prevent proxy sales of alcohol. This may be naive of me, but I assumed that the alcohol legislation is fit for purpose and that the Government would want to support a provision based on their legislation on another issue. The only reason not to support new clause 4 would be a lack of Government will to tackle the problem of proxy sales. I am told that even the tobacco retailers would not object to a provision along the lines that I propose. Whatever we might think of the product, a vast majority of retailers want to be responsible retailers. On this occasion, therefore, I hope that the Minister will not reject my proposals, because there would seem to be no reason to do so. New clause 6 is an interesting provision, which would ensure disclosure of tobacco industry promotional research activity. We have just heard an impassioned speech by the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson), which clearly explained the reason behind the new clause. In 2000, the Health Committee produced a report that set out in great detail some of the methods used to promote and increase tobacco sales. The current Committee, in its inquiry on alcohol, has uncovered similar devices and actions, which are quite shocking. Other supporters of the new clause will probably regale us with more detail, and I shall leave that to them so that more people have time to speak. I hope that commercial confidentiality is not thrown at us as a reason for not introducing my proposal. Unless information has to be provided in a very short time span, commercial confidentiality is simply not an issue. There is no detail about time scales in the legislation, so they will presumably be left to regulations. It might be helpful if any Members who are still to speak in support of the provisions could set out a time line for how they perceive the proposed openness working in practice. New clause 7 is an attempt to go further into the issue of plain packs. In Committee, I introduced an amendment that would require all cigarettes to be sold in plain packs. That may have been a little bold for some, and I would probably be a little inconsistent if I demanded an evidence base for a display ban when there is little evidence base as yet for plain packs. However, I instinctively feel that they must be a good idea because the tobacco manufacturers seem to hate the idea with a passion. New clause 7 requires the Secretary of State to consult stakeholders within six months of Royal Assent on regulations for the restriction or prohibition of branding on all tobacco products, thus potentially providing the first opportunity to introduce plain packaging for tobacco products anywhere in the world. It is now recommended as an issue for consideration under guidelines for the World Health Organisation’s framework convention on tobacco control—and I am sure that hon. Members will be aware that the UK is a signatory to that accord. We need to put the new clause into the context of the health arguments and how the tobacco industry has systematically utilised and evolved the tobacco packet with the very intention—deliberate or otherwise—of undermining the regulations that sought to inform people and protect them from tobacco. We know that smoking kills one in every two of its long-term users and that smoking is an addiction of childhood, with 80 per cent. of smokers having started by the age of 19. There is also a crucial health inequalities aspect to smoking that cannot be ignored. We know that smoking is the single most important factor in health inequalities and accounts for half the difference in life expectancy between social classes 1 and 5, which is very disheartening. I shall return a little later to the role of tobacco packaging in exacerbating health inequalities. First, I would like to address the tobacco control context surrounding the new clause. The Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002 prohibited the vast majority of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, which meant that the rules of the game had changed. The tobacco industry was forced into thinking how it could be a little cleverer and refine how it interacted with its users and potential consumers. One of the prime mechanisms for interacting with consumers is now through the cigarette packet itself, which is effectively used as a badge product. Although smokers may not be familiar with the concept of cigarette packets as badge products, they will be more familiar with the notion that the tobacco industry is seeking to evoke—that their brand of cigarettes reflects their identity, personality and character. Given such priming to personalise a smoker’s relationship with the brand they smoke, it is not surprising that most adults exhibit strong brand loyalty. More than 90 per cent. of smokers have already decided which brand to buy before they walk into a shop. The tobacco industry is aware of what it is doing. A Brown & Williamson employee stated in 1995 that""if you smoke, a cigarette pack is one of the few things you use regularly that makes a statement about you. A cigarette pack is the only thing you take out of your pocket 20 times a day and lay out for everyone to see. That’s a lot different than buying your soap powder in generic packaging."" That may well have been before mobile phones became the accessory to have, but this issue is worrying from a health inequalities perspective. Roper and Shah found that children, particularly those from deprived backgrounds, are especially attracted to tobacco brands. Once again, the supposedly glamorous issue of smoking is being supported through a branding infrastructure. Since 1998, the tobacco industry has sought to increase the number of brands, with the dual purpose of increasing their impact through taking up more space on the shelves while also increasing their share of the market. Benson & Hedges, for example, has increased its brand family from four in 1998 to 12 in 2008. Another function of branding is to distract from the health warnings on cigarette packets. Since January 2003, all cigarette packets have had to include a written health warning and, by 1 October 2009, a picture warning. One might wonder about the tobacco industry’s response. Well, some brands actually incorporate the colours of the health warnings into the design of the pack. It is of course illegal for tobacco manufacturers to say that their cigarettes are "low tar" or "light" or imply that they are less harmful than other brands. The fact remains that cigarettes contain more than 80 cancer-causing substances. Now the manufacturers use the branding and colour scheme of the pack to imply distinctions, through colours such as silver and white. For example, research by Ann McNeill at Nottingham university and other partners found that""products bearing the word ‘smooth’ or using lighter coloured branding mislead people into thinking that these products are less harmful to their health"." Let me provide a practical example in case anyone does not believe me. This research found that""compared to Marlboro packs with a red logo, cigarettes in packs with a gold logo were rated as lower health risk by 53 per cent. and easier to quit by 31 per cent. of adult smokers"." Consumers are deliberately being led to make distinctions between products that are essentially identical and, crucially, do not have any differential health benefit or impact. What could be the impact of plain packaging on tobacco products? Well, it would deglamorise them. Studies by Wakefield et al have found that plainer tobacco packaging can make the product seem "dull and boring". Indeed, without all the branding, what do these packets become? They become simply containers of tobacco products, rather than a brand for a smoker to build a relationship with. Such a move would be seriously fought by the tobacco industry, and it is already on their radar.