My Lords, I have never smoked and I have no wish to smoke, but I am a marketing man by profession. We have here a legal product, the consumption of which has been steadily falling, particularly in recent years, in every age group throughout the country.
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Amendment 270 suggests that the minimum age should be raised from 18 to 21. People at 18 are adults, not children. Those young adults can make a decision one way or the other. They cannot be dictated to by their parents or grandparents—I have a granddaughter who is 17 and one who is 16. As young people, they are well able to make an evaluation of the pros and cons of all sorts of things—not least alcohol, which we discussed, or half-discussed, earlier today. Frankly, it is up to them to be free to make their decision. If we raise the age to 21, it will not change the demand for the product at all. All that will happen is that 18 to 21 year-olds will go and find a way of purchasing it, legally or illegally, and if it has to be illegal then it will be the smugglers who benefit from it.
I can admit—though this is not on the smoking front—that, along with about 10 other young men, I was on a NATO course to learn to fly in Canada in the mid-1950s. You could not drink alcohol in Canada if you were under 21. Thankfully, one of us—not myself—
was 21, so he was able to buy all the alcohol and the other three of us in my small group who were aged 18 consumed it. That is exactly the same as what would happen in this situation so, frankly, it is quite a daft idea altogether.
On the levy side, I am surprised that my noble friend the Minister did not mention the negotiations that were conducted with the Treasury in 2015 over the design of a levy on tobacco manufacturers’ profits. On that date, not so very long ago, the Government concluded that it would be unworkable, so they decided not to introduce it. I am even more surprised that my noble friend, who is usually well-briefed on these matters, did not know that on 10 January 2022 the Exchequer Secretary confirmed, in correspondence to the shadow Exchequer Secretary, that she
“can confirm that our position regarding the 2015 consultation stands. A levy would be a complex and costly way of raising money to fund tobacco control measures and would be unlikely to provide a stable revenue stream.”
I would add that the tobacco manufacturers themselves have not stood still; they have worked long and hard and put millions of pounds into finding alternative products. One thinks of e-cigarettes, the nicotine pouches that have been mentioned and heated tobacco products. Further taxes on manufacturers would actually reduce those levels of investment and slow down that change.
In my judgment, the introduction of a levy would only represent a further punitive tax on a legitimate product. What signal would that send to other companies and markets that have legal products—that all of a sudden a levy can appear? That is not going to help investment in the UK one iota. It is extraordinary to me that we have these existing taxes on tobacco products that are among the highest in the world, accounting for over 90% of the price of cigarettes. According to the most recent HMRC figures, the Government themselves collect £12.5 billion in excise and VAT from tobacco products.
Finally, on packaging, a number of noble Lords know that I spent 15 years of my life in advertising. I know a bit about packaging and, in my judgment, there is an enormous awareness today from all people about the risks associated with smoking. There are already significant health warnings. I nipped into my local CTN this morning to double-check exactly what is available for the consumer to see. It is all hidden away. Add to that the significant health warnings on the tobacco product packaging itself. That is a powerful tool—far more powerful than the bizarre idea that you could write on the side of a cigarette and communicate from that, not least because it will be burned away pretty quickly, long before you had even read it. It is totally bizarre.
We have an industry that, along with other industries, is harmful to people to some degree, but we are talking about adults. In our society, adults can choose what they do. I do not gamble, but I am quite sure that some Members of this House do. That is equally addictive and is taxed. We should tread very carefully in treating our adults of 18 as if they were young children.