Tobacco

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they are ensuring the cross-government implementation of the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, the Government take very seriously their obligations as a party to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The convention encourages parties to take a comprehensive approach to tobacco control to improve public health. The United Kingdom is a recognised leader for tobacco control internationally. The Government’s tobacco control plan sets out a government-wide approach to tobacco control, as well as what will be done to support local authorities to reduce rates of tobacco use.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the reason that the United Kingdom Government and 173 other Governments have become parties to the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco control is because the tobacco industry has had a uniquely malign influence on health policy in all countries where tobacco is sold. Does he agree that its record in the United Kingdom since the 1950s has consisted of first denying the link between tobacco smoking and ill health, then suppressing the results of its own research on the addictive properties of nicotine, then denying the harmful effects of second-hand smoke and now funding front organisations to oppose tobacco control legislation such as the point-of-sale restrictions, which I am delighted that the Government have embraced? Are not all these powerful reasons for sticking to the framework convention and ensuring that the tobacco industry has no influence whatever over the formulation of health policy relating to tobacco?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, yes, the vested interests of the tobacco companies are well recognised. The Department of Health is careful to ensure that the Government’s obligations under the framework convention are met, including the treaty obligation to protect public health policies from the vested interests that he referred to. For example, I hasten to reassure him that the tobacco industry was not involved in the development of the Government’s tobacco control plan, which was published last year.