Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations 2015

Debate between Lord Geddes and Lord Walton of Detchant

Monday 16th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Walton of Detchant (CB)]

As a small boy in a mining village in County Durham, where my father was a schoolteacher, I was introduced to Woodbines at the age of 11 and started to smoke intermittently but frequently. When I went to medical school, I am horrified to tell your Lordships that we were advised by our teachers to smoke in the dissecting room to remove the smell of the carcasses which we were dissecting. The professor of physiology said that he could not live without smoking and that we were therefore fully entitled to smoke all the way through his lectures. Practically every medical student in those days did.

After graduation, when I eventually became second in command of a hospital ship sailing through the Mediterranean to Palestine and various other places, I could buy a 50-can of Senior Service cigarettes for one shilling and eight pence and that can would last me two days—25 a day I was smoking. None of us at that time knew the dangers of smoking. When I came back out of the Army and started to work in a hospital in Newcastle and then in the National Health Service, slowly but surely the work of Richard Doll and his colleagues on the desperate effects of smoking began to emerge. Eventually, thank goodness, I had the strength to give up smoking—with difficulty—in my late 30s. It was a struggle but I made that sensible decision and thank goodness I did; otherwise, I probably would not be here now.

Smoking tobacco is one of the most appalling health hazards of the age—there is no question at all about that. Not only does it cause cancer of the lung and of other organs such as the bowel and bladder, it has a very powerful effect on the cardiovascular system in causing coronary artery disease and stroke; it also has a desperate effect on the respiratory system in causing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It has a devastating effect on all kinds of illness. For that reason, I have been delighted to participate in debates in your Lordships’ House over the years leading to bans on advertising and on smoking in public places— bans that have all been introduced by Parliament in good sense. Any effort of any kind that can prevent young people taking up this appalling habit is well worth while.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, that my friend Sir Cyril Chantler is not a master of the kind of market research that he talked about but he is an expert in epidemiology and in statistics, and his research clearly demonstrated that standardised packaging is,

“likely to lead to a modest but important reduction over time on the uptake and prevalence of smoking”.

Any measure that has that effect and prevents young people taking up smoking is well worth while, and for that reason I regard standardised packaging as another essential regulatory measure in addition to the ones that have been passed by your Lordships’ House and by Parliament in general in having the effect of preventing youngsters from taking up this appalling habit.

I therefore strongly support the regulations, I strongly support the excellent introduction by the noble Earl, and I am afraid that I regard this Amendment as having another devastating effect, which is without question not necessarily sponsored but supported by the tobacco industry, which has done so much to delay the development of these important public health measures, which have made such a great contribution to public health.

[Lord Geddes (Con)]

My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Blencathra, I declare an interest as a member of the Lords and Commons Cigar and Pipe Smokers’ Club—and proud of it. Also like my noble friend Lord Blencathra, I commend and congratulate my noble friend the Minister, who could not be a nicer man, on leading the debates on this subject and indeed on tobacco-related products in general so courteously over many years.

However, I am glad to support my noble friend Lord Naseby. I may be the only Member of your Lordships’ House who has experience of plain packaging in this country; I am trying to see whether anybody is going to disagree with me. That was when I first joined the Navy as a national serviceman aged just 18, when I was offered what were called “Blue Liners”. They came in totally plain packets and all there was on the cigarette was a minute blue line running along it—no name of the manufacturer, nothing of the sort. It certainly did not deter me from taking up smoking, nor did it deter any of my colleagues. I just do not believe that plain packaging will deter the young—who ought to be deterred; I could not agree more—from taking up smoking.