Health and Care Bill

Debate between Lord Moylan and Lord Rennard

Committee stage
Friday 4th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, for decades, all the various weak arguments associated with the tobacco industry, opposing tobacco regulation, have been comprehensively and completely disproved by the effectiveness of that regulation at reducing the prevalence of smoking rates. Tonight, we will argue why we need to go further with measures of tobacco regulation to further reduce the prevalence of tobacco smoking. I will speak briefly on Amendments 276, 277 and 278.

It is topical that, this week, mission seven of the Government’s Levelling Up White Paper committed

“to narrowing the gap in Healthy Life Expectancy … between local areas where it is highest and lowest by 2030”.

As Ministers regularly acknowledge, half of that gap is down to smoking, so real commitment to levelling up means that immediate action must be taken on these issues.

The tobacco-related amendments in this group will assist the Government in their stated aim to reduce the prevalence of tobacco smoking to below 5% by 2030. Amendment 276 requires the Secretary of State to introduce health warnings on cigarette sticks and rolling papers, in addition to the existing pack warnings. The claim that there is not yet sufficient evidence to justify the policy is a very weak excuse for inaction, and similar claims were made before the introduction of health warnings on cigarette packs. That is why the tobacco industry opposed them so strongly. These warnings on the packs are proven to be effective in reducing the prevalence of smoking tobacco, saving the lives of some of the people who were addicted to tobacco.

What is effective on the pack must be effective on the product, and 29 different studies have concluded that this would be the case. Other countries are considering this measure, and there is no reason why this country should not again lead the way.

Amendment 277 requires the Secretary of State to mandate pack inserts advising smokers about how to quit, and we know that very many smokers do want to quit. When the Government announced their smoke-free ambition in 2019, they said they believed that there was a “positive role” for such inserts, which they would consider as part of their review of regulations on exiting the EU. But the Government have inexcusably held back so far, making the lame excuse that

“further research”

is supposedly required to

“establish the public health benefit”—[Official Report, Commons, Health and Care Bill Committee, 28/10/21; col. 813.]

before proceeding.

The best research would be to introduce the inserts—at worst a harmless policy and something the tobacco companies could easily pay for from the huge profits they make from shortening the lives of half their customers. As the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, said, pack inserts have been mandatory in Canada for two decades. They have been shown to enhance motivation to quit, increase quit attempts and sustain quitting tobacco.

Amendment 278 would close a loophole in current legislation. In May 2020, it was rightly recognised that menthol can hide the harsh taste of tobacco and make cigarettes easier to smoke and more appealing to children; that is why it was banned. However, a massive loophole allowed flavouring to continue. The Government’s response on this issue in the other place was that

“it is not clear how a ban on flavours would be enforced in practice, as it would include a ban on flavours that do not give a noticeable flavour to the product.”––[Official Report, Commons, Health and Care Bill Committee, 28/10/21; col. 815.]

However, this has not been a problem in either the Canadian provinces or our European neighbours, such as Germany and Finland, which have successfully implemented a complete ban on flavourings.

In the year after the ban on menthol cigarettes came into force, Japan Tobacco made more than £90 million in profits from selling 100 million packs of its so-called “menthol reimagined” brands, which, it argued, were entirely legal. The loophole must be closed. I hope that the Minister will confirm that the Government plan urgently to step up a gear on tobacco regulation and support the tobacco-related amendments in this group.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am aware that, in your Lordships’ House, any lack of zeal for persecuting smokers marks one out as an aberration, but some realism has to be brought to this debate. It is my understanding that the Government will rightly resist these amendments so, in the interest of brevity, I will leave it to my noble friend the Minister to give a detailed rebuttal of each of them. However, I have a few things to say.

Unless smoking tobacco is made illegal, which would only bring with it all the organised-crime consequences associated with illegal drugs, the UK will not be smoke-free by 2030 or any other foreseeable date. There is likely to be an irreducible demand for smoking among both a small core of regular smokers and a wider population of people who enjoy the occasional cigarette. A sensible policy would recognise this and seek to accommodate it. There are widely understood risks to health associated with smoking, of course, but, as we have heard in this Committee, so there are with fat, salt, sugar and even fluoride. Despite all that, we have the constant efforts of well-funded zealots to bully and humiliate smokers and place burdens in the path of businesses engaged in the manufacture and distribution of this lawful leisure product.

Each of these amendments falls into one of those categories in one way or another, despite the smoothly expressed words of those who tabled them about increasing public information and the like. The public are already better informed about the risks of smoking than about almost any other topic. The UK is already highly regarded globally for its success in reducing the number of smokers. Those who wish to give up smoking deserve some modest help from public authorities, I agree, but they can be helped in other ways—for example, by diverting into products with much lower health risks. However, the campaigners against smoking cigarettes have been almost as determined to kill vaping as an alternative—although, as was indicated by the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, even public health officials are now beginning to question whether the initial blanket opposition to vaping is preventing some people making the transition from smoking cigarettes.

A similar question arises now as non-combustible tobacco products increasingly come on to the market. These contain tobacco but it is not heated to the point of combustion, although they still deliver nicotine to the user. Most of the harmful effects of smoking come not from the nicotine as such but from the smoke. Non-combustible tobacco products do not give rise to any smoke. The Government should be able to say, and make clear in their tobacco control policy, whether there should not be distinct regulations covering, separately, combustible and non-combustible tobacco products. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to assure me that this will be so on sound public health grounds.