Tobacco Control Plan

Lord Palmer Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

There are a number of ways we can tackle this, price, obviously, being one of the main ways, along with taxation. The noble Lord will be aware that we increase the tax by 2% every year, and cigarettes prices here are now the highest in Europe. We are still providing funding of £73 million per year to help 100,000 people stop smoking. But it is not always money that counts. Anti-smoking campaigns, branding restrictions and taxation are all other elements which are proving successful.

[Lord Palmer (CB)]

My Lords, have His Majesty’s Government estimated the loss to the Treasury if England became smoke-free?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I am not aware of those figures, but the general feeling is that the savings to the health system would far outweigh them. I would always err in favour of doing everything we can to reduce smoking, whatever the impact on the tax we raise, because the savings on the health side are far, far greater.

Smoking: Vaping

Lord Palmer Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I will only talk about what I know, and what I know to be coming up, which is that we want to take a pragmatic and evidence-based approach. Other countries are looking at the balance we strike in this country with allowing smoking and vaping to take place—and indeed, positively encouraging vaping. I think our approach is sensible.

[Lord Palmer (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Viscount made a good point, because the same European legislation also brought in a ban on all small tobacco packs, which had a devastating impact, particularly on small local shops. Will the Minister therefore commit to reversing the ban on small packs once we have left the European Union? I declare my interest as set out in the register.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I am afraid I shall have to disappoint the noble Lord there. Our broad approach on restricting the advertising and sale of tobacco has been incredibly successful: we have very low smoking rates in this country, and they are falling all the time. We have ambitious goals to reduce smoking prevalence, including a long-term goal of reducing it to less than 5% of adults, and I am not convinced that what he describes would help.

Public Health Responsibility Deal

Lord Palmer Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I shall take my noble friend’s final question back with me. We will certainly look at it. However, I stress that our current emphasis is on overall calorie reduction, of which sugar can form a part. The scope for a reformulation to reduce sugar levels varies widely depending on the food and a reduction in sugar levels does not always mean that the overall calorie content is reduced—for example, when sugar is replaced by starch or other ingredients. The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition—SACN—is currently undertaking a review of carbo- hydrates and is looking at sugar as part of that. Its report will inform our future thinking.

[Lord Palmer (CB)]

Is the Minister aware that one supermarket chain has announced today that it is going to remove all sweets from its checkout tills? Would it not be a good idea for the noble Earl to invite other supermarket chains to do exactly the same?

Children and Families Bill

Lord Palmer Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I was going to make rather a longer speech the other night, but when I listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, present Amendment 263, most of the points in my speech were covered. However, I add my voice in support of what she said and of the other amendments before us today.

When I was 15, I remember being called home from school, as my father had had a very severe heart attack. He smoked between 40 and 60 cigarettes a day. I was there when the doctor told him, “You know what has caused this: it is your smoking”. I avoided smoking as a result—it brought the message home to me. When I used to travel in the car with him, invariably the little side window on the driver’s side would be slightly open, and most of the smoke would come back to me. We have legislation that protects people who have to work in vehicles from exposure to smoke—my goodness, we should be protecting children in a similar situation.

People say, “What next? You’ll be saying that people cannot smoke in their own homes”. The difference is that, in their own homes, children can go to another room—up to their bedroom or wherever—but when they are travelling in a car they cannot do anything like that. I very much hope that the Committee, and in due course, on Report, the House, will take on board an amendment along the lines of that moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. There is certainly widespread support on the Cross Benches for these amendments. If the Government do not move something themselves, I suspect the House will move on their behalf and that this will go forward into legislation.

[Lord Palmer (CB)]

My Lords, I fear that I may well be a lone voice in not supporting this amendment, even though I think smoking is a revolting habit and that everything must be done to encourage young people to refrain from it. There has been a lot of research into this, and a far more effective way to reduce youth smoking would be to ban the proxy purchasing of all tobacco products for under-18s, as is the case currently for alcohol.

I declare an interest as chairman of the Lords and Commons Cigar and Pipe Smokers’ Club and am, for my sins, a shareholder in BAT.

It must not be forgotten, particularly following the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, how much revenue is raised by the sale of legal tobacco products and, more importantly, how much income the Treasury is deprived of through illicit imports. I have a nasty feeling that if this amendment is agreed to, or voted on on Report, it will only compound that terrible figure.

Tobacco Advertising and Promotion (Display and Specialist Tobacconists) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2011

Lord Palmer Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, it is the clear policy of this Government—and the last one—to put tobacco products out of sight in shops. That must be right. As your Lordships heard when this issue was previously debated, lives are at stake here. There is clear evidence that some 300 lives are lost every day in this country resulting from tobacco-related illnesses. We need to do everything in our power to both prevent young people from taking up the habit and help people trying to quit. Every time we delay implementing this policy, further lives are at risk and more young people will start smoking.

It should also be the policy of this Government to put an end to tobacco industry interference in public health policy—the subject of this Motion. Behind-the-scenes lobbying by the tobacco industry undermines the Government’s clear intent in this area and is bad for the health of our democracy. Decisions of this nature, affecting people’s lives and livelihoods, should be taken transparently. While I know that opinion was mixed during the passage of the Health Bill which became the 2009 Act, there is now broad cross-party consensus that the evidence justifies the prohibition of tobacco displays and that the cost to retailers will not be unreasonable.

The tobacco industry has continued its campaign to undermine the Government’s resolve. Thankfully, it was not permitted to interfere in the development of the tobacco control plan for England—we have already heard about that from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. The Government should receive credit for taking seriously their duties in that respect. Those commitments include publishing details of meetings between the tobacco industry and government departments. I look forward to that happening in practice.

However, consequently the tobacco industry has used its large profits to seek to obstruct the Government’s progress, through the use of front groups and in the courts by the use of judicial review. The combination of legal challenge and what is often called front-group advocacy is used widely by the tobacco industry overseas. Australia is a case in point here. A 5 million-dollar television ad campaign during Australia’s recent general election purported to be by the newly formed Alliance of Australian Retailers but was revealed to have been funded by tobacco companies.

Smoke-free legislation, in place in England since July 2007, is among the most popular of recent laws, supported by some 80 per cent of the population. Just as the vast majority of people understand and support the reasons for a ban on drink driving and the compulsory wearing of seat-belts in cars to reduce road traffic deaths, most people understand why a ban on point-of-sale tobacco advertising is needed to improve public health—not least those trying hard to kick the habit because of the harm it is having on their own health and their loved ones. However, the tobacco industry continues to campaign against the law through industry-funded groups. With almost no chance of reintroducing smoking into pubs, the well funded campaigns have been described as a pre-emptive defence against further legislation.

We have already heard about what happened when Mr Stephen Williams MP, chair of the All-Party Group on Smoking and Health, revealed how the tobacco industry used retailers as a front for its campaign through direct cash payments and by paying for the services of lobby firms. What makes this practice particularly objectionable and unjust is that, when tobacco companies pay for secret lobbying to protect the promotion of their products, it is the poorest who suffer most—and not just in terms of cash. Research shows that poor smokers are just as likely to want to, and try to, quit but much less likely to do so successfully. Research also shows that tobacco displays are not only linked to youth smoking but also trigger relapse among smokers trying to quit.

We have heard different accounts of the evidence from the introduction of tobacco advertising bans in countries such as Canada, New Zealand and Norway. There is plenty of evidence to show that they lead to a considerable reduction in smoking—indeed, by figures well in excess of the official estimates of the likely impact of the measures coming into effect. This is a Motion of regret. I can think of nothing more regrettable than the fact that behind-the-scenes lobbying has led to the delay in the introduction of these much needed display regulations and that lives will be lost as a result.

[Lord Palmer]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, will know full well how I abhor the habit of smoking, albeit that I am a smoker. I must declare an interest as the convenor of the Lords and Commons Cigar and Pipe Smokers’ Club. We ought to be very careful about the hypocrisy of the last Administration. If smoking was completely outlawed, the entire British economy would literally collapse. As such, as much as I admire the noble Baroness, I regret this Motion—particularly in these hard pressed times, most especially for very small retailers.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I strongly support my noble friend and applaud the fact that she has brought this Motion before the House. People have spoken with great emotion about the rights of individuals. There is no proposal before us to ban people from smoking—perhaps there should be. It concerns me that we always dance round the brutal, central point about smoking: that it is known beyond doubt to be a killer. We are condoning a delay in discouraging young people and others from indulging in a habit that kills.

It is not just the smokers themselves but their families, the grief, the cost to future production as people fall ill and the heavy cost on the health service when we already know that the health service is stretched almost beyond all reason. In the arguments of those who are against my noble friend, I find it difficult that they seem to suggest that this is a private matter for the individual. It is not: it has social implications and the cost falls upon society as a whole. It is not just a cost upon the individual who decides to smoke. What evaluations have been made of the cost of this delay? What will be the cost to the health service? How many people will die prematurely who would not otherwise have died? What will the cost be of supporting families where people have died prematurely because of indulging the habit? This is an absolutely inexcusable delay.

In the last 24 hours, we again heard the Prime Minister make great speeches about how he will not brook delay in his decision to decentralise and make sure that people share in responsibility and participate in the kind of society of which he dreams. If he will not brook delay in that circumstance, why does he do so in allowing a practice to go on of encouraging people to take up a habit that is dangerous and results in death? We must face these central facts. If we condone what the Government propose, we condone more death, suffering, cost to the general public and burdens upon the health service. How on earth can that be justified?