Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Jake Berry

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Jake Berry)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She is passionate about the high streets in Millom and more widely across her constituency. The loss of the last bank is of concern. That is why we are supporting the Post Office banking framework, which will ensure that 99% of personal banking customers will be able to keep their face-to-face banking at their local post office.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

T2. Last week, the children’s sector told us that funding for children’s services has fallen by 29% in less than a decade, and councils, including my own in Stockton, have been forced to cut spending on non-statutory early interventions by half. Will the Secretary of State commit to press the Chancellor to come up with the desperately needed cash for these vital services?

Tobacco Packaging

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Jake Berry

Thursday 7th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham]

We can all choose which part of the briefing we wish to cite. It is clear to me that standardised packaging is working in Australia, and I am sure that it will continue to do so. The hon. Member for Harrow East mentioned that 81% of people were likely to have thought about quitting at least once a day during the past week, and I think that that too is an important statistic.

What further evidence does the Secretary of State need to see before he commits himself decisively to making these life-saving changes? Pressure on smoking must be continuous and relentless, because we are fighting a pervasive, lethal and powerful addiction. We cannot afford to waver or hesitate. Every year more than 200,000 people under the age of 16 start to smoke, and that is 200,000 too many. Even if plain packaging just halves the number of new young smokers who are currently attracted to the slim, colourful and glamorous packs, it will have had a major impact on hundreds of thousands of lives.

If we wait the suggested three years for evidence from Australian legislation to emerge, little if any progress will be made. Incidentally, in the United Kingdom fewer people are attempting to quit with the help of the national health service for the first time in five years. The current prospect is unacceptable. The Government must act now to prevent further tragedy, rather than adopting the leisurely timetable that has been proposed by some who think that they know better, or perhaps have vested interests.

Let me drive the point home. More than 250 people die prematurely every year from smoking-related diseases in my local authority area of Stockton-on-Tees. We have a lung cancer rate of 67.1 per 100,000 people, which is a staggering 40% higher than the national average, and figures show that 610 children aged between 10 and 14 are already regular smokers.

I recall young people referring to cigarettes as “cancer sticks”, but many still think it cool to smoke. I see them walking to school, cigarette in hand or mouth, and it upsets me to think that had the Government acted, many of them would not have been attracted to the habit at all. Attempts are being made in the other place to introduce new clauses to the Children and Families Bill which would create a requirement for standardised packaging, and it is also possible that my own proposals to render it illegal to smoke in any vehicle where children are present will be reintroduced.

[Jake Berry]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alex Cunningham]

No.

I hope the Government will do the right thing by pre-empting the votes in the other place and announcing they will introduce their own legislation and put this matter to bed once and for all. No company should be allowed to promote such a deadly product through advertising and marketing. The glamorised packet in the hands of a young person is the most powerful marketing tool the industry now has left. Let us deny it to it without delay.

The case for standard packs is strong, and the need for action is urgent. A few weeks ago I spoke of the two sides in this debate: on the one side, the rich and utterly cynical industry that is quite happy to market products that still kill more than 100,000 people across the UK every year—more than the next six most common causes of preventable death—and on the other side, the medical and health community, politicians from all parties, and the general public. In the middle are the Government. Ministers from the Prime Minister himself down through the ranks know there is evidence that standardised packs will work for the better. I hope they will announce action now and give our people a better chance at better health.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

A lot of the points I was going to make have already been made, but I will start by saying that I absolutely support anything that is proven to reduce smoking. On that evidence-based test, I am delighted to congratulate the schools in my constituency of Rossendale and Darwen that have made fantastic progress on reducing the number of young people who take up smoking. Nationally, there is a good-news story to tell about the fall in the number of people who smoke and who take up smoking. The number is less than 20% of adults for the first time since records began, and there have been continued falls in the number of young people ever taking up smoking.

Many of us have had experience of cancer. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), whom I congratulate on securing this debate, have spoken movingly about their own family experience with cancer. It is a horrendous disease and that is why I am growing a moustache for Movember.

I think that lots of people who smoke are realistic about the risks. There cannot be many of them who do not know that smoking has a direct link to cancer and that it ends lives more quickly than may otherwise be the case. Some 12 million people still exercise their free choice to smoke cigarettes, however.

Many of the Members who are in favour of plain packaging have said that it will be a next step, but what they really mean is that it will be the next step on the road to banning smoking. Let us not beat about the tobacco bush: if people want to ban smoking—a legitimate habit of 12 million people in this country—let us have a debate about it. Some have spoken about taking incremental steps towards banning smoking in cars. I was tempted to intervene on the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) to ask how such a ban could be enforced, but I invite him to tell me now.

[Alex Cunningham]

Nobody wanted to wear seat belts when legislation was introduced, but the vast majority of people started to do so. I think that about 90% now do so. I believe that people would adhere to a law if we introduced it. If not, we would need just a few cases in court and I am sure it would then start to happen.

[Jake Berry]

I guess that the reason why people wear seat belts is that it is a criminal offence not to do so. If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that smoking in cars should be made a criminal offence, that just reinforces my point about the desire of certain people on the other side of the debate to ban smoking. If that is what people want, we should have an active debate about it and give people who smoke legitimately an opportunity to have their say.

During this Parliament alone, the Government have increased NHS funding by £12 billion, given people access to the cancer drug fund and protected public spending with regard to local authority public health budgets. That is good progress and I am proud to be part of a Government delivering it. Limits on the display of tobacco products have also recently been introduced in larger stores. Anyone who has been to a supermarket recently will have seen the white signs that slide backwards and forwards to disguise tobacco products, and they will be introduced in smaller retailers in 2015. I support that and think it is a good thing.

The ban on vending machines in pubs is particularly good. I started smoking by buying cigarettes by the men’s loo in a pub in Liverpool, where I was brought up. It is the easiest way to buy cigarettes under age, so I am delighted with and support the ban. The way in which the Government have continued to increase the tax on cigarettes has also been good. I think that making them more expensive discourages people from taking up smoking. I support all that action, but such action must be based on benefits.

[Jake Berry]

I think it is right to say that if tobacco was discovered today it probably would be banned. I also think that if alcohol was discovered today it probably would be banned. That does not mean that we should seek to do so.

I am very pleased with the progress the Government have made. The evidence shows that we have reduced to a record low the number of people who smoke, but there are still things left on the to-do list. First and foremost, we need to look at the evidence from Australia. If it demonstrates that plain packaging has reduced the amount that people smoke, we should take it up and I would not oppose it. I do not accept, however, that that has yet been proven. Part of being in this House, in government or in opposition is to have an evidence-based debate about outcomes. I do not think that we have the evidence or that the outcome will be a reduction in the amount that people smoke. We also do not yet know the impact of disguising packages in supermarkets, which may have the effect we seek without increasing the regulation on the tobacco industry.

We need much more rigorous enforcement against under-age sales. It is illegal to buy cigarettes under the age of 18. People under that age can have consensual sex and they can go to Afghanistan to fight in the Army, and the Opposition and the Liberal Democrats think that they should have the right to vote, but they are not allowed to buy cigarettes. We should have much more rigorous enforcement of the existing laws against selling cigarettes to under-18s, rather than rush to introduce new laws on plain packaging and banning smoking in cars.

[Alex Cunningham]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jake Berry]

No, I will not.

The European Union has recently legislated on banning 10-cigarette packs and menthol cigarettes. I do not support the ban of 10-cigarette packs. People who smoke often purchase a packet of 10 cigarettes as a way of rationing themselves, and people who are trying to cut down on smoking will also buy them. I understand that this is about increasing the price of the first packet of cigarettes that someone buys, but making people buy 20 cigarettes at a time will increase the amount they smoke and encourage them to smoke more. That will be the unintended consequence of what is probably a well-intended piece of EU legislation and I am disappointed that the Government supported it.

Legislation banning menthol cigarettes also went through the European Parliament just a few weeks ago. I do not understand why the hundreds of thousands—millions even—of people in this country who smoke menthol cigarettes should have them taken away from them. People have to be able to make their own decisions. If they want to smoke normal or menthol cigarettes, they should be free to do so.

This House also needs to give much more attention to legislation with regard to electronic cigarettes. I do not smoke normal cigarettes. Having moved on to electronic cigarettes as a way of giving up, I know that they can be a hugely positive medicinal aid if someone is desperate to give up smoking. To talk about cigarettes as they are today is to talk about old technology. Within the next year or 18 months, in the United States of America more fluid for electronic cigarettes is likely to be sold than traditional cigarettes. It is a large, unregulated industry. We need to get a handle on it and an overview of it and scrutinise its potential benefits or, indeed, dangers. We need to start considering legislation with regard to electronic cigarettes and try to prevent young people from taking them up.

I know from experience in my local pub, the Robin Hood in Helmshore in my constituency, that more people are starting to smoke electronic cigarettes because they can do so while standing at the bar. Young people are starting to smoke them because they can get champagne, truffle, cherry and bubble gum flavours. We need to debate this important development in order to have some sort of control and to protect young people from, to be frank, the inappropriate glamorisation of the electronic cigarette.