Cigarette Stick Health Warnings Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Merron and Lord Young of Cookham

3rd reading
Friday 18th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, this Bill extends the logic of health warnings on cigarette packs to the cigarettes themselves. If implemented, it would require both cigarettes and cigarette papers to display health warnings such as “Smoking kills”. This is likely to be particularly effective for dissuading children, who tend to start smoking with individual cigarettes rather than packs.

While England is undoubtedly among the most successful nations in the world at tackling the tobacco epidemic, we have tended to follow rather than lead when it comes to the implementation of bold policies to address this deadly addiction. The Bill gives us the opportunity to be the first, helping to cement our place as a world leader in tobacco control.

We know that only one-third of the 280 children who take up smoking every day in England will successfully quit, and another third will go on to die from smoking-related diseases. These cigarette warnings were one of the recommendations by the APPG on Smoking and Health for the forthcoming tobacco plan, which we discussed at a recent meeting with Javed Khan, the chair of the Government’s independent review into smoking. We were encouraged by his interest in all our recommendations, including this one, and we look forward to seeing his report, which is due to be published on 22 April.

While we could be the first to implement cigarette warnings, this is not a novel policy. I first proposed cigarette warnings as a Health Minister in Margaret Thatcher’s Government in the late 1970s. By 2024, I will have been in Parliament for 50 years. I hope I will not have to wait that long before this policy is introduced. I beg to move.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, for his tireless efforts and creativity—over many decades, as we have heard—in tackling the negative effects of smoking on the health of individuals and communities. This is a considered and sensible Bill, and we are happy to support it today.

Additional health warnings at the point where people are about to smoke, on cigarettes and cigarette papers, is not a measure for its own sake; it is a further step towards helping to drive down smoking rates and indeed discourage people—especially the young, as the noble Lord referred to—from starting to smoke in the first place. By our doing this, people will have the chance to live longer and have healthier lives, and health inequalities between the richest and the poorest stand a chance of being reduced. For every smoker who dies, there are another 30 who are suffering from serious smoking-related diseases.

Just this week, on Report on the Health and Care Bill, your Lordships’ House voted in favour of a consultation to explore whether the “polluter pays” principle might be effective in the case of tobacco. This Bill seems to chime well with the mood about the direction that smoking legislation in the UK needs to go in. I wish the Bill every success and once again congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham.