Tobacco Products and Nicotine Inhaling Products (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, first, I apologise for arriving during the Minister’s introduction: I had some connection problems.

I welcome the regulations. They are necessary with Brexit imminent, but the complexity is well illustrated in the Explanatory Memorandum, which takes some reading. One thing that caught my eye was in paragraph 7.1.8, relating to Northern Ireland. Special regulations covering many issues relating to smoking and tobacco get tied up in the relationship between Northern Ireland and the rest of the EU. Has any thought been given to the reintroduction of smuggling across the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland? Cigarettes are wonderful things to smuggle—they very easy to hide. A lot of that will be going on unless some effort is made to discuss these and other regulations with the relevant people in the Republic, and with the European Union. I will be glad to hear what the Minister has to say on that.

My other question arose this morning when I got an email from the IBVTA, which represents vape stores. In response to the announcement on Saturday of the closing of all but essential shops, it terms a vape store as an essential shop. According to this organisation, and as we all know, more than 70,000 people across the UK die of smoking-related illnesses every year. It also says—which is relevant and which confirms the view of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath—that more than 3 million vapers are ex-smokers or current smokers. If for the next month, vapers will not be allowed able to buy their vapes, I suggest that there is a really good chance that they will revert to buying cigarettes, assuming they can buy them. Perhaps the Minister can explain why or if this is happening and, if not, write to me, because that is a retrograde step if we are to get to the target of being smoke free by 2030.

In the same way, if we are to have that target and make some changes, we ought to set an example ourselves and completely ban any tobacco smoke within the Palace of Westminster. That may be above the Minister’s pay grade—it is certainly above mine—but we should not forget about it. I look forward to her comments.

[Baroness Northover (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the regulations. The decline in smoking that we have seen in the United Kingdom is indeed a major public health achievement and has, as she said, commanded strong cross-party support. My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones, working with others, including the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, was central in bringing about the ban on smoking in public places, and that was transformative.

I was very pleased that when I was in the Department of Health in the coalition Government, we were able to build on that progress, and I pay tribute here to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, who was then Secretary of State. The draft instrument before us today must protect those achievements as we leave the EU, and I ask the Minister to ensure that it does with respect to warnings on tobacco packaging. I hope that we will continue to work with the EU: yet again, we maximised our influence by being in the EU.

I turn to the pictorial warnings. Evidence shows that one of the benefits of standardised tobacco packaging is that it makes the graphic health warnings on packs stand out. Research has consistently shown that pictorial warnings are more effective than text-only warnings at motivating smokers to quit. It is therefore welcome that the Government will be able to use the Australian Government’s library of graphic pictorial health warnings as an interim solution to ensure that tobacco packaging continues to warn smokers, following the end of the transition period. However, I emphasise the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt: that it is best practice to change these health warnings around to ensure that they maintain their impact. The reduced number of warnings in the Australian picture library compared to the EU’s is therefore a concern, and that is why this can be only an interim solution. Will the Government conduct a review of the picture warnings to ensure that we can increase their number, allowing for the rotation of warnings, as is currently the case? It is also worth noting that Northern Ireland will continue to have access to the EU picture library, meaning that packs sold in Northern Ireland will continue to have a wider range of picture warnings.

As the Minister says, we cannot be complacent. Smoking prevalence remains the leading cause of preventable premature death, killing almost 100,000 people a year in the United Kingdom. It is striking that there has been a decline during the pandemic. People know that smoking kills and fear for their health, but while more than half of smokers report wanting to quit, many take 30 or more attempts to do so. More must be done to help smokers to quit if we are to achieve the Government’s ambition of a smoke-free England by 2030. Like my noble friend Lord Rennard, I very much welcome the Government’s intention that England is smoke free by 2030.

While health warnings on the outside of packs motivate smokers to quit, the Government could and should go further, introducing pack inserts, which provide evidence-based advice on how to quit successfully. In Canada, for example, pack inserts highlight the benefits of quitting and provide tips on how to do so. Research into their impact has shown that while reading on-pack health warnings significantly decreased over time, reading inserts significantly increased, with more frequent reading of inserts associated with quitting. Introducing pack inserts in the United Kingdom would require a simple amendment to the standardised packaging regulations.

The Government’s prevention Green Paper mentioned pack inserts but highlighted that they would wait until Brexit was completed to bring this forward. Now, as we approach the end of the transition period, and the review of the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations is due, could the Minister say what is being done to take forward this proposal as another step towards achieving a smoke-free 2030?

I also ask the Minister about her department’s engagement with the local government department over countering smoking. I expect she knows that the Government agreed that at least part of areas outside pubs and restaurants should be smoke-free. Is she aware that the Secretary of State for local government, Robert Jenrick, wrote to Manchester local government in effect warning against this, saying that jobs might be lost, even though there is no evidence of this? Can she tell me whether this letter of his received prior approval from the Department of Health and Social Care?

I look forward to the noble Baroness’s reply and, if she cannot answer the last point, to a letter from her clarifying the matter—not a letter saying that the regulations were jointly approved but a letter telling us whether the local government letter sent in August was jointly approved. I look forward to her response.