Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

No doubt we will of course be able to see in the future what a Government would do in the event of Brexit. However, to be fair, at the moment we are debating these regulations, which have come into force. I have attempted to signal some of my concerns that this would have a negative impact on the use of e-cigarettes without detracting from the overall regulations. I beg to move.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I was most interested in the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, and in particular his gallant admiration of his colleague the Public Health Minister, who in my experience has usually been quite on top of her brief. I venture to warn the noble Lord never to make a mistake in your Lordships’ House, because I suspect that Facebook might be watching. I was also very moved by his defence—in fact it was quite tear-jerking—of the discrimination against the multi billion pound tobacco companies compared with the multi billion pound pharmaceutical companies.

I agree with much of what was said by the noble Lords, Lord Callanan and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, about the desirability of encouraging smokers to give up smoking. There is no doubt that vaping devices have an enormous role to play in this campaign, as many former smokers have managed to give up through using them. However, the regulations are not just about vaping devices but include, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, pointed out, standardised packaging regulations, which are essential for ensuring the effectiveness of the health information and warnings on cigarette packs. They also help to enable the UK to meet its obligations as a party to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control with respect to tobacco packaging and labelling, and product regulation.

There is no doubt that vaping devices have already been an enormous benefit to public health—although I fail to see why we need 25,000 different kinds of them—and have saved the NHS a great deal of money. When the directive to which these regulations give effect was first discussed in the European Parliament, as has been said, the Liberal group, which contained at that time several Liberal Democrat MEPs, worked hard to ensure that while the regulation of tobacco packaging continued to be robust, the regulations about vaping devices would be proportionate. Given that the original proposals followed the World Health Organization’s recommendation that these products should be licensed as medicines and would therefore be extremely tightly regulated, the Liberal group had some considerable success in making them a bit more proportionate, resulting in the directive as it is now. However, one of the things on which the group was not successful was the prohibition of commercial advertising of vaping products. This is the major item contained in my regret Motion.

According to the Royal College of Physicians, vaping is 95% less harmful than smoking and half of all smokers die from diseases that result from smoking. That is why it is vital that smokers can get information about these products and their benefits, and I regret very much that publicity about them is to be restricted. However, I support the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in his call for a new public information programme to inform smokers of the benefits of switching to e-cigarettes. It may surprise your Lordships to know that half of smokers are not aware of how much safer for their health e-cigarettes are. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in regretting the cutting of smoking cessation services—one of the many results of the public health funding cuts which I have condemned many times in your Lordships’ House.

I suppose that one of the reasons for the advertising ban is the fear that advertising will attract young people to vaping even though they have never smoked. This is of course undesirable, because nicotine vapour is very addictive, and I would not want to see children being attracted to spending their money on something so addictive and with no known benefits to their health. Indeed, more research needs to be done on the effect of nicotine inhalation combined with the various flavouring chemicals used in e-cigarettes. Some evidence is emerging that if inhaled, some of the flavourings may be harmful to the delicate cells lining the lungs. But although e-cigarettes have been around for years, there is no significant evidence that they are attracting non-smokers to take them up. On the other hand, we now have a large and growing cohort of people who use vaping devices, which is why I call on the Government to fund research on the benefits and—if there are any—the dangers of vaping.

Everything should be done to encourage smokers to switch to vaping, which is why my Motion also regrets that little attention has been paid to those vapers who claim that they need the higher-end concentration of nicotine products, which would be banned by some of these regulations, to help them give up smoking. Only time will tell whether that is the case. That is why the Government need to monitor and report on the implementation of these regulations and their impact on public health. While the further regulations on cigarette packaging are likely to be good, those on vaping devices could turn out to be bad.

Therefore, like the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, I do not support the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan—that the Government should withdraw these regulations—because we need the ones that affect tobacco. However, although I sincerely regret the Government’s current intention to withdraw from the European Union in the fullness of time and hope very much that it never happens, the current situation does give us an opportunity. As things stand we are not able to keep the good tobacco regulations and ditch the undesirable ones, but the forthcoming negotiations do give us an opportunity to do a bit of cherry picking.

I therefore ask the Minister, what is the Government’s intention with regard to these and other EU regulations? Do they plan to adopt them all and then repeal the ones they do not like? If so, I call on the Government to consider carefully any deterrent to smokers switching that might result from these regulations, and to repeal the ones that deter them as soon as possible. Of course, that would require careful monitoring and publication of the results. On the other hand, in the unlikely event that the Government plan to repeal all EU regulations and then adopt new UK ones, I call on them to replace only the ones that affect tobacco packaging and marketing to further decrease the public health burden of tobacco and the terrible effects on the health of individuals and the NHS.

Given that all these regret Motions are non-fatal, I do not intend to vote on mine, although if the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, votes on his, my colleagues and I will vote against it. We are where we are. What matters now is what the Government do in future. Lives depend on it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, first I congratulate my noble friend Lord Callanan on the very excellent case that he put. I shall not proceed by repeating any of the arguments. I have looked at the regulations, but some people who have spoken in the debate clearly have not.

If someone wanted to sabotage a product, add to the costs of producing that product, limit the scope for competition with that product, and drive out of business small producers, it is hard to see how a more effective job could be done than in respect of the regulations that apply to electronic cigarettes. As far as noble Lords who argued that this is all a plot by the tobacco companies are concerned, one way of ensuring that all of this ends up in the hands of large businesses will be by pursuing exactly these regulations—by limiting choice and, of course, by creating a black market, which will be accessed through the internet, as we have seen occur over and over again in respect of medicinal products.

There seems to be no logic in the regulations. We have already touched on why some advertising is allowed but not others. I find it extraordinary that a Government should want to ban advertising when the evidence that we had from ASH—the noble Lord referred to that—states:

“Perceptions of harm from electronic cigarettes have grown with only 15% of the public accurately believing in 2016 that electronic cigarettes are a lot less harmful than smoking”.

If most people do not realise the benefits of it, what on earth is the logic of preventing people advertising it? How does the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, explain that she wants a public information campaign? How can we have a public information campaign without advertising the benefits of electronic cigarettes? Therefore, why is she against the advertising of electronic cigarettes? There is no logic in that.

I hope that noble Lords do not mind me mentioning the fact that my son is 37 years old. He has smoked cigarettes since he was 16, to the best of my knowledge, and probably earlier. He smoked very heavily, but three Christmases ago—I should declare an interest—I bought him an electronic cigarette. As a result, he has reduced the levels of nicotine and of all the things that we have tried—blackmail, bullying, nicotine patches, and everything under the sun—it has worked. The figures show that one-third of the 2.8 million adults who are vaping in this country are ex-smokers. The arguments being put for the public health benefits are overwhelming.

It pains me to say this, but this is a classic example of gold-plating of European regulations by the UK health department. The point is that, because the regulations are gold-plated, there is nothing we can do about them. They are EU regulations and we are required to implement them. I wonder what on earth was going on in the Department of Health that made it do this.

When we see something absurd happening, we should ask, “Cui bono?”. Who benefits from this? Certainly the Government benefit from it because people who are continuing to smoke cigarettes will pay a very considerable amount in tax to the Exchequer. I do not know how much a packet of cigarettes costs, as I have never smoked my life, but I am told it is about £9 for 20 cigarettes. People who start vaping will not spend that in a week. Families on low incomes—and many of the people who smoke heavily are among the lowest- income families—will benefit from something which enables them to deal with the addiction that they have to nicotine and remove themselves from it. Who benefits from this? Certainly not the people who are among the poorest in our country who are smokers. The Exchequer benefits—the Treasury benefits—if people are still smoking cigarettes because it gets its tax on the cigarettes, which is very considerable. Of course, the pharmaceutical companies, which sell the nicotine patches, benefit. The tobacco companies benefit because people are not switching away.

So what on earth are the Government doing, promoting the interests of the tobacco companies and the large pharmaceuticals—because that is the effect of this? The detail in the regulations is unbelievable. They even spell out which typeface—Helvetica—appears on the warnings, and whether it should be bold or italic. That is North Korean stuff: it is utterly absurd regulation. We may laugh at it, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, pointed out, it means that small businesses up and down the country will have to comply with these regulations, work out what they mean, change all their literature and everything else, and, as a result, be driven out of business.

We are in a bit of a quandary here, because there is much in these regulations that is quite desirable. When we have left the European Union, we will be in a position where we can hold our Ministers to account, hold votes and actually make these things happen. I had not realised that this is a very clever operation by the Department of Health. This is what you do: you have some absurd regulations, which you know you are not going to get through the House of Commons. So you persuade Brussels to include them in an EU directive; and heigh-ho, they have to sail through both Houses, because there is nothing we can do. We all take part in this pantomime, where we explain all the reasons why they should be changed, knowing full well that there is very little we can do about it until we leave the European Union.

So I congratulate my noble friend on his efforts and hope that, when the Government are free to do so, they will rethink these absurd regulations, which will undoubtedly cost lives. They are a classic example of how big business is able to use Brussels, together with lobbying organisations, to the disadvantage—and, in this case, life-threatening disadvantage—of the citizens of this country.

[Baroness Walmsley]

May I correct something that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said? He suggested that there was an inconsistency in my remarks. I point out to him that my regret Motion regrets the advertising ban. If there were no advertising ban, it would be perfectly possible to have a public information campaign.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone]

My Lords, after the excursion by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, into Europe bashing, may I bring the House back to the subject in hand, which is these regulations?

The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, hit the nail on the head. Why are the major tobacco companies all piling into these products and their manufacture, distribution and promotion globally? It is not because, in a spirit of public protection, they want to see smokers take up these products rather than the main part of their activities, which will continue to be the pushing of tobacco globally.

We have to ask ourselves why there is a need for regulation in this area. The reality is that electronic cigarettes are effective in reducing, in the case of smokers, their reliance on tobacco, but this needs to be associated with a wider tobacco control strategy and some good, targeted, mass promotion—not of individual products in the vaping field but with the concept that, if you are a smoker, vaping may be one of the things, among others, that can help you. That must include psychological support as well as simply a change of product. I hope, too, that the Government will ponder on further increases in the price of tobacco; at the end of the day, that is the most effective way of reducing demand. Perhaps we can hear from the Minister what the Government are planning to do to ensure that there is public promotion of vaping as an alternative for smokers, access to good-quality, evidence-based stop smoking services and changes in costs.

We should not delude ourselves that tobacco manufacturers are getting into vaping products simply to allow people who are smoking currently to reduce their risk. They are getting into it because that, in their view, is the double whammy: an alternative product that can run alongside their very damaging products, which will continue, and a little bit of what in the environment movement used to be called “greenwashing”—I do not know what one would call it in the public health movement—in order to make their image more acceptable publicly. Therefore, I would not support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan.