Tobacco Packaging

Debate between Bob Blackman and Jake Berry

Thursday 7th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered standardised packaging of tobacco products.

I welcome our first opportunity to debate this matter in the Chamber since the Government made their decision in the summer, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing it to take place.

The Department of Health held an extended consultation on standardised packaging of tobacco products, but it was greatly disappointing to people across the House that the Government decided not to proceed with standardisation. In September we had a very full Westminster Hall when we debated this subject. It was the first day back after our summer recess, so I suspected that we would not get a full audience, but in the end 21 Members spoke, meaning that a strict time limit had to be imposed on speeches. It was a wide-ranging debate that allowed everyone to put their point of view, and I hope that we can do the same thing in this Chamber this afternoon.

Since that Westminster Hall debate, we have had a new Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), whom I welcome to her place. She has an opportunity to set out the Government’s position on standardised packaging of tobacco products, and I hope that she will indicate some movement in favour of standardisation. When this matter was raised in Health questions recently, it was debated at length, with many Members wishing to get in. By way of context, there is also an upcoming House of Lords debate on the Children and Families Bill, which I hope will result in the Bill being amended to outlaw the smoking of tobacco products by people travelling in cars with young children.

Obviously, we do not wish to divide the House today, but I say to the Government that unless we get some movement before Christmas, we will seek another debate, with a Division, so that the will of the House can be expressed.

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

How does my hon. Friend think that the banning of smoking by people travelling in cars with children would be enforced?

[Bob Blackman]

I do not wish to be diverted from our subject, which is the standardisation of tobacco packaging. I will leave it to the other place to determine that matter, but no doubt if it has the wisdom to implement that rule, it will come back here for further debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Blackman]

No, I do not. It is quite right that we should take action to prevent manufacturers from making their products more attractive to children and young people.

We are left with one large loophole, through which the tobacco industry is still furiously blowing smoke. The packs themselves can be used to market and advertise, to create brand identities, and to help to present an image of smoking that might indeed seem “cool” to an insecure teenager.

[Jake Berry]

My hon. Friend is generous in giving way and is making an excellent opening speech. On the covering up of cigarettes in large and small retailers—something I support—at what point does he think that packets will be on display as advertisements for the tobacco companies if they are covered up at the point of sale? Will it just be at the point when the cigarettes are in someone’s hand—after they have already been bought?

[Bob Blackman]

My hon. Friend brings me to the next aspect of the issue. The cigarettes will be behind closed doors, as it were, and the only time when smokers will display their tobacco branding will be when they take out their pack to smoke, which is welcome.

[Jake Berry]

People have already bought them.

[Bob Blackman]

Indeed, but that is the only advertising that the tobacco industry can currently have.

The trade magazine World Tobacco advises:

“If your brand can no longer shout from billboards, let alone from the cinema screen or the pages of a glossy magazine…it can at least court smokers…from wherever it is placed by those already wedded to it.”

That is the industry speaking. Philip Morris International, in its company response to the consultation on standardised packaging, said that as

“an integral part of the product…packaging is an important means of differentiating brands and in that sense is a means of communicating to consumers about what brands are on sale and in particular the good will associated with our trademarks, indicating brand value and quality. Placing trademarks on packaged goods is, thus, at the heart of commercial expression.”