Tobacco Products (Standardised Packaging)

David Nuttall Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

I have already said quite a lot about illicit trade. It is mentioned in the report, which the hon. Gentleman has obviously had a chance to look at. He quoted the word “modest” but, as I said just a moment ago, even a modest impact on a major killer is very important. As a Health Minister, I regularly answer parliamentary questions and letters from colleagues throughout the House on issues that affect far fewer children than 4,000 a year. We have spoken privately and exchanged correspondence on the issue of jobs. The impact assessment will reflect on it and the hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to make a submission to the final consultation.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Human nature being what it is, does my hon. Friend not agree that one unintended consequence of hiding cigarettes behind shutters and putting them in standardised packages is that it may only increase the desire of inquisitive children to take up smoking?

[Jane Ellison]

I urge my hon. Friend to look at the report and to reflect on the fact that anything we can do to discourage children from taking up smoking is likely to have a lifelong effect not only on them, but on their families. I urge him to look at the detail of Sir Cyril Chantler’s report.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Nuttall Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

17. Following the closure of the special care baby unit at Fairfield general hospital in my constituency, new mothers and families are now faced with travelling to either Bolton or north Manchester. In the light of the recent report from the charity Bliss on the costs of having a premature or sick baby, will my hon. Friend ensure that appropriate support is in place for Bury families who are struggling with a baby who needs specialist hospital care?

[Dr Poulter]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and he has been a strong advocate for local mothers and families in his constituency. But he will also be aware that there was a review of maternity services in the Greater Manchester area that recognised that, by changing the way in which services were delivered, there could be improvements and 25 young children’s and babies’ lives could be saved each year. There has been a review, and that review is saving lives, so I commend any similar service reconfiguration that delivers similar benefits to women and patients.

Children and Families Bill

David Nuttall Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

That is for the review to comment on. I hope that hon. Members will understand that I am not trying to be unhelpful in not responding in detail to their interventions. We have put in place a process that we think will be the most robust way of making policy in this area, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for not commenting in detail on his point. I am sure that the review is looking in detail at all these aspects; they were certainly explored during the consultation.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Just to finish this point off, will the Minister make it clear that she and her colleagues will consider a wider range of factors alongside the outcome of the review before deciding how to proceed?

[Jane Ellison]

That is something we have put on record a number of times, and I can confirm it again tonight. We have always said that Ministers would proceed having received the review and given consideration to all the wider aspects of the policy. I hope that that reassures my hon. Friend.

The requirements would apply only to the retail packaging of tobacco products, which means the packaging that will be, or is intended to be, used when the product is sold to the public. Manufacturers, distributors and retailers would still be able to use branding such as logos and colours on packaging, provided that they were used only within the tobacco trade—for example, on boxes used for stock management in a warehouse that are not seen by the public.

These provisions would apply on a UK-wide basis, as the necessary legislative consent motions have been secured. As I have already said, I will not pre-empt the outcome of Sir Cyril’s review or of the decision-making process, but these provisions mean that we would be able to act without delay if we were to decide to go ahead. I want to emphasise that Sir Cyril will not be making the decision for Ministers on whether to proceed with standardised packaging. That decision will be made by Ministers in the light of the wide range of relevant considerations.

My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) has tabled three amendments on standardised packaging. The first five clauses of the packaging provisions set out the test that Ministers will need to consider before bringing forward regulations. The regulation-making powers in the Bill will allow Ministers to take a reasonable and balanced view of the available evidence regarding the effect that regulations as a whole would have on the health and welfare of children. This approach to ministerial decision making is absolutely appropriate and these clauses are in keeping with the approach that Minsters would ordinarily take in decision-making processes of this kind.

My hon. Friend’s three amendments seek to remove the ability of Ministers to take a reasonable and balanced view of the evidence, and we feel that they would put unnecessary and unwarranted constraints on Ministers’ consideration of how any proposed regulations would impact on children’s health or welfare. Constraining Ministers’ decision making in that way would probably have the effect of stopping the use of the powers altogether. For that reason, I do not support my hon. Friend’s amendments. I also remind the House that the regulations would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.

I should like to move on to the age of sale for nicotine products. We have introduced provisions for a regulation-making power to prohibit the sale of nicotine products such as e-cigarettes to people under the age of 18. Public health experts, many retailers—particularly small retailers—and the electronic cigarette industry support the introduction of an age of sale restriction for e-cigarettes. At present, no such general legal restriction is in place, and we want to correct this situation.

As e-cigarettes are novel products, we have very little evidence on the impact of children using them. For example, we do not know what impact their use might have on the developing lungs of young people. Public health experts have expressed concern to me that nicotine products could act as a gateway into smoking tobacco, as well as undermining efforts to reshape social norms around tobacco use. Young people can rapidly develop nicotine dependence, and nicotine products deliver nicotine and cause addiction. Attempts were made last year to include an age-of-sale provision applicable throughout the EU in the revised European tobacco products directive, but that was not achieved. We therefore want to take this opportunity to put such a provision in place domestically through this Bill.

Tobacco Packaging

David Nuttall Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

As Members on both sides of the House reminded me forcefully during the Back-Bench debate earlier this month, new evidence has recently emerged, and we are also coming up to the anniversary of the legislation being passed in Australia, so this is the right time to do this.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Will the Minister reassure me that this will not be the thin end of the wedge, and that the Government will not look for evidence to support the contention that selling children sweets in brightly coloured packets contributes to childhood obesity and, as a result, seek to ban such packaging?

[Jane Ellison]

That is a slightly different topic. I know that my hon. Friend feels strongly about these issues, and he will know that, through the Government’s responsibility deal, we are working in voluntary partnership with business to make good progress on public health issues relating to obesity.

Tobacco Packaging

David Nuttall Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

rose—

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

rose—

[Bob Blackman]

I have taken several interventions, and I know that Mr Deputy Speaker wants me to make progress.

Once young people start smoking, they are likely to continue for the rest of their lives. Smoking causes much more damage to young lungs, which increases the likelihood of young people dying from smoking-related diseases. The tobacco industry is desperate to retain its market share, and to recruit new smokers every year. After all, older smokers either quit or die, and younger people also die from smoking-related diseases. Most of the new smokers will be children. In my constituency, about 550 children start smoking every year. That is a scandal, and I want to see that figure radically reduced.

To make the control policy more effective, we must prevent children from starting to smoke in the first place. We must adopt policies that make it more difficult for the tobacco industry to target and recruit new smokers. Once again, however, if young people choose to start smoking, that is their right. In trying to find the policies to achieve that result, we could do worse than look at the commercial strategies adopted by the tobacco industry itself. Over many years, the industry has designed its advertising and marketing to promote an image of smoking that is most likely to appeal to young people.

A great deal of information about this has come into the public domain, particularly after confidential industry documents were made public following the US tobacco master settlement with the industry in 1998. I shall give the House an example. An internal R. J. Reynolds document from 1981 states:

“Smoking is frequently used in situations when people are trying to make friends, to look more mature, to look more attractive, to look ‘cooler’, and to feel more comfortable around others. These aspects of social interaction are especially prevalent among younger adult smokers”.

I could not have put it better myself. The fact is that the industry markets itself in that way.

Successive Governments have made it more difficult for the industry to reach its target teenage market. Conventional tobacco advertising is banned, and I welcome that. I also welcome the banning of retail displays in large shops. They will soon be outlawed in smaller shops as well. Stopping smoking in enclosed spaces has significantly reduced the exposure of young people to smoking.

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend said that he had no objection to people taking up smoking. Does he not feel that, in a free society, we would cross a dangerous line if we were to prevent manufacturers from differentiating their brand from the others?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nuttall]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that if branding is banned, tobacco companies may use the money they currently spend on branding to cut the price of cigarettes?

[Mr Evans]

That is exactly what is going to happen, and I think one hon. Member intervened to say that that is part of the evidence from Australia. A lot of people like brands, such as Benson & Hedges or Regal, but others will go for the own-brand—whatever is cheaper. If it is £1 cheaper than the more expensive brands, that is what they will go for. Some people, I swear, will smoke the dust off the floor if it is sold at £1 cheaper than a branded pack. The point my hon. Friend raises therefore has got to be looked at as a possibly unintended consequence of bringing in standardised packaging.

I visited Clitheroe grammar school a few months ago and the issue of why the Government have delayed introducing standardised packaging was mentioned. I thought about it for a while and then I said to the pupil concerned, “Right: how much cannabis and ecstasy is consumed in the UK?” The pupil said, “Oh, quite a lot,” to which I said, “I think you’re probably right. Do us a favour: describe to me the packaging on cannabis or ecstasy.”

I ask Members to think about that for a second. What is the packaging for cannabis or ecstasy? There is no packaging. They come in foil or see-through bags, or in an envelope, perhaps. Clearly, people are not buying these products because of the packaging, standardised or otherwise. They buy them because they want them. That is a strong counter-argument to the proposal to get rid of branding.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Nuttall Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

The idea that the Government do not take responsibility for public health seriously is ridiculous. Public health will never be improved just from Whitehall. The work has to be done together, among local government—which is keen and has been given the tools and resources—central Government, business and industry. Such long-term partnership working to improve the public’s health can only be done together. I will look at the hon. Lady’s specific point, but I reject the idea that the Government are not taking this issue seriously—far from it.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Will the Minister confirm that as far as fast food is concerned, personal responsibility will not be replaced by Government-imposed nanny state regulation?

[Jane Ellison]

It is good as a Minister to hear the phrase “nanny state” get its first airing. We believe in the informed consumer, and that is the idea behind so many restaurants labelling calorie content on their food. Most of us want to be healthy and most of us know when we want to diet and lose weight. By working with business, we can enable the consumer to make an informed decision about their health.

Tobacco Products (Plain Packaging)

David Nuttall Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I have managed to constrain the urge to intervene, in accordance with your exhortation to us this morning, so I will be reluctant to accept any interventions myself, on the basis, as you said, that we want to have as many speakers as we can.

I am, as most people in the room know, I suspect, on the side of my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) and the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) in this matter. I take the view that plenty of measures are already in place to protect children from smoking. Let us face it: it is already illegal to sell cigarettes to children.

The principal point that I want to make to start with is that we ought to be taking more measures to enforce the laws that we have already. There is already a ban on advertising, a ban on the display of cigarettes in large supermarkets, which is shortly to be extended to all shops, and a ban on smoking in public places. We already have extensive education measures.

What really starts children smoking is peer pressure. We have seen that, as a result of all the measures in place already, the numbers of people smoking are falling. Government figures from the general lifestyle survey show a national fall in the number of smokers, from 39% in 1980 to 21% in 2011—19% in England and 24% in Scotland and Wales. I have never met anyone who, when I asked why they smoked, said, “I took up smoking because I was attracted by the colour or style of the packet and I wanted to have one in my pocket.”

[Chris Ruane]

Get rid of it, then.

[Mr Nuttall]

It is all very well saying that, but the Minister said in a previous debate that the new packs were not going to be plain packaged at all, but were going to have lots of glamorous, glitzy holograms on them in different colours. [Interruption.] The Minister did not say “glamorous”, but she did mention different colours and holograms. The point is that I never met anyone who said that it was the packet that made them want to take up smoking.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Jim Shannon.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Nuttall Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

Unfortunately, the hon. Lady has not listened to my last answer or, indeed, to my statement on Friday. The Government’s policy remains unchanged. We are waiting to see the evidence before making a decision. I take the very firm view that the best legislation is based on good evidence.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Of course, there are those of us who believe it is up to the individual to take personal responsibility for their own health and who entirely support the Government’s decision not to have any extension of the nanny state. Does the Minister agree that, before we introduce any new laws on tobacco, we ought to enforce more strictly the existing laws on not selling cigarettes to children?

Health Services (North-West)

David Nuttall Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I recognise that the hon. Lady would have liked to have been here for the statement, and indeed that she made a huge effort to get here. As I told her on the phone this morning, I am more than happy to meet her separately to discuss her concerns. With regard to her concern about a downward spiral, I hope today to reassure her constituents that a clear decision has been taken that will secure the hospital’s future as a successful and important hospital, a centre of excellence for elective orthopaedic work, and a hospital that has a very important role to play in the local health economy. We are making huge efforts to ensure that there will be no diminution of services but that services will improve. Of the three major teaching hospitals that will now provide A and E services for her constituency, one—Central Manchester university hospital—is not meeting its A and E targets. The measures announced today will help it meet those targets and make it more likely that her constituents will get a better service in A and E. However, as I made absolutely clear in my statement, I will not allow the changes to be made until all three hospitals are consistently meeting their A and E targets.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Can my right hon. Friend reassure my constituents that the decision on Trafford general hospital should not be seen as putting the provision of A and E services at Fairfield hospital at risk?

[Mr Hunt]

This decision is about Trafford general hospital’s A and E services. What we are considering in this decision is whether the other hospitals can absorb the extra patients who will come to them as a result. We think that the neighbouring A and Es will initially have to absorb only about 25 patients in total. It is not a decision about the future of other A and Es.

Care Quality Commission (Morecambe Bay Hospitals)

David Nuttall Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Many families in Bury, Ramsbottom and Tottington in my constituency will have elderly relatives living in care homes, which they will have chosen on the basis of CQC assessments. Can my right hon. Friend reassure them that these care homes, inspected and approved by the CQC, are in fact up to standard?

[Mr Hunt]

We have not talked very much about care homes during these questions, but anyone who saw the horrific “Panorama” programme earlier this week on the BBC will know that there are some appalling problems in some of our care homes. We need that same independent, rigorous inspection in care homes as well. That is why, alongside the chief inspector of hospitals, we are appointing a chief inspector of social care who will once again—it is a great shame that we stopped doing this—rate care homes on the quality of care that they give and speak without fear or favour, so that we can reassure my hon. Friend and his constituents.