Health and Social Care

Debate between Frank Dobson and Paul Blomfield

Monday 13th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield]

My understanding is that the majority of unions would support standardised packaging. I deeply regret the fact that the tobacco giants use some individual trade unionists as de facto lobbyists.

The Government surrendered to the tobacco giants. What message does that send to the country? This Government are prepared to see people die and, as the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) said, die horribly, and in their hundreds of thousands, to prop up the profits of the tobacco industry. There are no industries like the tobacco industry—the more cigarettes it sells, the more money it makes and the more people die.

Since science confirmed the link between smoking and lung cancer, the tobacco industry has opposed every single measure to reduce smoking. We all know that smoking is the largest preventable cause of cancer; it is responsible for four out of every 10 cancer deaths. According to Cancer Research UK, tobacco is responsible for 100,000 deaths in the UK every year. We have made huge strides with the measures that have already been taken against smoking, but as we have encouraged people to stop smoking, the tobacco giants have been building their market among young people. A report from Cancer Research UK in March showed that the number of children smoking had risen by 50,000 in just one year.

[Frank Dobson]

Let me demonstrate the absolutely vile morality—if I can combine those two words—of the tobacco industry. When it was discovered that nicotine was addictive, the industry increased the proportion of nicotine in cigarettes to make them more addictive. People like that should not be listened to; they should be shown the door.

[Paul Blomfield]

I agree with my right hon. Friend: the tobacco industry should not be listened to. However, it finds no end of ways to seek to defeat the arguments of public health lobbies against smoking, and indeed to encourage the wider use of cigarettes.

Shockingly, in the last year for which figures are available about 207,000 children aged between 11 and 15 started smoking. The vile way—to use my right hon. Friend’s word—in which the tobacco giants operate means that that is a direct result of the industry’s marketing strategies, which are as sophisticated as they are cynical. Flavoured cigarettes have been introduced, and not only menthol, but chocolate and fruit flavours. Some cigarettes are targeted at young women. Even the Daily Mail pointed out, in condemning that move, that those cigarettes seek to

“make smoking look elegant, sexy and classy”.

Alternatively, as British American Tobacco’s Hinesh Patel said, almost acknowledging the company’s strategy:

“We’ve taken a creative approach to respond to the female under-30 demand for a smaller, slimmer, less masculine cigarette…a contemporary product in a new accessible size.”

In that context, packaging is crucial. A Saatchi & Saatchi marketeer said this of British American Tobacco’s Vogue package:

“The cigarettes look like something found behind a glitzy counter at Selfridges....trying to capitalise on a woman’s desire to feel beautiful to sell their cigarettes.”

The Government public health Minister, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), is not present, but she has made her views on this subject clear. In April, she said before a House of Lords Select Committee:

“We know that the package itself plays an important part in the process of young people and their decision to buy a packet and to smoke cigarettes.”

All the experts back standardised packaging, and until a few days ago we thought the Government did, too. The public back that as well, with 63% in favour and only 16% against, according to recent polling. This Government are getting it wrong again. They are showing again that they are out of touch with people and they are on the wrong side of the argument, and I urge them to think again.