Tobacco Products (Plain Packaging)

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 Westminster Hall

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The Government face a choice: to make policy on the basis of emotion—indeed, of emotional blackmail—or to make it on the basis of evidence. I welcome the recent statement by the Government that they will look at and assess the evidence, then take a decision on that basis. That is an eminently sensible way to approach making policy.

Other Members do themselves a disservice if they take a particular position on the sale, manufacture and distribution of tobacco, saying that those activities are somehow aligned with those of child killers, cancer pushers and drug dealers. That is the import of what is being said today about people who wish to defend an industry that employs 66,000 people in this country. If we put it out of business, it will not reduce the consumption or sale of cigarettes by one; they will simply be manufactured in other countries and imported here, and they will continue to be smoked here.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that despite the statistics that have been given here today, and despite all the health warnings and pictures on cigarettes, 200,000 people are still recruited into the cigarette industry every year? It is evident that the packaging—the shape and colour, and what is on it—does not deter people from smoking.

[Ian Paisley]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I shall deal with the evidence on three issues. First, the Republic of Ireland has the tightest, harshest laws on public smoking. When it introduced those laws 10 years ago—it set the trend on this—smoking stood at 30% of the public. After 10 years of enforcement, enforcement, enforcement, today the number of people who smoke in the Republic of Ireland is 30%. There has not been one single change to consumption, yet we are told that this drive is all about reducing consumption. It does not actually work.

How do we address consumption? We do what the hon. Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) says: educate young people. In Germany, they have done that and consumption has fallen to 16%. Why? Because they educated the very young and persuaded people that smoking was not the course of action they should take. They educated them away from cigarettes. They also do another thing: they enforce. In other words, an adult cannot go into a shop, buy fags and give them to a 16-year-old. They enforce against adults who do that. Unfortunately, many people in this country go into shops and purchase cigarettes, or purchase illicit trade cigarettes out of the back of someone’s car, and then give them to young people. We should enforce against that.

I also want to deal with the myth about illicit trade. The hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) should know much better. To suggest that HMRC is on top of the illicit trade in this country is to put one’s head in the sand. Last year, HMRC gave evidence to the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs about illicit trade, and tobacco was dealt with. HMRC is fighting a tsunami of counterfeit trade in this country.

In my country, 25% of all cigarettes smoked are illegal. In Scotland, the figure is about 27%. If we are pretending today that the authorities are on top of the issue, we are absolutely, totally and completely wrong. We have to recognise that counterfeiters are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of their job being made easier. They will be able to get a simpler package cover that is standardised across the whole UK and push it out across the UK, getting people to smoke brands that are counterfeit and illicitly brought into the country. Remember that the people doing that are not Sunday school teachers; they are serious organised criminals who are involved in serious criminal endeavours.

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[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

Ignatius Loyola, who founded the Jesuits, said:

“Give me the boy at seven and I will give you the man.”

I think that the strapline for the tobacco advertising industry is, “Give me the child smoker at 12 and I will give you the early grave.”

The advertising industry is finely honed. It uses psychology, science, art, craft and design to get a message across. It is not just happenstance or chance; the packages that cigarettes come in are dedicated to capturing hearts and minds. I am holding one—this is what we are talking about here today. This is a “super-slim” cigarette. What 12-year-old girl would not like to be super slim? It is a fine, elegant-looking bullet—or cancer stick. See this other one I am holding up. Guess who it is aimed at—14-year-olds. These packages will be responsible for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of deaths of UK citizens over the next few decades. It is the most pernicious form of advertising in the country.

[Ian Paisley]

I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but I remind him that in 2008 the then Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), said in a statement to the House that:

“there is no evidence base that”

plain packaging

“actually reduces the number of young children smoking.”—[Official Report, 16 December 2008; Vol. 485, c. 945.]

He had sought to introduce the policy himself, but then dismissed it.

[Chris Ruane]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He is right. Labour did many good things. We curtailed advertising. We introduced the ban on smoking in public places. But we did not do enough and we need to do more. When I spoke about this package at an anti-smoking do in Parliament, JTI—Japan Tobacco International—had a spy in the room and wrote to me afterwards, saying, “Mr Ruane, you’ve got it all wrong. These are called 14s because there are 14 cigarettes inside the packet.” It was a Miss Laura Oates who castigated me and she went on to criticise the Labour Government for not doing enough on proxy purchasing.

I agree: I think that we should take up Miss Laura Oates’s cry for more pressure on the tobacco industry and concentrate on that. This is just one step in the campaign to cut and then eliminate smoking in the UK. Thanks go to Laura Oates for suggesting other campaigns as well. I think that we should have a whole string of them over the next 10 years. It should be a long-term policy to—

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[Stephen Williams]

The hon. Gentleman has spoken, so I will follow the Chair’s mandate and not give way.

Other people are lobbying against the policy, such as Unite the Union. I took part in a debate during the recess on BBC Radio Bristol with a shop steward from the tobacco packaging factory in east Bristol. He said that if legislation went ahead that factory would lose hundreds of jobs. I say to the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) that I see no problem at all with being a constituency MP—Imperial Tobacco, one of the largest tobacco companies in the world, is based in Bristol—and arguing against the tobacco trade, because tobacco kills people in my city and kills people from poorer communities. It is a public health tragedy that smoking now disproportionately affects poorer people in society. The middle classes have largely followed all the health warnings and given up smoking.

[Ian Paisley]

rose—

[Stephen Williams]

As I mentioned the hon. Gentleman, I will give way.

[Ian Paisley]

I have no problem with that, but I must ask the hon. Gentleman whether he takes the same approach to the alcohol trade. I accept that cigarettes kill, but that is not the argument. The argument is about illicit trade and the impact on jobs and employment. That is where the argument is and where we need to look. We need to get the evidence that shows that plain packaging will do what it says on the tin: stop people from smoking; it will not.

[Stephen Williams]

There is a big difference between alcohol and tobacco: alcohol consumed in moderation will not kill someone; smoking tobacco, whatever the strength, over a long period, will shorten your life. That is a fundamental difference.

As hon. Members have said, tobacco is already one of the most regulated trades. So why regulate further? Because regulation has been proven to work. Over the past 50 years, with restrictions on tobacco advertising, sponsorship and points of display, health warnings and NHS cessation programmes, we have seen the rate of smoking drop from more than half of adult males in the late 1960s, when I was born, to about one-fifth now. We know that state intervention works, but tobacco companies need a new generation of susceptible young minds to take up the addiction.

I am deeply disappointed with my Government for stalling. I know that the Minister’s heart is in the right place and I feel for her on this occasion. The Government have not acted, so there is an opportunity for Parliament. I remember Patricia Hewitt in the previous Parliament defending, almost until the last minute, the partial ban on smoking in public places. That Parliament imposed a comprehensive ban on smoking in public places. I hope that this House or the House of Lords will act in the same way in this Parliament.