London Health Commission: Smoking

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, on initiating this opportunity to debate the important issue of the harm done by smoking, and the best ways for it to be eradicated.

In recent weeks, the world has been shocked by the loss of life in events such as the terrible murders in France, and in Nigeria, and by accident in the recent AirAsia plane crash. Approximately 2,200 human beings lost their lives in those events. People have rightly been outraged by the murders, and anxious to prevent such loss of life, whether caused by evil people or air accidents, in future.

Today we are discussing how we can prevent many avoidable deaths and much suffering resulting from a legal product, but one which we now know to be anything but safe. I have drawn attention to the approximate number of people who lost their lives in those terrible events because it is a comparable figure to the number of people who in the UK alone lose their lives each week as a result of smoking-related diseases. Despite many years of progress, smoking-related disease still claims 272 lives prematurely every day in the UK, causing approximately 100,000 deaths annually. This is something about which we can take action—to reduce the loss of life; to create substantial health benefits that will raise the quality of life for many people; and to reduce poverty and increase opportunity for many of the least well-off people in our country.

The tobacco industry works furiously hard to avoid erosion of its profits because its products result in the early death of one in two of its customers. It needs to continually recruit new smokers to maintain its profits. However, its new customers are nearly always children or young people. Two-thirds of regular smokers start before the age of 18 and two-fifths of them start before 16. I wholeheartedly welcome the recommendations made in the London Health Commission’s report. It is clear from the findings of the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, that London needs to do more to tackle smoking, which is the major cause of preventable premature death in the capital. Measures such as smoke-free parks and a strengthening of work on illicit tobacco are very welcome, but many other important measures must be implemented if we are to continue to drive down smoking prevalence in the future, as we have done so successfully in the recent past.

This House took important steps, tabling amendments to the Children and Families Bill, subsequently taken up by the Government, to prohibit smoking in cars with children and to require all cigarettes to be put in plain, standardised packaging. However, while the regulations on smoking in cars have been laid and, once voted on, will be implemented this year, there remains a silence from the Government about standardised packaging. I hope that the Minister will break that silence this afternoon.

The Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act has been effective in reducing children’s exposure to promotional activity and has brought about a consequent reduction in awareness of tobacco marketing among young people. Between 2003 and 2013—very much contrary to the arguments put by the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, when he opposed restrictions on tobacco advertising—regular smoking among young people declined from 10% to 3% in the UK. However, we must do much more.

Tobacco packaging is now the most prevalent form of tobacco advertising. Smokers display the branding every time they take out their packs. In doing so they are making a statement about how they want to be seen by others as they display, and endorse, the brand that they have chosen. The arguments put forward by the tobacco industry to oppose plain paper packaging are completely undermined by the vehemence of their opposition to it. The industry’s credibility was undermined long ago by its denials about the link between smoking and lung cancer, the addictiveness of nicotine and the effects of passive smoking. The tobacco industry now claims that standardised packs will lead to an increase in tobacco smuggling.

The hypocrisy of the industry on this issue was well exposed by the disclosures about its own role in organising tobacco smuggling. I noted that the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, was reading from the brief of the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association, which can hardly be considered to be objective in this matter. The association claims that there has been an increase in tobacco sales in Australia since the introduction of standardised packaging, but it ignores the increase in population in Australia in that time. Adjusted for population, tobacco sales per person in Australia have in fact fallen since the introduction of standard packs.

The strong cross-party support for the tobacco control measures contained in the Children and Families Act amply demonstrates the strength of feeling of parliamentarians on this issue. I know that my party wants to see that time is allocated for the required debate and a vote on the introduction of standardised packaging before Parliament rises for the general election.

There is a choice ahead of us between promoting public health or rewarding the tobacco lobbyists. It will be greatly to the discredit of this Government if they do not ensure that the necessary regulations for plain paper packaging are laid before Parliament, in time for the regulations to be voted on as soon as the notification to Europe process comes to an end on 2 March. It would be a public health disaster if the views of the tobacco industry and a small minority of parliamentarians sympathetic to it stopped the clearly expressed will of Parliament on this issue from being implemented.