Tobacco Packaging

Debate between Luciana Berger and Angela Watkinson

Thursday 7th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

This is the first time I have had the privilege of speaking with you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I look forward to it.

I thank the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for seeking this debate, the co-sponsors from all parties and the Backbench Business Committee for making it possible. It has been a very good debate, with many thoughtful and powerful contributions and, I think, a large degree of consensus. There is a clear reason for that consensus. In the final analysis, this is a debate about children. Adults do not take up smoking; children do. Despite hon. Members having referred to a drop in the take-up of smoking, more than 200,000 children still take up smoking every year. Eight out of 10 smokers start by the age of 19. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) said, there are few new smokers over the age of 21. In my patch, there are 460 regular smokers across Liverpool who have not yet turned 15. As the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) said, we are talking about a childhood addiction, not an adult choice.

We know that about half of those children—half of all regular smokers—will eventually be killed by their addiction. Contrary to the presentation by the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans), who I am sorry to see is not in his place, tobacco is different from other products, because if it is used properly, as instructed, it kills one in two of its users. It is the only product for which there is an international treaty, the World Health Organisation’s framework convention on tobacco control, precisely because it is not like any other product and has to be treated differently.

Smoking remains by far the largest preventable cause of cancer. As my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) said, more than 100,000 people die across the UK from smoking-related diseases every year. In Liverpool, 346 deaths per 100,000 are attributable to smoking, whereas the national average is 201 deaths per 100,000. The hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) spoke about NHS spending on the cancer drugs fund.

The question that we should be asking ourselves is whether we are doing everything we can to discourage children from starting to smoke in the first place. Contrary to what the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) said, I make no apology for asking the emotive questions. Are we doing all that we can to protect our young people? Have we exhausted every measure at our disposal? With that in mind, I want to cover three broad themes: first, why packaging matters so greatly; secondly, why the arguments against standardised packaging do not stand up to close scrutiny; and thirdly, why we cannot afford to wait.

I echo what was said by the hon. Member for Harrow East, my hon. Friends the Members for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and for Barnsley Central and my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley about the part that packaging plays in encouraging young people to smoke. It is widely accepted that in the years since the last Labour Government banned tobacco advertising in 2002, the tobacco industry has developed far more sophisticated ways of using packaging to entice people to smoke.

We have all seen what cigarette and tobacco packaging looks like in Britain today, with its bright colours, shiny veneers and slimmed-down packets. We have heard about the boxes shaped like perfume bottles and lipsticks, with the glamorous slogans to match. One slogan that struck me was:

“Indulgence—change the taste to suit your mood”.

Such novelty packets appeal to young people, because that is exactly what they are designed to do. Academics at the university of Stirling tested that by surveying more than 1,000 children for a study that was published in the British Medical Journal a few weeks ago. They found that the children were overwhelmingly more attracted to the packets with such designs.

[Dame Angela Watkinson]

The hon. Lady has spoken about children starting to smoke. Does she agree that the main responsibility lies with their parents, because the money has to come from somewhere? If it does not come from their parents, where does it come from?

[Luciana Berger]

That point has been made by other hon. Members in this debate. I remember from when I was a young person that children do not get their money only from their parents and that they do not necessarily buy the cigarettes themselves. Often, they see other people getting out their packs of cigarettes.

The children in the university of Stirling study who were shown a packet of Silk Cut cigarettes were found to be more than four times more likely to be susceptible to smoking. Those children had never smoked.

It is the packaging that entices children. If we want to discourage children from ever starting to smoke, we need to question whether that is an acceptable way to market a product that is highly addictive, seriously harmful and clinically proven to kill. Smokers advertise tobacco brands to other people every time they take out their pack to smoke. The packets should not be glitzy adverts, but should carry strong and unambiguous health warnings about the dangers of smoking. We should not allow those warnings to be subverted by the design of the rest of the packet.

I will move on to my second theme. We have heard a few arguments against standardised packaging in this debate. We have also heard those arguments from the tobacco industry. I will deal with each of the arguments in turn. Much of the discussion has centred around evidence. Hon. Members have said that there is no evidence that standardised packaging will work. That is not true.

Last year, the systematic review by the Public Health Research Consortium, which was commissioned by the Department of Health, looked at all the evidence on standardised packaging. The findings are clear for everyone to see. It found that standardised packaging is less attractive, especially to young people. My hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) rightly pointed out that it takes away the cool factor. The review also found that standardised packaging makes health warnings more effective and combats the utter falsehood that some brands are safer than others. Those findings have been backed up by 17 studies that have been published since the systematic review. Government Members, including the hon. Member for Ribble Valley, have asked for evidence. We have the evidence.

A separate study that was published in the British Medical Journal in July looked at research from Australia soon after the introduction of standardised packaging. It found that smokers who used standardised packs were 66% more likely to think that their cigarettes were of a poorer quality, 70% more likely to say that they found them less satisfying, 81% more likely to have thought about quitting at least once a day in the previous week and much more likely to rate quitting as a higher priority in their lives than smokers who used branded packs. Not only are people less likely to take up smoking when presented with standardised packs; people who already smoke are more likely to think about quitting if the cigarettes that they buy come in standardised packaging.