Standardised Packaging (Tobacco Products)

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ann McKechin]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his support tonight. This matter should, I hope, elicit cross-party support, because the health of our young people is a key issue that all of us should be deeply concerned about.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making a powerful speech tonight. May I take her back to an earlier point at the beginning of her speech and highlight the fact that if this measure is not introduced by the Government soon, it will be delayed until probably after the summer, as a result of which, indirectly, thousands of lives will be lost?

[Ann McKechin]

Yes. As I have said before, half those who take up smoking will not be able to stop, and we know that every week hundreds of teenagers across the UK take up the smoking habit. So every week that we delay has a direct health impact in our local communities.

The Minister’s own review, the Chantler review, concluded when it reported in early April last year that branded packaging plays an important role in encouraging young people to smoke and in consolidating the habit, irrespective of the intentions of the tobacco industry and that the body of evidence showed that plain packaging is very likely to lead to a modest but important reduction over time on the take-up and prevalence of smoking. The Minister is already on the public record as accepting that standardised packaging is

“very likely to have a positive impact on public health”—[Official Report, 3 April 2014; Vol. 578, c. 1018.]

and as wanting to proceed as swiftly as possible. I have no reason to doubt her intentions, but time is running out.

The Prime Minister must allow Parliament to vote on plain packaging regulations before the election. He must heed the advice of health professionals, 4,000 of whom signed an open letter to The Guardian demanding urgent action, and ignore the protestations of his Australian spin doctor Lynton Crosby, whose tobacco industry links are said to have scuppered the push for plain packaging in 2012 when the Government pushed the issue into the long grass. Too many people are needlessly dying prematurely because of smoking and too many young people are still being hooked.