Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will delay implementation of standardised tobacco packaging until data on its effects on smoking prevalence in Australia is available.

The draft regulations laid in Parliament on 23 February have a coming-into-force date of May 2016.

Certain parts of the Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations implement the European Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) and are therefore required to be brought into force in May 2016. For those regulations that introduce further requirements, it is clear that there are benefits for business if the requirements of the TPD and standardised packaging requirements are implemented at the same time.

Australian Government figures, from the National Drug Strategy Household Survey, show that smoking prevalence is at an all-time low since the implementation of standardised packaging. This change is likely to be attributable to cumulative effects of a range of policies, including standardised packaging.