Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they sought or assessed evidence from any of the nine countries referred to in paragraph 37 of their consultation stage impact assessment, Standardised packaging and pack inserts for tobacco products (excluding cigarettes and hand rolling tobacco), heated tobacco devices, herbal smoking products and cigarette papers, published on 10 July, before producing that impact assessment; if so, (1) what evidence was considered, and (2) why it was not identified in the impact assessment; and if not, why they applied an assumed impact size of 1.9 per cent a year, derived from cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco, to cigars without testing that assumption against the experience of those countries.

The impact assessment draws on available international evidence on standardised tobacco packaging, including evidence from Australia and Canada. This is a consultation-stage impact assessment, and the consultation process welcomed further evidence.