Health and Care Bill — House of Lords, 2022-04-05
Topic: Macroeconomics
George Young (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I rise briefly to support Amendment J1, so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. I also join him in thanking my noble friends Lord Howe and Lord Kamall, the two Ministers involved, for their engagement with movers of the amendment on Report and for the genuine attempt they made to seek agreement to narrow the small gap between the Government’s position and ours—an attempt which, I fear, was blocked by HM Treasury On this subject, on Report, my noble friend Lord Howe said: "Our strong preference is to continue with high tobacco taxation and excise as the best means and the most efficient process through which to generate revenue that can be put back into public services." I wish I shared his optimism, given the current pressure on the public purse and the recent experience with the levelling-up White Paper, published in February. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that "the White Paper contains no new funding; instead, departments will be expected to deliver on these missions from within the cash budgets set out in last autumn’s Spending Review. Departments and public service leaders might reasonably ask whether those plans match up to the scale of the government’s newfound ambition—particularly in the face of higher inflation." The same is true for tobacco control. Even before the rise in inflation, budgets for tobacco control and smoking cessation had been cut by a third since 2015. Already by 2019, it was clear that the Treasury’s claim that the tax system would provide funding for tobacco control was misplaced. That is why, when the Government announced the smoke-free 2030 ambition in 2019, they also promised to consider a polluter pays approach to funding tobacco control and smoking cessation, which is the substance of the amendment before your Lordships this evening On Report, my noble friend Lord Howe said: "The proposal may look simple on the surface but it is complex to implement. It may also take several years to materialise." Our proposals build on the pharmaceutical pricing scheme operated by the Department of Health, which is a far more complex industry with far more complex products. If the Department of Health can successfully run a scheme for pharmaceutical products—an industry and set of products that are complex and evolving—I fail to see why it cannot operate such a scheme for cigarettes. These are simple, commodity products produced by an oligopolistic industry, with four main manufacturers responsible for more than 95% of sales The noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Birmingham, who I am pleased to see in his place, said on Report that "if it is deemed appropriate to have a form of price and profit regulation for the medicines industry, which delivers products that are essential and life-saving, it does not seem too far a stretch to think that an equivalent mechanism might be used for an industry whose products are discretionary and life-destroying."—[Official Report, 16/3/22; cols. 294-98.] I agree. However, I also accept that further investigation of our proposals would be needed, which is precisely why a consultation without commitment is the appropriate way forward, as the all-party parliamentary group’s amendment proposes. I hope that, even at this late stage, my noble friend might demonstrate some flexibility in order to try to bridge the narrow gap between the Government’s position and that in the amendment.