Cigarette Stick Health Warnings Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-12-03
Topic: Health
George Young (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I hope that we will now move to calmer waters. I am sanguine about the prospects for this Bill reaching the statute book at this late stage of the Session. However, that is not fatal as its provisions could be implemented by a simple amendment to the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016—easily done now that we have left the European Union. I have chosen this subject to keep up the pressure on the Government on public health and to help shape the agenda for the forthcoming tobacco plan; perhaps my noble friend the Minister can say when we might expect it. I do so also because the campaign against the harm done by tobacco has been one of my preoccupations since entering Parliament in 1974 This Bill extends the logic of health warnings on cigarette packs to the cigarettes themselves. If implemented, it would require both cigarettes and cigarette papers to display health warnings such as "Smoking Kills" or "Smoking Causes Cancer". I first proposed this measure as a Health Minister in 1979 in Margaret Thatcher’s Government. I was told by representatives from the tobacco industry that we could not add health warnings to cigarettes because the ink used to print the warnings could be hazardous to health. Thankfully, the debate around tobacco control has progressed significantly since then, and I am confident that noble Lords will see the compelling case for dissuasive cigarettes. From being an initiative that, I believe, I was one of the first to suggest, it now commands broad support from the Royal College of Physicians, Cancer Research UK, the Health Foundation and the Association of Directors of Public Health—in all, some 71 organisations concerned with reducing the harm done by tobacco Smoking remains a leading cause of premature death. The Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, has said that it is likely to have killed more people last year than Covid-19. However, smoking kills on the same scale every year and will go on doing so for years without robust action. In 2019, one in seven of the UK population were smokers. In England alone, around 280 children under 16 start smoking for the first time every day. Smoking is highly addictive: only one in three smokers will be able to quit before they die There is evidence that, over time, the responsiveness of smokers to existing warnings declines. New techniques are therefore needed to refresh their interest. Cigarettes are cancer sticks and consumers should be warned on the product, not just on its packaging. There is a growing body of research evidence from around the world supporting the effectiveness of what are known as "dissuasive cigarettes", particularly in making cigarettes less attractive to younger adolescents and those who have never smoked This measure is popular. In a poll conducted by YouGov for Action on Smoking and Health, 70% of those surveyed supported health warnings on cigarettes, two-thirds of them strongly. Only 8% opposed the proposal. This includes majority support from voters from every main political party, including 70% of those who voted for my party in 2019. Adding health warnings to cigarettes and cigarette papers is a simple measure with minimal cost that would help deliver the Government’s Smokefree 2030 ambition. Tobacco manufacturers already print on cigarette papers, so this would be cheap and easy to implement. This measure was one of several tobacco amendments to the Health and Care Bill tabled in the other place by officers of the APPG on Smoking and Health, of which I am a vice-chairman. As it stands, the Bill fails to include a single mention of smoking or tobacco and represents a significant missed opportunity to introduce key policies for achieving Smokefree 2030. Disappointingly, the Government refused to adopt the recommendations in the Commons, saying that they needed to "conduct some further research and build a more robust evidence base in support of such additional measures before introducing them."—[Official Report, Commons, 28/10/21; col. 812.] However, these warnings are already under consideration in Canada, Australia and Scotland. Here is an opportunity for the UK to be ahead of the curve instead of waiting for others to lead. The robust evidence will be available only if someone does it Health warnings such as "Smoking kills" have been shown to be effective on billboards and tobacco packs, so why would they not also be effective on cigarettes? Adding warnings to cigarettes is important, because young people in particular are likely to start with individual cigarettes rather than packs. In addition to all the existing research on the effectiveness of health warnings, there have been at least eight peer-reviewed academic studies published since 2015 which specifically looked at warnings on cigarettes and found them to be effective, particularly in making cigarettes less attractive to younger adolescents and never-smokers This is a simple measure with minimal cost that would help deliver the Government’s ambition to make England smoke-free by 2030. This worthy ambition was announced in 2019, yet we are still waiting to hear what steps the Government will take to make it a reality. At the current rate of decline in smoking prevalence, Cancer Research UK has estimated we will miss that ambition by seven years, and double that for the poorest in society We will achieve a smoke-free 2030 only by motivating more smokers to make a quit attempt, using the most effective quitting aids, while reducing the number of children and young adults who start smoking each year. Dissuasive cigarettes will contribute to both objectives and reinforce the impact of other measures which require significant investment, such as behaviour change campaigns and stop smoking services This measure, along with the other tobacco amendments proposed in the Commons, will be retabled in the Lords after Second Reading next week by myself and colleagues from the All-Party Group on Smoking and Health, some of whom I welcome in today’s debate. I am confident these amendments will have strong cross-party support I end by quoting my honourable friend Bob Blackman MP, chairman of the all-party group, speaking during a recent debate on the Health and Care Bill in the other place: "if we look back over the years, the measures on smoking in public places, on smoking in vehicles, on smoking when children are present and on standardised packaging of tobacco products were all led from the Back Benches. Governments of all persuasions resisted them, for various reasons … but we on the Back Benches who are determined to improve the health of this country will continue to press on with them, and we will win eventually. It may not be tonight, but those measures will come soon."—[Official Report, Commons, 22/11/21; col. 74.] I can assure the Government that, when the Bill comes to the Lords, we in this Chamber will take up the challenge. I beg to move.