Health and Care Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-16
Topic: Health
George Young (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lords Lord Crisp and Lord Faulkner in support of these amendments, which replicate the amendment I moved in Committee. They set out proposals for a statutory smoke-free 2030 fund, based on the polluter pays principles, to pay for measures to end smoking. We are grateful to both Ministers for the time that they spent with us on a Zoom call last week, when we sought to persuade them of the merits of these amendments, and time alone will tell whether those representations bore fruit In Committee, my noble friend Lord Naseby, whom I see in his place, suggested that these proposals had been consulted on in 2015, and that the Government had concluded they were not workable, a conclusion which he said had been reiterated by the Exchequer Secretary on 10 January 2022. While my noble friend was right to say that the Government consulted on the levy in 2015, they did not consult on the proposals before us today. What was consulted on then was an additional tax, and the decision was taken not to proceed because tobacco manufacturers and importers would pass the costs of a levy on to consumers; the Statement by the Treasury in January merely reiterated that conclusion. Back in 2015, the regulation of tobacco prices to prevent the costs of a levy being passed on to consumers was prohibited by the rules of the European Union. That is no longer the case, so the 2015 objection to the levy no longer holds true. The Government can now put the financial burden firmly where it belongs, on the polluter—the tobacco manufacturer— and not the polluted—the smoker Our scheme enables the Government to limit the ability of manufacturers to profit from smokers, while protecting government excise tax revenues, which is a win-win for the Government and for smokers. The scheme is modelled on the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme, the PPRS, which has been in operation for over 40 years and is overseen by the Department of Health and Social Care. It has teams of analysts who already have the skills to administer a scheme for cigarettes, a much simpler product to administer than pharmaceutical medicines Unlike corporate taxes, which are based on reported profits and can be—and indeed are—evaded, the levy would be based on sales volumes, as is the case in America, where a similar scheme already operates. Sales volumes are much easier for the Government to monitor and much harder for companies to misrepresent. Implementing a levy would not require a new quango to be set up, as the Department of Health and Social Care has all the expertise needed both to supervise the scheme and to allocate the funds raised. We would not be averse to the consultation mentioned in the amendment including other options, as long as it included careful consideration of our proposals The Government have said that they accept the polluter pays principle. My party has form in implementing that proposal through the landfill levy, the tax on sugar in soft drinks and requiring developers to pay for the costs of remediating building safety defects. Indeed, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, the Government promised to consider this approach to funding tobacco control nearly three years ago in the prevention Green Paper. Surely they should now welcome this opportunity to consider how it can be put into practice.