Clause 1 - Meaning of ``tobacco advertisement'' and ``tobacco product''.
Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Bill
11:00 am
Ms Yvette Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary (Public Health), Department of Health; Pontefract and Castleford, Labour)
Hon. Members have raised points about the meaning of ``tobacco advertisement'', and about smuggling and other issues, which I will return to in the clause stand part debate. I want to confine my remarks at this stage to amendments Nos. 1 and 6.
The Government cannot accept either amendment No. 1 or amendment No. 6, but for very different reasons, so I will take each in turn. Amendment No. 1 would allow advertisements of specialist tobacco products, whether on billboards, through sports sponsorship, in magazines, on the internet or anywhere else. It does not define what a specialist tobacco product is. The clause defines a tobacco product as one
consisting wholly or partly of tobacco and intended to be smoked, sniffed, sucked or chewed.
That is a pretty comprehensive definition.
Clause 6(2) defines a specialist tobacconist as a shop selling
cigars, snuff, pipe tobacco and smoking accessories.
I assume that the intention behind the amendment is to permit advertisements of cigars, snuff, pipe tobacco and smoking accessories. Yet that is not precisely what the amendment does. It does not set out definitively whether hand rolling tobacco, gutkha or paan would be regarded as specialist tobacco products. The scope of the amendment is extremely wide, but the health risks from all of those products are considerable.
Some chewing tobacco and other products that could be covered by the amendment carry considerable risk. Such products are used to a great extent in certain communities, particularly Asian communities, and they could still be regarded as specialist tobacco products. The Government would be extremely concerned about any amendment that permitted advertisements of gutkha and chewing tobacco products.
The hon. Member for Meriden raised doubts as to whether gutkha or any other such products were chewed or used by children or young people. Specialists have given the Department evidence—both health professionals and community representatives—that the incidence of the use of gutkha, in particular, is high among young people and that it has become a fashionable product. We are worried about the consumption of oral tobacco by young people given the consequences that it can have: it can lead to oral cancers. We would, therefore, be troubled to see such a measure included in the Bill. It would undermine its entire purpose and intention, which is to prevent harm to children and young people.
I accept that cigars and pipe tobacco are less harmful than cigarettes, mainly because the people who smoke those products tend not to inhale. Some studies show that the overall risk of premature death for cigarette smokers is 70 per cent. higher than for non-smokers, but that, for pipe and cigar smokers, it only up to 10 per cent. higher. However, those products still pose considerable risks to health. It has been suggested that many pipe and cigar smokers formerly smoked cigarettes and may have transferred their inhalation habits, which makes the practice far more dangerous and poses a far greater risk to public health. A European study found that the risk of lung cancer was nine times higher for cigar smokers than for non-smokers. Pipe and cigar smokers develop cancer of the larynx at several times the rate of non-smokers and experience higher mortality from bronchitis and emphysema.
Voluntary agreements and codes of practice have tended to make distinctions between cigarette and hand rolling tobacco, and cigars and pipe tobacco. Even so, the need to regulate the advertising of the latter has long been recognised. There have been no television advertisements for cigars and pipe tobacco since 1991—such advertisements are prohibited under the independent television code of advertising standards and practice. The Radio Authority has recently launched a consultation document with a view to banning advertisements for cigar and pipe tobacco, in line with the Bill.Indeed, the voluntary agreement reached in December 1994 between the previous Government and the tobacco trade prescribed health warnings for press and billboard advertisements for cigars and pipe tobacco. There are clear links between pipe and cigar tobacco and health. That is why it is right that they be broadly included within the scope of the Bill.
We recognise that specialist tobacco products tend mainly to appeal to mature smokers and that a number of businesses specialise in the sale of such products. Clause 6 recognises that they are often small businesses and allows them to advertise their products within their shop.