New Clause 10
Health Bill [Lords]
3:30 pm
Sandra Gidley (Romsey, Liberal Democrat)
The tobacco manufacturers would say that it is not legal. There is another body of opinion that says it is. That is probably a lawyers’ charter—I do not know; it is up to the Minister to decide all that. Both the lawyers have gone, so perhaps we can make some progress.
The new clause states:
“Before making any regulations...the Secretary of State shall consult”
those affected. The regulations would be subject to affirmative resolution.
It is worth explaining why the measures are necessary. Currently, branded packaging constitutes a highly effective form of tobacco advertising. I had the dubious pleasure of serving on the Committee discussing the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002, which was my first ever Bill. I was totally dismayed that it took us all day to define a tobacco product—that was baptism by boredom, I think, rather than by fire. Certainly, the intention of that Act was to try to prevent those visual triggers and icons, and the ways that products could be used and sold, from subtly reinforcing certain brand images.
As a result of the 2002 Act, all the emphasis has gone to tobacco display. Some of the display material produced by the large tobacco manufacturers is not in the spirit of that Act. The boundaries have been pushed so far that there are some large, flashy displays at point of sale. Although measures in the Bill seek to remove everything completely, there may be a compromise in restricting what is on display. It has been shown by numerous people that tobacco branding is particularly potent in the recruitment of young people into smoking habits. Design features, including colour coding, give them misleading and illegal impressions that one type of cigarette is less harmful than another. In fact, they are all fairly, or completely, harmful.
The new clause seeks to make plain packaging mandatory for all tobacco products, removing all branding and leaving the health warnings and the name of the product. Current branded packaging is a form of advertising and misleads smokers about the safety of the product.
Since the advertising ban, the pack has acquired even greater importance as an advertising tool. The tobacco industry uses it to recruit smokers to replace those who have quit or died. The industry saw early on that the pack would acquire even greater importance. In 1991, some time before the ban, the trade magazine “Tobacco International” wrote that
“the traditional cigarette pack will not be good enough for the selling job it will have to do. If it cannot be shown and marketed in advertising as before, it must carry the whole message itself.”
Many similar comments are available.
In a speech much quoted in the Lords, the global brand director of Imperial Tobacco boasted that it had used pack design to undermine the advertisement ban and increase sales. I quote:
“The effect was very positive. Already the number 1 brand, our share grew by over 0.4 per cent. during this period—that may not sound a lot but it was worth over £60 million in additional turnover and a significant profit improvement. Often in marketing, it is difficult to isolate the effects of individual parts of the mix. But in this case, because the UK had become a dark market, the pack design was the only part of the mix that was changed, and therefore we knew the cause and effect.”
Branding is especially effective when it comes to young people. The great majority of smokers start smoking before they are 18 and the longer they smoke, the harder they find it to quit. Research conducted by the university of Nottingham has shown that young people found branded packs much more attractive than plain packs, demonstrating the appeal of packaging and branding independent of the appeal of the tobacco product itself. There is much anecdotal evidence that if young women in particular see a glitzy pack they want one. It is almost like an accessory. Professor Gerard Hastings from the Institute for Social Marketing describes cigarettes as,
“‘badge products’ which are conspicuously consumed, particularly by the young, to make public statements about the user’s self-image and identity”.
With that goes the design of the pack.
Branding can also be used to mislead smokers about the relative safety of brands. The use of colours or livery can mislead smokers into thinking that their favoured brand or brand variant is a safer product than others. Some have shades of a colour so that the strongest cigarettes are darker. People smoking cigarettes from a lighter coloured pack will think they are less dangerous when in fact they are just as dangerous in the long run.
Amendments were tabled and debated at Committee and on Report in another place. They have been reintroduced here because there is new evidence, including research that stresses concerns raised in another place, which shows that the tobacco industry has advanced legal arguments knowing them to be unsound, including arguments promoted to Members of this House. The Bill has also been amended in response to Lord Stoddart’s objection at Committee stage that it should provide for an affirmative instrument. Greater clarity has been provided by the Minister on the forthcoming tobacco control strategy, which could include a planned review of the evidence.
Committee stage in another place coincided with the world conference on tobacco and health. On the very day that Members debated plain packs, new research was being presented at that conference. The new research was on previously secret internal tobacco industry documents that showed that not only are industry claims about international law incorrect, but tobacco industry advocates knew that to be so at the time they made the claims. The study confirms that.