Forest v. Lord Faulkner (peer, politician and public health lobbyist)
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 12:30 The story so far.
On Monday Politics Home (epolitix) published an article by anti-smoking peer Lord Faulkner entitled Smoke out tobacco companies influence.
Several years ago I spoke against Lord Faulkner in a debate at the Oxford Union. I thought my opponent was going to Lord Falconer, Tony Blair's pal, and I was a bit disappointed when I found out he wasn't there!
Antony Worrall Thompson was on my team and the best thing about the evening was the dinner before we were marched off to address a chamber full of expectant students. It was impressed upon us that we were following in some very famous footsteps - prime ministers, even presidents - so I was nervous but it turned out to be good fun nonetheless.
Anyway, back to the matter in hand. Angela Harbutt, newly recruited by Forest to run the Hands Off Our Packs campaign, wrote a hard-hitting reply in which she was completely frank about her paid role with Forest.
Lord Faulkner chose to come back with a dig at Angela and Forest and the claim that Forest was "set up" by the tobacco companies, which suggests that Forest was their idea and they recruited people to run it.
I responded, via email and by phone, and asked Politics Home to remove Lord Faulkner's allegation unless, of course, he could supply evidence to support his statement.
To their credit they did remove it and yesterday, following discussions with Lord Faulkner, they sent me the following email:
Dear Simon
Further to my voicemail message, below in bold is the proposed new copy from Lord Faulkner, complete with footnotes and additional information. Before we publish this, do you feel that it is factually correct?
Let me know and I will happily converse with Lord Faulkner regarding this issue. Please do call me, if you feel necessary, so that we can discuss this in greater depth.
On this basis I suggest these words in place of the ones you removed:.
“For Angela Harbutt to compare "Big Tobacco" to organisations devoted to improving public health is laughable, but hardly surprising from someone who admits to being funded by FOREST, an organisation set up with funding from the tobacco manufacturers to promote the interests of the tobacco industry.”
I won't include the references (they're on Wikipedia if you're interested) but the additional information supplied by Lord Faulkner read:
Tobacco industry documents revealed in litigation in the US show that prior to its inception Forest’s founder Sir Christopher Foxley Norris wrote to BAT in 1978 seeking a paid position running a consumer's association for smokers. At a meeting, BAT staff told him that "the industry had been giving possible through to the possible formation of a consumer's body for some time and (his) ideas were to a considerable extent in line with this thinking". Subsequently the tobacco manufacturers were integral to the establishment of Forest by providing the start up costs for the group. The provision of detailed lists of Forest's activities to the industry on a monthly basis also indicates that Forest has consistently accounted for and justified its funding to the industry. Forest continues to be funded by the tobacco industry. In 2009 it admitted to the Scottish parliament to getting £250,000 a year from JTI, BAT and Imperial.
This morning I have replied as follows:
Many thanks for the opportunity to check that Lord Faulkner's statement is factually correct. I have read the documents he refers to. (I was aware of them and was familiar with their contents.)
1. Forest has always been very open about the fact that it receives donations from tobacco companies. How it was funded at the very start is still not entirely clear but I accept that, on the balance of probabilities, Forest was "set up with funding from the tobacco manufacturers". You will appreciate however that there is a crucial difference between that statement and Lord Faulkner’s original claim that Forest was "set up by the Tobacco Manufacturers Association". Leaving aside the minor point that the TMA didn’t exist when Forest was set up in 1979, the latter suggests that Forest was conceived and founded by the tobacco companies. This is completely untrue so I am pleased that Lord Faulkner has retracted his earlier, false, allegation.
It is clear from the documents referred to by Lord Faulkner that Air Chief-Marshal Sir Christopher Foxley-Norris, a former Battle of Britain fighter pilot, had the idea for what became Forest. The companies knew about the idea because Sir Christopher wrote to them for funding. Knowing about an idea and being responsible for it are two very different things.
A crucial piece of evidence that Lord Faulkner has overlooked is the name: Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco. According to one of the documents referenced by his lordship, the tobacco companies had concerns about the name Forest “in view of the unfortunate connotations that could be attached – forest fires, backwoodsmen etc”. The minutes of the PR sub-committee of the Tobacco Advisory Council (the forerunner of the Tobacco Manufacturers Association) in May 1979 reveals that “it was agreed that the Chairman should write to Sir Christopher Foxley-Norris to let him know of our misgivings and propose a more straightforward title such as ‘Freedom to Smoke’”.
This confirms beyond any possible doubt that Forest was Sir Christopher’s idea. It also highlights another important point: Sir Christopher, an independent-minded man with a distinguished military history, chose to ignore the companies’ “misgivings” and stick with the name that he had come up with. This is hardly the sign of a man – or group – utterly beholden to the companies who help fund it and I am pleased to say that Forest has continued in the same spirit of independence to the present day.
2. Although I accept that, in all probability, Forest was "set up with funding from the tobacco manufacturers", it is tendentious and factually incorrect say that Forest was "set up ... to promote the interests of the tobacco industry". According to minutes of a meeting on 27 November 1978, referenced by Lord Faulkner, Sir Christopher’s proposal for “a Tobacco Consumers’ Association set out in his letter of 18th October [1978]” had been inspired by “the increasing interference by Government and other do-gooding bodies in many aspects of people’s private affairs. In particular, as a confirmed smoker, he had been struck by the treatment handed out to smokers and at the apparent lack of co-ordinated reaction by the industry or its customers …”.
In other words, Sir Christopher’s proposal was not "to promote the interests of the tobacco industry" but to promote the interests of the consumer, a crucial difference. The interests of the consumer and the tobacco companies may overlap at times but they are not the same thing and they quite often diverge. We often have differences of opinion with the companies. Sometimes this has had serious repercussions, including a loss of funding, but we value our independence too much to be ‘stooges’ of Big Tobacco and I think that, ultimately, the companies respect that even if they do not always agree with our views.
Sadly, Tobacco Control advocates like Lord Faulkner can’t understand that there are people in the world who are perfectly capable of thinking for themselves – we don’t need politicians or public health lobbyists to do it for us.
In view of the above comments, I propose that Lord Faulkner’s copy reads as follows:
For Angela Harbutt to compare "Big Tobacco" to organisations devoted to improving public health is laughable, but hardly surprising from someone who admits to being funded by Forest, an organisation set up with funding from the tobacco manufacturers.
Anything else is conjecture or highly subjective and would suggest a (deliberate?) misreading of the relevant documents.
Hope this helps.
Kind regards,
Simon Clark
Director, Forest
I am now awaiting Lord Faulkner's response.
Simon Clark
Update from Politics Home:
[We] can confirm that this revised comment has been accepted by Lord Faulkner and has been added accordingly.
So, to summarise. Anti-tobacco peer backs down. Forest NOT "set up" by tobacco companies "to promote the interests of the tobacco industry".
Fancy that!
Reader Comments (2)
Was anything said about allowing AH to respond to the response allowed Lord Faulkner?
Quite so my Lord
It's just nice to get the facts straight that's all - you know...evidence and all that.