Peer pressure

Last year I reported that anti-smoking campaigners were trying to hijack the Government's Health and Care Bill.

As I wrote here:

The Health and Care Bill has nothing to do with tobacco control, which the Government is already planning to address through its new tobacco control plan … but that hasn't stopped anti-smoking campaigners from using the Bill as a platform to pursue their own agenda.

Hence Labour MP Mary Foy - who chairs the APPG on Smoking and Health which is run by ASH - has tabled a series of amendments that would give the health secretary the power to:

• ensure a health warning is put on every individual cigarette
• get a health warning card put in every packet of cigarettes
• bring in a "polluter pays" new levy on tobacco firms to fund public health measures
• raise the legal age of buying cigarettes from 18 to 21
• ban flavouring being used in tobacco products
• stop manufacturers of e-cigarettes from using branding which is attractive to children

A variation of those amendments was later tabled in the House of Lords with all but one subsequently withdrawn.

However, tobacco control's current holy grail – a £700 million pound levy on the tobacco industry – is still very much alive.

Yesterday during the Report stage of the Bill in the Lords the amendment was discussed and passed by 213 votes to 154.

As things stand it only commits the Government to a consultation on a levy – and it might yet fail in the House of Commons – but time will tell. Either way, the likes of ASH were last night claiming it as a victory.

As for the amendments that were withdrawn, several of the proposed policies will no doubt return attached to some other vehicle – Javed Khan's 'independent review' perhaps – because if there's one thing we know about the tobacco control industry they never stop lobbying ministers to comply with their demands, however unjust or unjustified.

If you're interested you can read the transcript of yesterday's discussion here.

Forest was mentioned three times.

The first time was courtesy of Lib Dem peer Baroness Northover (who I have written about before):

My Lords, briefly, I support these amendments; my name was on an amendment at an earlier stage. I hope that the Minister [Earl Howe] will have managed to persuade other parts of government that they will not achieve a smoke-free 2030 in the UK unless they move further and faster on tackling an industry built on promoting ill health and death—the reverse of what the health service seeks to do.

The Department of Health has come a long way in this area, with much cross-party working, and I know that the noble Earl himself has been part of that cross-party support in tackling the terrible health consequences of smoking. I have a sense of déjà vu, as I think others might. Over the years, the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, has been a rather lone voice on the other side. From time to time Forest, which makes it plain that it is funded by the tobacco industry, kindly sends me its brief, no doubt inadvertently, and I recognise some familiar phrases that have just been voiced. I noted the rueful expression of the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, took apart what he had said about the levy.

The Government say that they are committed to delivering a smoke-free 2030, but keep putting off the action required. Not all parts of government are fully aligned to this in the actions taken. The steps proposed in the amendments are designed to help the Government achieve what they say they wish to do. I therefore commend them to the House.

Responding to the reference to Lord Naseby and Forest, Baroness Fox (aka our old friend Claire Fox) commented:

My Lords, I was not intending to speak, but I wanted to counter the point made to the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, that he was simply rehearsing lines from Forest, the pro-freedom to smoke group. I also inadvertently receive communiques from ASH, the anti-smoking lobby group—I think it has me muddled up with someone else—and I have heard many of its lines rehearsed here as well on the other side of the argument. I thought it might be worth noting that.

Claire was then interrupted by Lord Rennard, another Lib Dem peer, who intervened to say:

Does the noble Baroness accept that a crucial difference is that organisations such as ASH are funded by organisations concerned with public health, including Cancer Research UK and people who deal with trying to save lives, while Forest is funded by the tobacco industry, which kills half its customers?

This in turn prompted Claire to retort:

I was coming on to that point. I would really appreciate a dose of honesty in this House. If those people who are so hostile to smoking a legal product believe that it is the killer they allege, they should call for smoking to be made illegal and be done with it. At the moment, tobacco companies are legal companies. People talk about them with such distaste, as though they should be abolished. It would be better and more heartfelt if they argued that tobacco should be illegal; then we would have a different debate. Public health is not always neutral when you talk about public health lobbyists, in my opinion. The freedom to choose to do something that is bad for your health is still allowed in a free society, despite some people wishing it was not.

Well said.

What a pity it is though that more parliamentarians won't step up and defend a legal industry and the consumption of a legal product – or, alternatively, have the guts to call for smoking to be made illegal so the nation can have an open and honest debate about the pros and cons.

Instead, knowing they would probably lose a public debate on prohibition, anti-smoking campaigners are trying to achieve the same goal via a thousand cuts.

PS. Claire later tweeted:

I couldn't stand the holier-than-thou tone of some Lords in a debate on smoking this afternoon, so I made a quick intervention. The freedom to choose to do something that is bad for you is still (just about) allowed in a free society - despite some wishing it wasn't. pic.twitter.com/vEjxLoBrg7

— Claire Fox (@Fox_Claire) March 16, 2022

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[Simon]

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