No surprise to hear 'anti-smoking tsar' Javed Khan singing from the tobacco control hymn sheet at the weekend.
To recap.
Two and a half months ago the former CEO of Barnardo's was appointed by health secretary Sajid Javid to conduct an 'independent review' of policies that might help the Government achieve its target of a 'smoke free' England by 2030.
In March Khan told The Times that one of the recommendations he was considering was raising the age of sale of tobacco to 19, 20, 21 or even 25. (The headline naturally focused on the latter – ‘Under-25s could be banned from buying cigarettes'.)
Now, just two days after he was due to submit his review (on April 22), the Telegraph reported:
Tobacco companies will be slapped with an extra annual levy of up to £700m under radical “polluter-pays” proposals put forward by the Government’s anti-smoking tsar.
Javed Khan, the former chief executive of children’s charity Barnardo's, said some of the world’s biggest companies must pay for anti-smoking reforms instead of the NHS.
See 'Big Tobacco to be slapped with £700m tax to ease NHS smoking burden' and 'Britain decides if Big Tobacco should help it kick the habit' (Telegraph).
Leaving aside the fact that, far from being a burden on the NHS, smokers contribute far more (£12 billion a year in excise duty and VAT) than it costs the NHS to treat smoking-related diseases (£2.5 billion), the way the story was reported suggests that a tobacco levy is a done deal which seems to be jumping the gun a bit.
After all, Khan's recommendations are not meant to be binding but will simply be considered by Sajid Javid before the Government publishes its long-awaited Tobacco Control Plan later this year. Hopefully there will also be a public consultation on the Government's plans although I can see you rolling your eyes at the idea (as well you might).
Either way there has to be a question mark over how 'independent' Javed Khan's review really is, especially after Martin Dockrell, the former director of policy at ASH who has been tobacco programme lead for Public Health England and its successor (the absurdly named Office for Health Improvement and Disparities) for almost a decade, tweeted:
Chuffed to be assisting @JavedKhanCEO on his project.
But leaving aside Dockrell’s exact role for another day, let's consider this.
If Javed Khan does indeed recommend imposing a tobacco levy on the tobacco companies and raising the age of sale of tobacco (most likely to 21), what a coincidence that both policies just happen to be top of the tobacco control industry's current wish list.
An annual £700 million levy is probably their number one goal if only because the money will keep them in business for years to come.
Think of all those multi media anti-smoking campaigns not to mention all the (largely unnecessary) smoking cessation services they'll be able to support, guaranteeing existing jobs and allowing them to build and maintain an even bigger tobacco control empire.
No vested interest there!
We know of course that the people who will be hardest hit by a levy are not the tobacco companies (who already pay billions in excise duty, corporation tax and VAT), but the poor beleaguered consumer on to whom the cost will almost certainly be passed.
Anyway, Khan's recommendations, which he says "are still being developed and finalised", are unlikely to surprise anyone. Unless he pulls something genuinely radical out of the bag all he's doing is recycling ideas that have been promoted by anti-smoking lobbyists for years, and frequently rejected.
My concern is that his recommendations may be adopted uncritically by government in much the same way as David Cameron used another independent review to justify the introduction of plain packaging (ie something ministers can hide behind in order to avoid taking direct responsibility for contentious policies that may or may not work).
It's worth noting, by the way, that not only did Khan not reply to Forest's request to talk to him – after he tweeted that he had held 'several roundtable discussions with parliamentarians, devolved administrations, academics, civil society, directors of public health & clinicians' – neither he nor the Department of Health and Social Care have acknowledged receipt of our 19-page submission, despite two requests for them to do so.
Anyway the latest information, courtesy of Sajid Javid and Hansard (April 19), suggests the review will be completed and published in May, after which "we can set out our plans".
Reading the Telegraph it seems that Khan intends to recommend a combination of the carrot and the stick but the very notion of a stick being used to force adults to give up a legal product is abhorrent to me and, I'm sure, to many of you.
That however is a direct result of the Government setting an artificial target to be 'smoke free' which is one of the reasons why, in Forest's submission to Khan's review, we offered our own recommendations including:
- The government should abandon its target of a ‘smoke free’ England by 2030 in favour of a more liberal approach that treats adults like grown-ups and puts freedom of choice, personal responsibility and education at the heart of tobacco control instead of prohibition and coercion. Trust members of the public to make informed choices about smoking and respect their decision, whether or not you agree with it.
For the record our other recommendations were:
- Further government action on smoking should be limited to education and evidence- based public information campaigns about the health risks of smoking.
- There must be an end to punitive, regressive taxation on tobacco that fuels illicit trade and discriminates against less well-off smokers.
- A levy on tobacco companies (who already pay excise duty, VAT and corporation tax) must be rejected for the financial impact it will have when the cost is inevitably passed on to legitimate consumers, arguably pushing more smokers into poverty.
- Support for stop smoking services should be based on consumer demand not appeals by vested interests for more funding.
- Stop smoking events such as No Smoking Day, Stoptober and other quit smoking campaigns should be subject to strict KPIs and independent annual reviews to assess their impact on reducing smoking rates.
- Government must make greater efforts to engage with confirmed smokers, a key stakeholder. Failure to understand why millions of smokers don’t want to quit or switch to reduced risk nicotine products can only undermine government attempts to significantly reduce adult smoking rates.
I don't expect Javed Khan to agree with us but it would be nice to think he had at least read our submission. Is that too much to ask?
See also: Tobacco control review invites views but possibly not your views (Taking Liberties, March 7) and Action man (March 12).
