Let's make some noise

Thanks to political blogger Guido Fawkes for shining a light on the murkier aspects of the Government consultation on the generational tobacco ban.

Following the announcement by the prime minister in October that he wanted to raise the age of sale of tobacco by one year every year, the Government launched an eight-week consultation, with a closing date of December 6.

In my experience, most government consultations are scheduled for three, or sometimes four, months.

Likewise, the subsequent reports tend to be published three months after the closing date, although it can sometimes take much longer (eleven months in the case of the plain packaging consultation).

In this instance, the Government's response was published less than eight weeks after the closing date, and that period included the two-week Christmas period, so it's probably fair to say it was produced in half the time it normally takes.

Either way, the consultation attracted nearly 28,000 legitimate responses, and to no-one's surprise:

The large majority of responses supported the government proposal to create a smokefree generation. Respondents were mostly in favour of the proposed measures to tackle youth vaping, particularly restricting point of sale displays and restricting packaging.

Interestingly, however, the report failed to provide a list of respondents (notably the 896 organisations that responded to the consultation), despite the fact that this has been standard practice for most if not every government consultation Forest has ever contributed to.

The reason it's important is that we suspect that many of the organisations and NGOs that responded to the consultation will be public sector bodies or have links to the public health industry.

Of even greater concern, though, was the extraordinary revelation that the Government had chosen not to consider the views of the 307 respondents with disclosed links to the tobacco industry 'when determining our policy response' due to the 'vested interests' of the industry.

As you can imagine, retail groups with legitimate links to the tobacco industry are up in arms at the admission that their views on the proposed generational tobacco ban have not been considered, despite the fact that it could have a significant impact on their businesses.

Ditto the proposed ban on disposable vapes, for which views were also sought.

Meanwhile we're outraged that the views of law-abiding consumers have also been sidelined in this unprecedented fashion.

Forest has been contributing to government consultations for decades and this is the first time any government (including devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales) has told us that our views have not even been considered, let alone acted upon.

To get some answers from government, Conservative MP arl McCartney submitted several written parliamentary questions.

Far from addressing his legitimate concerns, the Government (via the DHSC and health minister Andrea Leadsom) simply doubled down and is refusing to publish the names of the organisations that responded to the consultation. 

This includes organisations with disclosed links to the tobacco industry, so it's impossible to know for sure which groups have had their views disregarded by ministers and civil servants.

Not only is the lack of transparency breathtaking, but using the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) as the excuse for ignoring the views of legitimate stakeholders is both pathetic and and fundamentally undemocratic.

Furthermore, with retail crime at an all-time high, the Government has – incredibly – chosen to disregard the views of retail organisations just because they have links with the tobacco industry whose products they buy and sell.

It's one thing to ignore the views of the tobacco industry (although I believe that's wrong too), but disregarding the views of other organisations with a legitimate interest in the proposed legislation is scandalous and should be challenged in court.

One more thing: public consultations are usually designed to generate feedback on a particular proposal, following which the Government considers and then decides its next move.

In this instance, as Rishi Sunak made clear at the Conservative conference in October, and again when the new coalition government in New Zealand announced that it intended to repeal the generational ban legislation introduced by the previous (Labour) government, he had obviously made up his mind to introduce a generational ban long before the consultation closing date, and months before the report was published, so the whole process has been a complete sham from start to finish.

Anyway, now you can see what we're up against, I hope you will write to your MP and make even more noise.

See: Sunak's smoke and mirrors ban

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

My MP is Karl McCartney. I already wrote to him about this piece of oppressive legislation. He did not reply, presumably because the fact I wrote to him was picked up by the Lincolnite which he dislikes.

Therefore, I do not expect him to respond to any more of my letters on the issue of smoker persecution and abuse by Government so if the "Karl McCartney" mentioned in your post is the same one, I am at least very pleased he has picked up the issue from others he represents in our constituency.

Politicians want our votes. It seems, however, they do not want to listen to our voice.

Meanwhile, it seems vested interests are permitted if they serve the interests of the right kind of industry or current on trend political viewpoint. It's disgusting.

If only we could afford to take the Government to court over this. People should take note that if government can get away with excluding one group from the democratic process based on their identity - ie : Smoker - then they have a precedent to exclude others.

Imagine, for example, if Jews were excluded from any current consultation on whether the government should support a ceasefire in Gaza based on "vested interests" for example. Some years ago I would have said that could never happen. Now, I really am not so sure. We are living in very dangerous times.