CIGARETTE SMOKING AND HEALTH WARNINGS (Hansard, 16 March 1971)

§ LORD ABERDARE

The Government welcomes this opportunity to make a statement to the House on the Report of the Royal College of Physicians on Tobacco Smoking. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister announced in another place on February 2, interdepartmental discussions on all the implications of the Report are being urgently pursued. They had already 433WA opened discussions with the tobacco industry before the Report was published, and I am glad to be able to tell the House that these have reached a satisfactory conclusion.

The tobacco manufacturers have agreed voluntarily—and we should like to pay a tribute to the responsible and helpful way in which they have approached these discussions—to print in clear type a warning on each cigarette packet that, and I quote the words agreed: "Smoking can damage your health". According to the design of the packet, this will either be placed on both edge-sides of the packet, or, if on one side only, it will be presented with greater emphasis. In addition, each cigarette advertisement will carry a clear statement drawing attention to the warning notice on packets. A detailed Code of Practice is to be agreed with the Department of Health and Social Security. This agreement does not cover imported cigarettes which account for less than half of one per cent. of the cigarettes sold in this country.

The industry have agreed to the establishment of a standing scientific liaison committee, composed of some scientists appointed by them and others appointed by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. This committee will keep under review the search for less dangerous kinds of smoking and will devise satisfactory methods of determining for publication the tar and nicotine yield of the various brands of cigarette on the market. The Department of Health and Social Security will seek to assist the industry to identify acceptable methods of determining whether new smoking materials are in fact less dangerous.

My Department is suggesting to hospital and local health authorities ways in which they can discourage smoking, including setting aside certain areas in which there should be no smoking. The 434WA Chief Medical Officer is writing to all doctors on the subject. Perhaps the most important aspect is to discourage the young from starting to smoke, and my right honourable friends the Secretaries of State for Social Services and Education and Science are considering how to tackle this very difficult question. In the next few days we shall be approaching those responsible for public transport, cinemas, theatres and the like to ask them to set aside more accommodation for non-smokers, and inviting the life insurance companies, in the light of the Royal College's Report, to consider the possibility of lower premiums for nonsmokers.

The Government wish the dangers of cigarette smoking to be widely understood. We hope therefore to enlist the help of those responsible for television programmes. We propose to supplement the work of the Health Education Council, who have spent £100,000 on smoking publicity in the current financial year by providing them with additional money to mount a short but intensive television campaign to bring the risks involved in cigarette smoking to families in their homes.

The manufacturers are prepared to embark at once on printing the agreed notices, provided that they can be assured that different requirements will not be imposed. On this assumption, packets carrying the warning notice will begin to appear in the shops this summer. The television campaign will be timed to coincide with their appearance in quantity. Virtually all packets and advertisements will carry notices by the end of the year.

My right honourable friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales are associated with the action I have outlined.

House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past nine o'clock.