Liberal Vision

Enemies of enterprise seek control on tobacco

The ban on displaying tobacco products announced today is deeply disappointing. 

As noted over on the Tobacco Retailers Alliance website,  “the policy to ban retail displays of tobacco in shops was a policy by the previous Labour government. Throughout the Bill’s passage through Parliament both the Conservatives and Lib Dems expressed concern that the policy was not based on sound evidence to prove that hiding tobacco out of sight in shops would cut youth smoking rates.

Andrew Lansley even cited the example of Canada, where youth smoking rates have remained steady despite a display ban has been phased in over a decade. Less than two weeks ago, Cancer Research published data from Ireland showing that youth smoking has actually increased since a display ban came into force 18 months ago.”  Read more here..

How the policy to ban retail displays of tobacco in shops came to be Coalition policy is therefore utterly bizarre – and worrying.

In similar vein, the following letter appeared in the Daily Telegraph (Letters page) today asking just how committed is this government to enterprise,  and how serious was David Cameron when he said, just a few days ago, that he would wage war on bureaucrats who concoct ridiculous rules and regulations.

SIR – Today, smokers are asked to observe No Smoking Day. They may also finally get to hear Government proposals that could ban the display of tobacco products in retail outlets, and only allow tobacco to be sold in plain, state-prescribed packaging.

If the Coalition is committed to defeating the enemies of enterprise, as David Cameron, the Prime Minister, claims, a good start would be to call a halt to the relentless campaign to “denormalise” smoking through an endless barrage of new controls, directives and diktats.

Mr Cameron claimed last weekend that he would wage war on bureaucrats who concoct ridiculous rules and regulations. Banning the branding of tobacco products or making cigarettes an under-the-counter product would be yet another victory for these very bureaucrats. Life would become more difficult for newsagents and tobacconists and easier for the providers of illicit tobacco to pass off their wares as legitimate.

We cannot yet be sure whether the Prime Minister’s commitment to combating regulation and red tape is truly serious. If his Government now unveils proposals to further restrict the sale and purchase of tobacco, it will be a clear sign that his new commitment to enterprise is little more than political rhetoric.

Patrick Basham
Director, Democracy Institute
Dr Eamonn Butler
Director, Adam Smith Institute
Donna Edmunds
Director of Research, Progressive Vision
Dr Helen Evans
Director, Nurses for Reform
Dr Tim Evans
Chairman, Economic Policy Centre
Daniel Hamilton
Director, Big Brother Watch
Angela Harbutt
Executive Director, Liberal Vision
Tim Knox
Acting Director, Centre for Policy Studies
Mark Littlewood
Director General, Institute of Economic Affairs
Matthew Sinclair
Director, The TaxPayers’ Alliance
Simon Richards
Director, The Freedom Association

Tags: Daily Telegraph, No smoking day, Tobacco Retailers Alliance

Time to bin ASH before it trashes another part of the economy

Apologies for the delay in spotting this one, but it has just come to my attention that the ludicrously well-funded ASH Scotland (which has somehow reversed the Barnett Formula, receiving copiously more than its (also over-funded) English partner organisation… but more on this later) has just published it’s latest list of anti-smoking proposals for Scotland…

On the day that David Cameron has promised the business world a “forensic, relentless focus on growth”  my attention has been drawn to an excellent analysis of ASH Scotlands’ proposals by the Tobacco Retailers Alliance. You should check out the full article yourself, but to summarise, they identify two of ASH Scotland proposals that are particularly insane (my words not theirs!) as far as business is concerned.

1. Govt should increase the cost of smoking by 5% above the rate of inflation every year

2.Govt should look at options for introducing a positive award or incentives scheme for retailers who choose not to sell tobacco.

Both options are likely to result in only one thing – an INCREASE in the amount of tobacco that is sold illicitly – depriving the country of tax revenue (which we desperately need in case ASH had not noticed) whilst putting more money and influence into the hands of criminal gangs.  Do these people learn nothing?

Concerning the second proposal specifically, the Tobacco Retailers Alliance points out that for many small retailers tobacco sales accounts for a third of their trade, so the bill for such a policy to the Scottish Government would be stupendous…. So that, frankly is (almost certainly) a dead duck. At least while the country is broke… But don’t expect the drive to eliminate tobacco retailing to stop,  just because the powers that be have no money right now.  Read this and weep …

“…The idea that retailers should be discouraged from selling tobacco, and encouraged to sell other things in its place, is one that keeps coming up and I expect we’ll hear a lot more of it over the next few years. I once asked an official in the Scottish Government just what exactly retailers could sell in place of tobacco – what product would bring a hundred customers through a newsagent’s door every day, give him a profit equating to four Mars Bars per transaction and drive more add-on purchases than any other product category? After a long pause for thought, she shrugged her shoulders and replied, “Apples?”…. “

This, my friends, is what we are up against – idiotic dogma and evangelism – with no practical understanding (or just perhaps concern) as to the likely real impact of their insane ideas – all of it funded by taxpayer. And when it comes to ASH Scotland…WHAT FUNDING!!!!!  Simon Clark (Director of the smokers lobby group FOREST) highlighted the cost to the taxpayer of ASH Scotland just last week…

“In 2008-09 ASH Scotland received £921,837 from the Scottish Government. In December 2009 they received a further £500,000 grant from the Big Lottery to fund a three-year research project into smoke-free homes in Scotland.

“At a time when governments are reviewing public spending we would seriously question the use of public money to fund a group that employs almost three times as many staff as its sister organisation in England.

“How can that possibly be justified at a time when all taxpayers, smokers and non-smokers alike, are being asked to tighten their belts?”

The Save Our Pubs and Clubs campaign will need to become the Save Our Pubs and Clubs and Newsagents campaign if ASH  & Co get their way…

.. I am hoping it won’t come to this. I trust that today’s rhetoric from the Prime Minister about supporting business will prove not to be empty words and that this coalition will get off the backs of SME’s (and “big tobacco” for that matter) trying to keep this country afloat.

I also thought that Mr Cameron had called a halt to government departments spending money to lobby other parts of Government..surely Government funding to ASH is all this is ? and should stop now.

And for those that missed it.. and specifically for ASH and other Government meddlars here is a video we highlighted recently pointing out the issues surrounding the illicit trade in tobacco.

Tags: ASH, ASH SCOTLAND, forest, simon clark, tobacco, Tobacco Retailers Alliance