Comment: Cigarette display ban hits British freedoms
The proposed banning of cigarette vending machines is another attack on British freedoms.
By Philip Davies
If the judicial review on the proposed banning of cigarette vending machines finds in favour this October, it will see another hammer-blow to the individual liberties of the people in this country.
If an individual wants to smoke, an activity which is perfectly legal, in a private establishment where those who attend do so of their own free will then they should be free to do so. The tobacco vending industry is only serving to meet this demand and this free choice; basic principles that have made this country a leader in democracy through the ability to exercise one’s own right to conduct their lives how they see fit – within reason.
The ban – mooted to help in the prevention of underage smoking – completely ignores the fact that less than one per cent of all cigarette sales in the UK come from vending machines; machines that are placed within licensed premises where underage persons are highly unlikely to frequent and are certainly not going to choose as an outlet to purchase, with vending cigarettes being amongst the most expensive to purchase.
The vending industry is worth around £450 million to our already beleaguered economy. Can we really do with this disappearing? What are we going to replace that amount of lost capital with?
We’re talking about the livelihoods of a large number of men, women and their families; families that have built businesses out of a legitimate trade aimed at those within their legal right to make a decision as to whether they smoke or not – and making it convenient to them to purchase in the places they visit and where the habit is associated.
Aren’t we supposed be championing this type of entrepreneurial behaviour in our society? Aren’t we supposed to be looking to these people and businesses as those who are going to help boost our economy at a time when budget cuts across all sectors are plunging good, hard-working people into the pits of recession with no obvious way of getting themselves out? For many of these family-run businesses this is all they know. What happens to them after a ban? Spiraling debts and the dole?
The previous health secretary, Andy Burnham, once said: “I make no apology when it comes to protecting children and giving them the best start in life.”
Surely taking children to licensed premises when they are underage is not giving them the best start in life and does little to protect their innocence; only familiarise them with the environment and its associations of which smoking is one.
The most pressing point in this matter is that the National Association of Cigarette Machine Operators (Nacmo), which has over 250 business on its books, has worked tirelessly with the Department of Health (DoH) to show a professional and responsible approach to the issue of preventing underage smoking and introduced a technology that aims to control the vending of cigarettes in licensed premises.
Radio frequency technology enables bar staff to remotely control cigarette vending sales at the push of a button from behind the bar, having verified a person’s age from their ID – as they would for alcohol sales and preventing sales to minors.
Under Nacmo guidelines cigarette vending machines are sited so they are visible to bar staff controlling the machine. Since its introduction, the radio frequency control system has proven to be a great success. Yet this managed solution to ‘safe’ cigarette vending has, so far, been ignored by government, and more specifically the secretary of state for health, Andrew Lansley, who has been approached by Nacmo on a number of occasions to discuss the matter further.
The radio frequency machine was recently demonstrated in the House of Lords. The peers that attended the demonstration saw the radio frequency control system as a sensible way to ensure underage persons do not use tobacco vending machines, and was a more proportionate response than banning tobacco vending machines.
People may argue that minors can still send associates of a legal age in to purchase for them. They can do this anywhere and not just with tobacco. The argument certainly doesn’t merit destroying an industry that is trying its hardest to prevent this happening to the best of its ability.
The smoking ban has already had a detrimental affect on our community pubs with around 50 per week closing down – again something that has been part of our national identity and way of life for generations. The ban on the legitimate vending of cigarettes in licensed premises will further erode our ability to choose how we wish to live our lives and put many more – and I repeat – good hard-working people back to square one. Punters will instead drink and smoke at home and a part of our social identity will be resigned to the history books.
In an allegedly free society, where will the government stop? The banning of alcohol on display? Surely this has the same principles and connotations for national health as smoking does?
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Philip Davies is the Conservative MP for Shipley and a member of the culture, media and sport select committee. He is the parliamentary spokesman for the Campaign Against Political Correctness.
