Dear Constituents,
The Government is committed to reducing the number of young people who take up smoking. Each year, in England alone, around 330,000 children under 16 first try smoking and the majority of smokers start smoking regularly before they are 18 years old. I absolutely agree that all possible measures should be taken to reduce the numbers of young people who take up smoking in the first place.
In March 2011 the Government published Healthy Lives, Healthy People: A Tobacco Control Plan for England which set out a comprehensive plan to stop over 200,000 people smoking by 2015, as well as a range of other actions to reduce the risk from secondhand smoke and to diminish the impact of anything which promotes tobacco use.
I am pleased that the Government has committed to explore options to reduce the promotional impact of tobacco packaging and has announced a public consultation on the standardisation packaging of tobacco products.
The Government has an open mind at this stage about introducing standardised packaging. Through the consultation, it aims to understand whether there is evidence to demonstrate that the standardised packaging of tobacco products would have an additional public health benefit, over and above existing tobacco control initiatives.
The consultation will be open for responses from the 16 April to 10 July 2012 and further details can be found here:
http://consultations.dh.gov.uk/tobacco/standardised-packaging-of-tobacco-products/consult_view
As I said in my interview with Smoke Free South West, our primary aim should be to be stop young people taking up smoking in the first place and any measures that make tobacco less attractive are a good health investment. I welcome the steps taken by Plain Packaging to try to achieve this.
Yours sincerely
LIAM FOX