Examination of Witnesses (Questions 980
- 999)
THURSDAY 27 JANUARY 2000
MR MARTIN
BROUGHTON, MR
PETER WILSON,
MR GARETH
DAVIS, MR
DAVID DAVIES
AND DR
AXEL GIETZ
980. You have not paid MPs directly or indirectly
to act on your behalf?
(Mr Wilson) No, we have not.
981. Does that question apply to any other people?
Have you actually paid MPs directly or indirectly?
(Mr Davies) We have not.
(Mr Broughton) I find it an extraordinarily alarming
suggestion that you think sufficient number of your parliamentary
colleagues are buyable to have made an impact.
982. This place is a very surprising place in
my experience.
(Mr Broughton) I really find that very depressing.
983. I have been reading a book here which is
of great interest to me, and if one looks at this it is worth
reflecting on how the industry is referred to in respect of this
place. That is just one small part of the wider picture.
(Mr Broughton) We have certainly not bought anybody
or any politician.
984. Have you paid directly or indirectly—
(Mr Broughton) We have paid political advisers.
985. MPs?
(Mr Broughton) MPs, and you would find them in the
register. Historically we have tried to have one adviser from
the Conservative Party and one adviser from the Labour Party.
Basically that has been a process of saying business needs to
understand more about how Parliament works, and, frankly, Parliament
needs to understand more about how business works. We have used
their input a lot on a whole wide range of issues, not lobbying
in the tobacco/health arena, but things like ACT, things like
wider, awkward issues, and getting a better understanding of how
parties think on various subjects. Fundamentally, you will recall,
until we merged with Rothmans earlier this year we have not really
operated in the UK tobacco market, so our interests have been
less on the tobacco/health subject here than other things. Yes,
you will find we have had paid political advisers, usually one
from each party at any one time, we do not have any currently.
986. Have those advisers acted to block legislation
here? Would that have a bearing on your arrangements?
(Mr Broughton) No, they have not. We have never asked
a political adviser to take any specific action in the House to
my knowledge.
987. What about intermediate organisations?
Have you asked intermediate organisations who may retain MPs in
some way to act on your behalf?
(Mr Broughton) Not to my knowledge. We certainly use
the TMA.
988. Lobbying organisations, specific parliamentary
lobbying organisations other than the TMA?
(Mr Broughton) Not to my knowledge, but I could not
say that with total clarity. Not to my knowledge. I do not think
we have in the sense you are suggesting.
989. Mr Gareth Davis?
(Mr Davis) We do not employ any lobbying firm to make
any contact or undertake any briefings of politicians.
990. You have no direct contact with MPs? Have
you retained MPs in any way?
(Mr Davis) No, we have no retained MPs. We do not
pay any politicians to act on our behalf, nor do we encourage
MPs to do anything improper. We undertake any tasks of briefing
MPs or ministers on a variety of subjects which are relevant to
our business, our industry, our employees and so on, on our own
behalf.
991. Dr Gietz?
(Dr Gietz) What Mr Wilson described as lobbying, getting
our views across, we do through the TMA. We have never employed
a lobbyist or lobbyist association or company or agency. Thirdly,
in preparation for these sessions we did go through the register
and we did find one MP who in 1988-89 registered himself as a
consultant to RJR Nabisco. What he did for us, or indeed for Nabisco,
I have no idea.
992. Indirectly there are a number of influences
on MPs and one of the common areas that one sees from the register
of interests is that some of you offer hospitality to Members
of Parliament at certain functions. One of the Members of Parliament
who is mentioned in here, who attended a particular function sponsored
by your organisation, raised questions about my activities as
Chair of the Health Committee on the first report that we produced
on the Formula 1 question and the Government's response to the
lobbying by Formula 1. Do you feel that that is an appropriate
way of working in the new environment in this place, and things
have changed—perhaps not as far as some of us would like,
but things have moved on? Do you think it is appropriate to work
in that way and to entertain Members of Parliament, to offer hospitality,
and then in return they come in here and act on your behalf?
(Mr Wilson) It depends what you mean by hospitality.
Yes, we invite Members of Parliament basically to some of the
sponsored events that we operate. We want Members of Parliament
to see how these operate and the responsible way in which we operate
them. Of course when they are there we will take the opportunity
to inform them of our views and what is going on in the industry.
993. You are quite happy that they then come
in here and make noises sympathetic to your industry?
(Mr Wilson) I would like to think that that is because
they have listened to what we have said and understood what we
have said. Smuggling is a topic which I am sure you are all concerned
about. That is something that we have been lobbying on extremely
hard for many years.
Dr Brand
994. Can I pick up another lobbying organisation,
FOREST, whom we took evidence from last week. They say they get
96 per cent of their funding from the tobacco industry but when
I asked the TMA whether they had any links with FOREST they said
no, it was done by the individual companies. How do you work out
amongst yourselves how you are going to fund FOREST if you do
not go through your trade organisation? Do you just write a cheque
when you feel like it?
(Mr Wilson) I think probably we individually negotiate
with FOREST. I know how much we pay to FOREST. We pay that because
FOREST is representative of the smoker. FOREST does not represent
the industry. Having paid our subscription, we have no management
influence over FOREST. We do not instruct FOREST on what their
line is going to be. We leave that entirely to them. We choose
to support the one organisation that is available to support the
smoker and the rights of the smoker.
995. Presumably you review the effectiveness
of your largesse to this body as a matter of principle?
(Mr Wilson) Not really. As a matter of principle we
choose to support the one body that exists to support the rights
of smokers. We choose to support them financially and that is
all.
Dr Brand: They must be the most comfortable
organisation I have ever come across if they can guarantee an
income without any output. That is really great. I want now to
go on to negative lobbying as opposed to positive lobbying.
Mr Austin
996. I would first like to ask a question on
the FOREST issue. Effectively FOREST is funded by you, as Dr Brand
has said. If their messages that they are putting out conflicted
with what you have said to us as your position as tobacco manufacturers,
would you think it is reasonable for you to continue funding them?
(Mr Wilson) That would be a question of degree. FOREST
have their own agenda. They do not clear their messages with us.
We do not tell them what to say and what not to say. My clear
understanding is that FOREST's attitude—and I think you
heard some of this last week—to the smoking and health issue
is not hugely different from ours. If it was then I am sure we
would review that funding, yes.
997. There was an acceptance in the evidence
we have had from the industry generally that large numbers of
smokers would like to quit smoking, and yet FOREST—and I
have got a quotation from the Campaign Director of FOREST which
seems to suggest that these are bogus statistics, where it refers
to "the desperation of the anti-smokers to justify their
claim that smokers really want to stop. Nothing in fact could
be further from the truth." Is this a responsible organisation
you are funding?
(Mr Wilson) I really cannot comment on that. As I
said, FOREST will represent the rights of smokers in their own
way.
(Mr Davies) Just so there is clarity, I should say
that Philip Morris used to support FOREST and we no longer do.
Dr Brand
998. I want to touch on negative lobbying. We
had a document from one of your advertisers—this is Saatchi
on behalf of Gallaher—basically trying to undermine Tessa
Jowell and position her as the Minister of Bans and to spin a
very negative image of her. Is it reasonable for your advertisers
to act as political guerrilla warfare consultants and do you take
notice of that sort of advice?
(Mr Wilson) I think the document you are referring
to I only became aware of within the last few days. I thought
it was a ridiculous document and I think the representative of
the advertising agency who was here confirmed to you that it was
an internal document arising from brainstorming that had been
going on in the agency and many of the suggestions, in fact most
of the suggestions, contained therein were totally inappropriate
and just wrong. We never have and never would embark on a strategy
of undermining Tessa Jowell or however else it was described.
Mr Austin
999. Could we stay with the advertising company
now you have mentioned it, because, as you say, we have had evidence
from them. The advertising companies which you employ consistently
emphasise the importance of aspirational brand images, particularly
for young smokers. How do you develop and maintain such brand
images and how will you do it after the ban on advertising is
introduced?
(Mr Wilson) The second part of that is comparatively
easy. The first part of that is a very difficult question. Our
advertising agencies are employed to develop and establish brand
images to maintain the loyalty and choice of smokers to our brands
and to win market share from our competitors. They operate within
a tightly drawn code of practice as to what can and cannot be
said within an advertisement, and at the end of the day the judgement
as to what we run and how we do it is the company's judgement
and not the agency's judgement. There is a myriad of ways of doing
this but ultimately it is the presentation of the brand to the
smoker in the hopes that the smoker will see our brand as his
brand of choice. When advertising is banned, assuming advertising
is banned at some point, then we will not be able to do that and
we will be dependent if you like on the quality of our pack as
represented in store and the facilities that will remain for displaying
our brands in store. We feel that the quality of our brands is
very high and is recognised as high. That is what we will be continuing
to rely on.
(Dr Gietz) An important problem arising from advertising
bans is indeed not only what you have now mentioned, but another
reason why we advertise. We advertise for three reasons: to strengthen
brand loyalties, to get smokers of other brands to switch to ours,
and thirdly, and this is what I am referring to now, to inform
about products. Coming back to the discussion we had last time
about "safer" cigarettes, new technology products that
we would like to market in the sense of explaining potential health
benefits to smokers, which we discussed last time and maybe we
will go into again. We will certainly no longer be able to do
that if advertising is banned altogether. I think the focus cannot
only be on this one side of advertising but must also include
this information aspect which I think, and probably my colleagues
would agree, is a very important factor, especially with a view
to the health concerns we are discussing.
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