Examination of witness (Questions 200
- 219)
THURSDAY 25 NOVEMBER
1999
MR CLIVE
BATES
200. You do not think it is sufficient that
a smoker opens a packet of cigarettes and it says on the outside
that it is dangerous for your health or is going to kill you?
(Mr Bates) Necessary but not sufficient. The reason
is there are other things that could be done. There is a duty
to warn; that is correct. The warnings generally are placed there
by the government and they are inadequate at communicating the
risk. There are new proposals for better warnings on the way.
That does not absolve the companies of their moral and legal duty
to reduce the harm caused by the product as far as they possibly
can. That would be normal corporate practice. A car manufacturer
or somebody who made electrical goods or who sold food or drink
would feel an obligation to introduce whatever they could to make
products as safe as possible. My feeling is that, for a number
of reasons, the tobacco companies have not done that and we allude
to those in our written evidence. Therefore, they ought to feel
the firm smack of regulation which would require them to do it.
201. You have already been very honest and said
you are very keen on this government, which sadly I am not.
(Mr Bates) I am very keen on your party as well.
202. You must be pretty pleased with the influence
you have had on the government's policy but just a tiny bit embarrassed
by the Ecclestone fiasco.
(Mr Bates) I would like to think we have the influence
that other people think we have but I am not sure we do really.
Our influence is perhaps more outward looking in explaining the
things that the government does for its own reasons. I certainly
was not happy with the Ecclestone farrago. It was anything but
this government's finest hour.
Mr Burns
203. Why do you think that? What do you think
went wrong, given the commitments that were given beforehand to
ban tobacco advertising?
(Mr Bates) The commitment in the manifesto was to
ban tobacco advertising. The commitment to ban tobacco sponsorship
arrived a little later, after the election. So much tobacco money
goes into Formula 1. Despite its claims to be a global business,
Formula 1 is, at least from the team's point of view, very much
a British business. The teams are concentrated in the Oxfordshire
automotive belt and so on. There was concern in the government
that this would disrupt that particular automotive economy. Obviously,
there is the question of Bernie's million as well. As a health
campaigner, I really decided to make no judgment about that. It
is a question of party funding. We are not privy to any information
that that £1 million had any sort of influence on the policy
on Formula 1. Appearances do matter and the appearance was very
clearly that £1 million was paid and something was done that
favoured Formula 1. Since then, we have had quite a lot of dealings
with the FIA and the Formula 1 people about this. What I felt
at the time was that there was a lack of guts from the government
and it was mostly coming from outside the Department of Health.
204. Where from outside the Department of Health?
(Mr Bates) Number ten.
205. Really?
(Mr Bates) Yes, I think so. Do not sound so surprised.
The bluff of the Formula 1 people could have been called. Even
since those announcements were made there has been a shift in
the sponsorship profile of Formula 1 with the auto companies coming
in and taking on very substantial sponsorship deals with the teams.
To be honest, Max Moseley said, in Melbourne in March 1998, that
if the health case was demonstrated they would voluntarily phase
out tobacco sponsorship from Formula 1 by 2002, when the next
Concorde agreement was signed. That offer has since been taken
off the table, sadly. I think they are now thinking that there
would be advantages—I do not want to put words in the mouth
of the FIA—in dispensing with tobacco sponsorship, partly
because it opens the way for new sponsors like the electronic
goods manufacturers and the auto makers to come in and replace
the tobacco money. The government could have pushed that long
by not ultimately agreeing to the 2006. The government still has
the opportunity to do that. The 2006 phase out date for tobacco
sponsorship for Formula 1 is discretionary and depends on the
justification of need, decline in money and so on. They could
phase out by 2003, if they wanted to and we will obviously keep
the pressure on.
Mr Amess
206. I have thoroughly enjoyed that part of
your evidence. Do you fund or retain any Labour, Conservative
or Liberal Members of Parliament to act for you?
(Mr Bates) We cannot afford to buy MPs, even Labour
ones.
207. Do you fund any committees or provide secretarial
or research assistance?
(Mr Bates) We provide the secretariat to the all party
group on smoking and health. We try to work with all the ones
that will talk to us and we have had very constructive dialogue
with the health team of the Conservatives, Dr Liam Fox and Carolyn
Spellman. They have been having a review of their policy on tobacco.
We have given our views on that. We have had good exchanges. I
would like to think that we are even handed in our dealings with
the parties. We are also prone to criticise the government. We
are certainly not cheer leaders for the government and we have
been criticising them but in general the policy of the current
government is far more progressive and far more comprehensive
than it has ever been in the past, Conservative or Labour. It
is a bit of a negative thing in society for pressure groups or
charities always to complain about the government. We have taken
a different stance and have got in behind this government and
the policy that they have produced, which is the best of its time.
208. I read with great interest how delighted
ASH were that you have been talking closely to our health team.
What relationship do you have with the Centre for Tobacco Research
at Strathclyde University?
(Mr Bates) The Centre for Social Marketing?
209. This is where they pay smokers £10,
to spy on the—?
(Mr Bates) Yes. We go up and see them every now and
then and find out what they are doing but we do not have any contractual
relationship. We are hoping that we may collaborate with them
in a project over the next six months to look at the response
of the tobacco companies to the forthcoming tobacco advertising
ban, but that is still talk at the moment. We have a great deal
of respect for them. They have done some excellent research and
they are one of the jewels in the Cancer Research Campaign's crown
which funds them. It is a very good initiative.
Chairman
210. You are aware that this Committee, before
Mr Burns and Mr Amess were Members, produced a report that was
critical of the government. I am a very firm supporter of the
sport of rugby league. I am the only one on this Committee that
is but nevertheless I was concerned that a sport that has relied
heavily on tobacco sponsorship was gradually moving away and was,
along with other sports, being given an interesting message by
the Formula 1 development. What are your views on the impact on
other sports of what happened in Formula 1?
(Mr Bates) The fact that they have until 2003 to phase
out simply means that they will delay looking for new sponsors
until 2002. If you want to find a new sponsor for rugby league
now to replace Silk Cut, there is not much point in looking now
because it is not necessary until 2003. I think it was ill advised.
What would have worked well would have been to have a date in
the near future at which the presumption would be that those companies
would phase out tobacco sponsorship. That would have created,
if you like, the market for replacement sponsorship. There are
plenty of very good British companies that would like a piece
of rugby league; it is a very attractive, growing, popular, visual
sport. There is no reason to think that rugby league would have
fallen to pieces because there was no white knight to come and
pick up where the tobacco companies left off. One just have to
have more confidence that the sports would find replacement sponsorship.
They may not be such lavish payers as the tobacco companies and
the companies probably do pay a premium which offsets their pariah
status, but replacement sponsorship would have been found much
sooner. The same goes for Embassy snooker, which looks as though
it will get until 2006.
Mr Burns
211. In the memorandum that you kindly submitted
in advance, you described the system of voluntary agreements basically
as ineffective. You have also argued that at times it has amounted
to regulatory capture by the tobacco companies.
(Mr Bates) Yes.
212. How would you respond to the TMA's description
of voluntary agreements as flexible, speedy and effective?
(Mr Bates) If you are coming from the perspective
of tobacco companies which basically want to sell as much of the
product as they can to satisfy shareholders and everything, the
voluntary agreements work very well, but that is antithetical
to a health agenda in which the voluntary agreements do not work
very well. I can see why they like them and why the TMA is upset
that the government is tearing them all up and moving into regulation,
but they are doing that because the restrictions on advertising
were not really very effective. They fuelled a very interesting,
creative arms race in the advertising agencies who constantly
ducked and dived and found their way round the voluntary agreements
and produced some very good advertising as a result. On the whole
question of additives, the level of regulatory supervision involved
in what gets added to cigarette products has been so really flimsy
and weak that I do not think consumers have been offered robust
protection. The regime of the voluntary agreement is extraordinarily
weak and permissive, allowing 600 additives to be placed in cigarettes.
Additives approved for use anywhere in the European Union have
to be approved for use here in Europe, so we have seen additive
approvals moving to the weakest regulatory regimes and then being
used in the United Kingdom. I think it is clear in the Department
of Health's submission, an acknowledgement that no proper assessment
of the public health impact of additives is ever made. The additives
have been evaluated on narrow, toxicological grounds. Given how
important it is and given that small additions of these substances
whilst in themselves are not particularly toxic, like small amounts
of ammonia, could change the nature of the cigarette, just as
flavouring in cooking, that could be increasing the amount of
smoking there is and leveraging extra harm through the extra smoking.
If you look at how the Medicines Control Agency, which is a very
firm regulator, would handle, say, additives to nicotine replacement
products—for instance, adding a mint flavour to make nicotine
gum slightly less vile to chew—the companies have to jump
through the most unbelievable hoops to get that sort of approval.
We think the burden of proof needs to be shifted back to the tobacco
companies who have been desperate to avoid having to provide evidence
that positively substantiates that these additives are safe in
use. We really cannot expect civil servants in the Department
of Health to have the technical capacity, the scientific knowledge
and so on to enter into regulatory discourse as equals with the
tobacco companies; it needs a specialist agency with the kind
of muscle that the Medicines Control Agency has—not necessarily
the MCA itself—to have a fair dialogue with the companies.
213. Do you accept the claims of the tobacco
industry that they have done everything that the government has
demanded of them? If so, is the alleged failure of regulation
the fault of government in the past or is it rather the obstructive
tobacco companies themselves?
(Mr Bates) I think it is a mixture of both, I am afraid.
Governments have been much too trusting in the past about this
and have relied too much on the tobacco companies themselves for
scientific and technological insights into the product itself.
They have never really devoted the regulatory capacity. The level
of specialist knowledge within the Department of Health that has
been supervising the industry has been very low and certainly
not an equal match for the massed ranks of the tobacco company
scientists. I do not think they have necessarily known what it
is they should have been looking for. They have certainly not
been helped in that by the tobacco companies. I do not think any
industry particularly likes its regulator or expects to have an
easy or comfortable relationship with the regulator.
214. It should not, logically.
(Mr Bates) No. It should find it uncomfortable and
painful. I do not think there is any sign that the tobacco companies
have found their relationship with the Department of Health, at
least until recently, uncomfortable and painful. That is behind
my comments about regulatory capture.
Dr Brand
215. Is it not the fact that there are very
few regulations? I think one can be critical of all governments
going back to the last Liberal one. It is very curious that the
two widely available, most addictive substances do not seem to
be well regulated, alcohol and tobacco. At least there is some
acknowledgement that, although it is a dangerous substance, you
can make it more dangerous by adulterating it with methanol. You
cannot buy absinthe these days because of the nasty substances
in there that can rot you faster than the pure ethanol. With tobacco
we seem to have an attitude which I think is fostered by two sides.
One is the companies who bribe their way into a laissez faire
attitude from government. I think in the last 30 years the professional
government departments dealing with the problem, saying that tobacco
is such a dangerous substance that it is irrelevant whether it
is made more dangerous by whatever the tobacco companies do because,
if it is more dangerous, it proves our point. Therefore, why should
we devote resources to monitoring consumer safety for smokers
who are such foolish people? They should not be doing it and they
deserve to drop dead. This really was the flavour I got from the
Department of Health submission to this Committee last week. I
was very interested to hear your support for trying to make a
nasty habit slightly safer by getting some regulation into the
system, but do you think we need more government resources devoted
to this or can we leave it entirely up to the industry? Do we
have government resource with the ability to evaluate the claims
that the companies make?
(Mr Bates) First of all, alcohol is a drug of addiction,
very powerful, very widely used. I was using it myself last night,
but it is generally delivered in a reasonably clean form. If there
were things like methanol or other contaminates that would make
you go blind or mad, they would generally be taken out by the
drinks companies. With tobacco products, the drug is nicotine.
It is a powerful, addictive drug. That is delivered in the most
dirty form imaginable with 4,000 chemicals, many of which are
toxic and cancer causing. The challenge really, I think anyway—and
there is some debate about this in the health community—is
to recognise that nicotine is a legal drug; people like it; it
is in widespread use; people choose to use it. Okay, they get
addicted to it and then they cannot choose to stop, a separate
question, but there are things that can be done to the product
that make it less dangerous for the nicotine user. We have looked,
for instance, at tobacco company patents and other patents that
suggest that there are many technical options that could be deployed
to take out harmful chemicals such as nitrosamines, such as hydrogen
cyanide, such as carbon monoxide, or at least reduce them very
substantially. If you go down the line that I started on earlier,
which is that even in 2010 if the Government's policy is successful
we will still have 24 per cent of adults smoking, then what influences
the health impact on them is how toxic the products are that they
are actually using to satisfy their nicotine habit. If you look
at certain particular at risk groups like those with mental illness,
schizophrenia or something, smoking levels go up to 80/90 per
cent and essentially those people are self-medicating themselves
with nicotine which is a therapeutic drug for those people. They
are getting all the rubbish that comes along with it as well.
I do not think the companies so far have shown that they are capable
of reforming themselves within the free market, and I have alluded
to a number of reasons why that is, mainly concerned with litigation
and the marketing difficulties they have with trying to recover
the costs associated with producing healthier cigarettes and to
start making claims about low heart disease cigarettes and so
on. That is not how tobacco marketing works, it is about sex and
glamour, there are those understandable reasons. I do not think
the companies will do it spontaneously through the markets that
they are in. It will be very, very difficult for them to do that.
Therefore, I think because it is possible and because it would
have a health benefit they should not be asked to do it, they
should be made to do it and, therefore, the products that are
on the market need to be subject to increased regulatory scrutiny.
The Government at present does not have the regulatory capacity
to do that.
216. In your opinion does the Government or
do the Government officials have a willingness to even address
that?
(Mr Bates) I think they have recently taken on an
understanding, and I would like to think that we are partly responsible
for that, that these issues are very important in public health.
In the Government, although it has been in office now for two
and a half years, the public health agenda will be quite a long
term one. It takes quite a long time for the Government to move
around and start to take these things on board.
217. You believe there may be a slightly less
absolutist line coming from the Department of Health? There is
an absolute line starting smoking is awful, it is dreadful, it
kills people.
(Mr Bates) Yes.
218. But there will be some degree of consumer
protection for those people who still smoke.
(Mr Bates) Yes. There has been a concern, and it was
probably I think articulated by the Chief Medical Officer last
week, which is that if you start to talk about safer cigarettes
you may end up diluting the message that the best thing you can
do is to quit. I think the health community is now coming round
to the idea that one needs to have both. The advantage of having
a regulatory approach is that you remove the opportunity for erroneous
claims to be made about healthier cigarettes because by having
a regulatory approach you simply establish a standard and that
is it, that then applies to all the products on the market and
nobody can really make any claims about it. Just as there are
standards for the safety of car windscreens, you do not get great
claim making about toughened windscreens on cars.
Mr Gunnell
219. Let me just ask specifically on the safer
cigarettes issue. You have made the point about nitrosamines in
particular and you have told the Committee an American company
is marketing some which are free of nitrosamines. Can I ask whether
companies should be compelled by regulation, which you have suggested
would be useful, to reduce nitrosamines and other carcinogenic
material?
(Mr Bates) Yes, I think they should. This does not
appear to create any other harmful byproducts. We know that nitrosamines
are carcinogenic, we know that there is a really rather basic
process for removing them from tobacco leaves which involves microwaving
them. It would not change the price of cigarettes very much. It
may be inconvenient to BAT and Philip Morris to do it but then
we are talking about the world's largest public health problem.
Expecting that kind of thing from them is not unreasonable. I
think once you have looked at the nitrosamines question, and this
is one of the things that I suspect the companies fear, you open
a Pandora's Box. You say "Well, what else can you do?"
I have included in our evidence a quote from Philip Morris scientists
from 1969 in which they describe a prototype cigarette with three
different types of filter material in it that would remove all
kinds of things from cigarette smoke which could only have a health
benefit. The evidence I have seen from the company suggests that
they would not want to do that until they had epidemiology to
show that it would be beneficial. What that is doing is placing
an evidential burden in the way of doing something that is essentially
obvious and precautionary and I think they ought to be required
to do those things and then if they can show evidence that it
does not work or is creating harm then they should stop doing
it.
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