Forest Newsletter | November 2026
As we head towards the end of the year, a quick round up of recent news and events.
First and foremost, we were very sorry to hear that James Lindesay-Bethune, 16th Earl of Lindsay, died last month. Jamie Lindsay, as he preferred to be called, was a hereditary peer for over 36 years. In 1995 he was appointed parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Scottish Office with responsibility for agriculture, fisheries and the environment.
His popularity and reputation as an active, hard-working peer ensured that he kept his seat in the House of Lords when the Blair government purged the House of almost 700 hereditary peers in 1999, leaving only 92 in parliament. Thereafter he remained in the Lords until April this year when the current Labour government removed the last of the hereditary peers.
Outside politics the Telegraph reported that his many roles included the chairmanships of Scottish Quality Salmon, Assured British Meat, the UK Accreditation Service, RSPB Scotland and Scotland’s Rural College, plus presidencies of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, the Royal Highland Show, the International Tree Foundation and the National Trust for Scotland.
He was also a keen cigar smoker who founded the (unofficial) terrace smoking club at the House of Lords where up to 20 peers (and one or two bishops!) would congregate to smoke their cigars, cigarettes or pipes. We were delighted last year when he attended the annual Forest lunch at Boisdale of Belgravia. He also contributed to the debate as the Tobacco and Vapes Bill progressed through parliament. According to the Dundee Courier:
His last speech in the chamber, only a few weeks before the hereditary peers departed, was an impassioned contribution opposing aspects of the government’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill. A lifelong cigar smoker, Jamie took issue with any suggestion that hand-rolled Cuban cigars were a gateway to nicotine addiction among teenagers.
An obituary in the Telegraph also noted that:
For three weeks every summer the Lindsays and assorted friends would decamp to Knoydart on the west coast of Scotland. Lindsay was never happier than when he was in the hills or at the helm of a boat with a cigar clamped between his teeth … He operated at full tilt on only four hours’ sleep. Long after even the hardiest of house guests had given up and gone to bed, he could be found reading Trollope in the library in a cloud of cigar smoke, with his terrier Minstrel asleep on his lap.
James Lindesay-Bethune, 16th Earl of Lindsay, 1955-2026
Budget news
You may have noticed that an increase in tobacco duty didn't feature in the chancellor's recent Budget statement. The reason, as Action on Smoking and Health helpfully explained in their pre-Budget daily news bulletin, was that:
Tobacco duties increased twice on 1 October: first under the annual tobacco tax escalator of RPI plus 2 percentage points, and then through an additional one off increase of £2.20 per 100 cigarettes or 50g tobacco, intended to maintain the price differential between nicotine vapes and tobacco products following the introduction of the Vaping Products Duty. Another increase is not expected in the budget.
Despite that, ASH continued to lobby the government to target the tobacco companies, and therefore the consumer, in other ways. For example, in future budgets they want the chancellor to increase the tobacco tax escalator from 2% to 5% above RPI, raise minimum excise tax beyond the tax escalator, and ‘enhance’ the hand-rolled tobacco (HRT) tax escalator by an additional 10% above the tobacco tax escalator until ‘the tax per average HRT cigarette is equivalent to that of factory-made (FM) cigarettes’.
But the wish list doesn’t stop there because ASH also want to eliminate duty free allowances for tobacco, tax cigarillos at the same rate as cigarettes, eliminate the 'significant differential' in taxation with FM cigarettes, and ‘review taxes across tobacco products, in particular heated tobacco’. In addition they want the government to review both the vape excise tax and the tax rate for nicotine pouches, which they want brought into line with the tax on vape liquids.
Furthermore the stop smoking brigade continues to lobby for a ‘polluter pays’ levy on the tobacco companies because that’s the golden egg that that could help fund the tobacco control industry for decades to come.
Credit: iStock
Media matters
Forest director Simon Clark recently appeared on GB News where he spoke to presenters Andrew Pierce and former Conservative MP Miriam Cates about the Conservative Party's proposal to prevent the long-term jobless spending benefits on alcohol and cigarettes.
Agreeing with the basic premise that “Welfare must be a safety net for those who genuinely need it, not a lifestyle choice for those who can’t be bothered”, Clark nevertheless disagreed with some of the detail, notably the suggestion that the long-term unemployed will be blocked from spending their benefits on alcohol, cigarettes, and gambling, arguing that "this seems a bit Orwellian to me".
Simon also appeared on BBC Look North, commenting on hospital smoking bans, and BBC Radio Devon. The latter interview took place following the publication last month of the latest Office for National Statistics figures that show smoking rates in Great Britain continuing to fall with, for the second year running, more over-16s using vapes or e-cigarettes than smoking cigarettes (BBC News).
In Ireland, where last month's Budget increased the excise duty on cigarettes by €1, pushing the price of a standard pack in the most popular category up to €20.50, Forest's response was reported by RTE News, Irish Times, Irish Sun and the Irish Daily Mail.
Waiting game
If you responded to the recent government consultation on tobacco and vapes, thank you. As we reported in a previous newsletter, the outcome of the consultation could lead to further restrictions on the sale and marketing of vapes and other reduced risk products including heated tobacco. Some of the proposed measures could also have a serious impact on the future of cigars in the UK.
The Tobacco and vapes: packaging, appearance and display consultation closed on 2nd October and it followed another consultation on Smoke-free, heated tobacco-free and vape-free places in England that closed in May. Given that we are still waiting for the government’s report on the earlier consultation that addressed proposals to extend smoke-free laws and ban vaping and heated tobacco in specific outdoor and indoor public spaces, it could be well into next year before we get the government's response to the more recent survey.
In the meantime yet another consultation (described as a 'long‑anticipated consultation on a proposed retail licensing scheme for tobacco, vapes and nicotine products') is reported to have been postponed until next year – which means it will take place after the introduction of the generational tobacco sales ban on 1st January 2027. We'll keep you posted.
 Smoke signals
The 2026 edition of Smoke Signals, the annual newsletter of the Worshipful Company of Tobacco Pipe Makers & Tobacco Blenders, includes a three-page article about the generational tobacco sales ban which will be introduced on 1st January 2027 and will prohibit the sale of tobacco to anyone born on or after 1st January 2009.
Founded in 1619 as a trade association ‘tasked with regulating the manufacture of clay tobacco pipes’, the company was dissolved twice before being re-formed, for a third time, in 1954 – hence its current classification as a modern livery company, and each year it hosts a series of events to raise money for the Tobacco Pipe Makers and Tobacco Trade Benevolent Fund which then donates the money to various charities.
Written by Fran Morrison, former head of corporate communications at British American Tobacco, the 'gen ban' article features several quotes by Forest director Simon Clark plus the results of polling we commissioned last year. To read it click here and scroll to page 36.
In conversation
Elise Rasmussen, founder of the World Nicotine Congress whose inaugural conference took place in Brussels in March, also hosts the WNC podcast.
A recent guest was Simon Clark who explained that Forest is not pro-smoking but pro-choice. The conversation covered a number of issues including the UK's generational tobacco sales ban, which he called "creeping prohibition", the misperception of nicotine, and why smokers and vapers should unite against excessive regulation.
The podcast also touched on the impact of snus on Sweden's smoking rates (which are the lowest in Europe), France's ban on nicotine pouches, and Forest's new Respect Choice campaign. Clark also paid tribute to the late David Hockney, a lifelong smoker who was an important ally when Forest was fighting the introduction of smoking bans in the UK. To watch the podcast click here or on the image below.
For details of the second World Nicotine Congress, which takes place in Berlin (2-4 March 2027), click here.
Pub smoking ban still divides opinion
Two decades after MPs voted to prohibit smoking in all indoor public places, the ban on smoking in pubs and clubs continues to divide opinion.
A survey of over 2,000 adults commissioned by Forest and conducted by Yonder Consulting found that 35% of respondents think pubs and private members’ clubs, including working men’s clubs, should be allowed to provide a well-ventilated designated smoking room to accommodate smokers, 51% think they should not be allowed, and 15% said ‘don’t know’.
Forest director Simon Clark said: “It’s remarkable that almost two decades after smoking was banned in enclosed public places in England, more than a third of respondents still support designated smoking rooms in pubs and clubs, and only half are opposed to the idea.”
He added: “Andy Burnham says he wants to help save Britain’s pubs. One way he could do that would be to amend the smoking ban and permit separate smoking rooms in pubs and clubs because the pubs that were hit hardest by the ban were urban working class boozers that had no outdoor space.
“It’s too late to save the thousands of pubs and bars that closed in the wake of the ban, but amending the legislation to allow separate smoking rooms might help some that are still in business but struggling. At the very least, proprietors should be allowed to provide comfortable outdoor smoking rooms that are fully enclosed and not 50 per cent open to the wind and rain.
“In the words of the late, great David Hockney, ‘Pubs aren’t health clubs’, and nor should they be.”
Remembering Lord Harris of High Cross
Twenty years after his death, aged 82, in October 2006 we've been remembering Lord Harris of High Cross who was general director of the Institute of Economic Affairs from 1957 to 1988, and chairman of Forest from 1987 to 2006.
His life peerage, the first to be bestowed by Mrs Thatcher after she became prime minister in 1979, was in recognition of his work for the IEA which was founded in 1955 and helped bring free market economics back into mainstream politics. As chairman of Forest he fought a long battle to keep separate smoking carriages on trains. In 1998 he co-wrote a book, Murder A Cigarette, with Judith Hatton that sought to 'expose the exaggeration and deception' of the stop smoking brigade and show 'passive smoking' to be a 'bogus invention designed to stigmatise smokers'.
In 2004, while Forest was campaigning against the smoking ban, he also wrote an essay, Smoking Out The Truth: A Challenge to the Chief Medical Officer that further challenged the claim that 'passive smoking' posed a serious threat to non-smokers. Disseminated to MPs, journalists and broadcasters, it led to a meeting with John Reid, Secretary of State for Health, whose proposed compromise (exemptions for private members' clubs and pubs that didn't serve food) was included in the Labour Party's 2005 election manifesto but was defeated in the House of Commons in February 2006 when Reid's successor, Patricia Hewitt, made it clear she supported a blanket ban.
Ralph was active in lots of other ways too. On No Smoking Day 1999, at the age of 74, he led a group of supporters to Paris, which was then known as the ‘European capital of smoking’, where they met our counterparts in France. Bob Shields, chief feature writer for the Daily Record, joined the expedition and the subsequent article (and photographs) are an amusing reminder of Forest's long and colourful history.
The following year, aged 75, Ralph also joined us in Scotland for the launch of Scottish Forest, a short-lived attempt by Forest to fully embrace devolution. The day began with a smoker-friendly fry-up in a Glasgow pub that was broadcast live, with interviews, on BBC Radio Scotland. We then travelled to Edinburgh where we hosted a reception for MSPs and journalists at the appropriately named Oxygen Bar close to the Scottish Parliament.
The many obituaries that were published following his death naturally focussed on his work with the IEA, but several noted his role with Forest. The Financial Times described him as ‘an enthusiastic pipe-smoker … and an active campaigner against increasingly tough restrictions on the freedom to smoke’, while BBC News described him 'an enthusiastic supporter of smokers' rights [who] campaigned against banning smoking in public places, saying, "A lot of people fulfil themselves through sucking at their pipes or smoking their fags. It's part of their personality."
Lord Harris of High Cross. Gone but not forgotten.
Credit: Photoshot / TopFoto
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