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** 11 May 2021
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** UK
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** Queen's speech omits plans to reform social care but details levelling up plans (#1)
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** No smoke without fine! Tory MP Richard Holden given £100 penalty notice for dropping cigarette butt outside North-West Durham election count (#2)
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** International
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** Pakistan: Higher cigarette prices lead to more people quitting smoking, says study (#3)
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** Pakistan: PM Imran Khan asked not to attend tobacco company event (#4)
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** Turkey: Most Istanbul fires in 2021 have resulted from cigarette butts, says report (#5)
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** UK
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** Boris Johnson’s Government has declined to provide new details on long-awaited plans to reform social care in The Queen’s Speech read out on Tuesday 11th May 2021. The speech did however shed light however on Johnson’s plans to ‘’level up’’ the country as the Queen announced a range of economic policies targeted at Britain’s post-industrial areas.
The lack of any formal plans in the speech to reform social care comes despite Johnson’s pledge in his first speech as Prime Minister to lay out plans for social care. The speech said that proposals on social care ‘’will be brought forward’’ but did not lay out any detail or a timetable. There will be a health and care bill, but this will focus on NHS reforms laid out in previous white papers rather than social care reforms. The speech detailed a pledge to tackle obesity as part of these reforms.
A series of bills laid out in the speech revealed that a centralised and infrastructure-heavy post-Brexit economic approach will be central to the Government’s ‘’levelling up’’ agenda. Bills include one rolling out high-speed broadband across the country and a planned law to mark the next stage of the HS2 rail link, from Manchester to Crewe. Central to levelling up will also be a focus on education, with a further education bill offering people the chance to study at any point in their life.
Source: The Guardian, 11 May 2021
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Conservative MP Richard Holden, who represents North-West Durham, has been issued with a £100 fine for dropping a cigarette outside an election count on Saturday 8th May.
Holden had been there supporting Conservative Party candidates in the Durham County Council elections but had left the building to smoke a cigarette. He was spotted by a council warden dropping the butt onto the ground and given a fine for littering. He was given ten days to pay before the charge increased to £150.
Holden had previously posted pictures of himself on social media doing litter picking in his constituency and had tweeted in June that he was ‘fed up’ of seeing rubbish in his constituency.
Source: Daily Mail, 10 May 2021
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** International
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New research suggests that a 50% increase in the price of cigarettes would lead to a 50% reduction in demand for cigarettes in Pakistan. The study, entitled ‘Switch, Reduce or Quit: How do smokers respond to tobacco tax increases in Pakistan’, carried out by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, found that the higher the cost of cigarettes, the greater the reduction in demand would be.
The study shows that only 9% of cigarette users would opt to switch to cheaper products in the event of a price increase while the rest would choose to quit or reduce their consumption. Of the 9% who would switch, 19% would switch to smokeless tobacco products, and around 15% would switch to non-tobacco products according to the study.
At present, tobacco excise taxes as a proportion of prices are much lower in Pakistan than the 70% minimum suggested by the World Health Organization. The study argues that taxes should be increased to 70%. Responses to the study show that there is scope for price rises, as the average maximum price participants were willing to pay was three times higher than the price of even the top brands currently on the market in Pakistan.
Source: The News, 11 May 2021
See also: Tobacconomics - Switch, reduce, or quit: how do smokers respond to tobacco tax increases in Pakistan? ([link removed])
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** Health advocates in Pakistan have called on Prime Minister Imran Khan not to attend an online event hosted by an international tobacco company, pointing out that doing so would be contrary to article 5.3 of the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).
The advocates are urging Khan to reject an invitation to attend the ‘Shaping the Post-Covid Era: Asia’s Role in Global Recovery’ event which will discuss how to recover from COVID-19 in Asia whilst preserving peace, stability, and diversity and how to avoid future pandemics. The event’s website lists Khan alongside leaders of Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Nepal, and India’s Foreign Minister as participants in the webinar due to be held on May 20th and 21st 2021.
Former Pakistan and Country Tobacco Enforcement Cell Chief and former FCTC official Ziauddin Islam has noted that the webinar is being hosted by Philip Morris Japan, a branch of the international tobacco company Philip Morris International and that the newly appointed COO of Philip Morris International is due to speak at the event. Islam says that the event is a way for the tobacco industry to improve its image by presenting itself as a helpful partner in policymaking.
Last year a new law in Pakistan which would have increased pictorial health warning coverage on cigarette packs from 60% to 70% of the packet was derailed after lobbying by the tobacco industry, demonstrating the ongoing challenge posed by the tobacco industry in the country.
Source: Ex Bulletin, 11 May 2021
See also: WHO - Article 5.3 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control ([link removed].)
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** The latest report from the Istanbul Fire Department has shown that most of the 2,617 fires that broke out in the city in the first three months of 2021 were due to unsafely discarded cigarettes. The report finds that 39.4% of the fires in Istanbul were due to discarded cigarette butts.
Source: Hurriyet Daily News, 11 May 2021
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