Emotions were running high in the House of Commons this week as Health Minister Jane Ellison announced that she is “minded” to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes.

There will be another short consultation, but the Department of Health told us they want to see the law changed before the end of this parliament.

This would be a bitter defeat for the big tobacco companies, who have already seen drab standardised packaging with prominent health warnings introduced in Australia.

Big Tobacco says there is no evidence that plain packs mean fewer young people will start smoking.

A number of Conservative MPs have also strongly criticised the government’s change of heart, which followed the publication of a review of the evidence by Sir Cyril Chantler.

But not all the objections were founded in fact, as we discovered.

“At the present time 13 per cent of packs sold are illicit, denying the Treasury £3bn. If the Australian experience is anything to go by, that is likely to rocket.”
Sir Gerald Howarth, 3 April 2013

Conservative MP Sir Gerald echoed the language used by Japan Tobacco International, the maker of Camel, Benson & Hedges and Silk Cut, whose angry response to Ms Ellison’s announcement talked about the UK’s “thriving” trade in illegal tobacco.

The argument is that plain packs will be easier to counterfeit, leaving cigarette bootleggers free to claim an even bigger slice of the market.

We think there’s a bit of exaggeration going on here about the size of the UK’s illicit tobacco problem

HMRC estimates that 12 per cent of the total tobacco market was illegal in 2011/12, with a central estimate of £1.3bn lost to the Treasury, not the £3bn claimed by the MP.

The size of the illicit tobacco trade, its share of the whole market and the amount or revenue lost to the taxman have all fallen dramatically over the last 10 years. These are the figures for cigarettes:

In his report, Sir Cyril writes: “Many high tax jurisdictions, including the UK, have already demonstrated that an effective enforcement regime and appropriate sanctions can keep illicit to low levels.”

Again, echoing lines used by the industry, Sir Gerald says the Australian experience suggests sales of illicit cigarettes will “rocket” here. Is that right?

The main evidence for that comes from this Big Tobacco-funded report by KPMG, which found that illicit tobacco increased its market share from 11.8 per cent to 13.3 per cent after the switch to plain packs in December 2013.

But Sir Cyril notes that Australia’s Health and Customs departments think KPMG’s methodology was “flawed” and point to “customs data which shows no significant impact on illicit tobacco”.

Even if no one doubted KPMG’s figures, it would be difficult to prove that the rise was solely due to plain packaging.

Unlike in the UK, the illicit tobacco trade has been on an upward trend in Australia, and a series of big duty hikes since 2010 could be the real driver of this growth in the black market.

Sir Cyril notes that the tobacco industry in Australia seems to have abandoned its argument that plain packaging would make it easier for counterfeiters.

A representative of British American Tobacco actually told researchers that cases of fake packaging have fallen in Australia since the changeover.

“There is no credible evidence today to suggest it will work now or in the future.”
Japan Tobacco International

Will plain packs lead to fewer young people taking up smoking?

We don’t know for certain, and perhaps we never will.

In 2011 the Department of Health commissioned this review of the evidence. There was an update last year.

The researchers concluded that plain packaging would make cigarettes less appealing and cut smoking rates.

But the tobacco lobby has criticised the findings as biased and flawed, and Sir Cyril admits that there are “limitations” to the existing literature.

The main problem is that many of the individual studies are hypothetical. Youngsters are shown various types of packaging and asked how they would respond to them.

But is there a practical alternative to this kind of research?

To get “real-world” evidence that plain packs deter potential smokers, we would ideally want to do a randomised controlled trial.

We would separate non-smoking children into two groups, expose one to branded packaging and the other to plain packs, and see which group smoked more.

But that would never be given ethical approval by a reputable health authority.

It is basically impossible for us ever to get the gold standard of proof that the tobacco industry wants.

For its part, Big Tobacco has come up with equally limited evidence to prove its case.

This Philip Morris-funded study, which showed little change in smoking rates in Australia after plain packaging came in, only looked at adults, and the UK policy is specifically aimed at children.

Another industry-funded report  found no immediate impact on adolescent smoking rates in Australia, but since it can take years for youngsters to get into the habit, that’s unsurprising and tells us little.

The verdict

We think it’s wrong to describe the UK’s illegal tobacco trade as “thriving”, when it has in fact been in steep decline in recent years, if government figures are to be believed.

We also think it’s too soon to say that plain packaging has not cut youth smoking rates in Australia.

It is true to say that there are various limitations to the evidence in favour of plain packs. But it is unlikely that we will ever be able to satisfy the unrealistic burden of proof being demanded by Big Tobacco.

It’s likely that the only way we will really know whether removing cigarette branding prevents young people from lighting up is to try it.