Today the Department of Health told me of its surprise at a story in The Sun proclaiming the news the PM had scrapped plans to force tobacco into plain packs.

The official line from DH is that there has been an unprecedented response to its consultation, its mind remains open and that any decision will only be made after full consideration of the “many thousands of responses” it has received.

Excuse the pun but there is no smoke without fire and The Sun was adamant that Cameron, originally a supporter of plain packs, has been convinced otherwise amid fears of a £3bn loss in revenue for the exchequer, messy and possibly costly legal challenges from the tobacco industry, and unintended damage to the packaging industry.

With economic growth at such a premium and the next general election looming on the horizon already it is understandable that in such a crucial parliamentary session, the government would want to focus on what is sees as its big vote-winning policies around growth generation, welfare reform and immigration.

However, for the government to reverse plans to clamp down on tobacco would be something of a first. No matter how well organised or comprehensive the industry’s arguments against anti-tobacco measures have been in the past, subsequent governments have all ploughed ahead with measures such as the bans on advertising, smoking in public places, and the display of tobacco products.

Forest director Simon Clark could barely contain his excitement when the news broke this morning.

“We welcome the news, if it’s true. Plain packaging has nothing to do with health. There is no evidence that it would make any difference to youth smoking rates but it could do enormous harm to small businesses, especially in packaging and retail,” he beamed.

“We’re pleased that the prime minister has apparently recognised this and has listened to the hundreds of thousands of people who expressed their opposition to standardised packaging in the government consultation.”

This excitement could well be short-lived: it’s very unusual for any government to snub the health lobby in such a blatant way.

Chances are these plans have been put on the shelf rather than scrapped and the very powerful anti-smoking groups will be redoubling their efforts to make sure it isn’t left there for very long.

Topics