Member

Among the 60-plus delegated powers included in the Bill is the power to extend standardised packaging requirements, impose new retail licensing requirements and amend smoke-free places regulations. These broad powers are a particular threat to the handmade cigar sector. Handmade cigars are low-volume, high-variety artisan products, often manufactured in small batches by producers in Latin America and the Caribbean. There are countless individual product lines—over 1,000 in the United Kingdom alone—almost all of which are packed manually. Requiring bespoke standardised packaging for a single market such as the UK is simply not commercially viable. The likely outcome is that these products will disappear from our market altogether, along with the specialist retailers whose businesses depend on them.