Contribution
My Lords, I will speak in favour of this group of amendments, especially my noble friend Lord’s Lindsay’s excellent amendments— I commend him on his first-class speech to the Committee—and those amendments in my name, relating to the need for an impact assessment relating to hand-rolled cigars and handmade artisanal cigars, and the need to differentiate the occasionally smoked cigar and its concomitant industry from cigarettes and vapes and the issues that cigarettes and vapes clearly present. Please do not be under any illusion that I am trying to stop the control of cigarettes and vapes—I have been particularly vociferous in the importance of regulating their sale—but it is important to try to differentiate between cigars and the rest of the tobacco industry.
Noble Lords may think it slightly bizarre that we should make special reference to a certain type of product that is undoubtedly smoked. I am sure many noble Lords will simply close their ears and let their gaze drift off, as if they were smoking a delicious cigar, assuming that everything should be lumped together: ban smoking, ban all tobacco, end of. I declare that I once owned a cigar fan site—if anyone ever visited, I hope they enjoyed it—and I have smoked an occasional cigar. I think I am a better man for it. It is called freedom, and I enjoy every one.
There is a strong argument to be made to give additional consideration to the world of handmade, hand-rolled cigars as well. I strongly believe that the Bill is a direct contradiction to the freedom of choice by consenting adults. Worse, it is looking to destroy a community that benefits this country both financially and socially. For all the evidence about the iniquities of vapes and cigarettes, which I do not deny, I have seen nothing—my noble friend just raised this point—about the risks to health and society of occasional fine cigar consumption; apologies if I have missed it.
In fact, in a fractious age of division, it is around cigar clubs—people coming together of their own free will to enjoy an occasional cigar—that we see a reversal, not an accumulation, of social problems. I declare a further interest in that in my village, we gather every Friday to enjoy a cigar, to meet and to commune. In an age when we need to be brought together as a community and a nation, it is through cigars—bizarrely, but importantly—that we achieve this. How can we support measures that drive us apart when we need the exact opposite? All I ask is that we assess the facts, if noble Lords can allow for that.
This amendment asks that we ask who is smoking cigars. The demographic is almost totally advanced, as we have heard; in fact, I am probably a relatively youthful smoker of cigars at 51 years of age. The audience is 1% of the total. There is literally no risk to new smokers or children. The average price is between £20 and £30, putting them totally out of reach of minors and into the hands only of aficionados. A proper report will bear this out.
We should also assess the important contrast between cigarettes and cigars; they are totally different, and I find it personally offensive to be grouped into the simple category of “smoker”, huddled outside glass office blocks or furtively vaping into one’s sleeve. You have to actually take your time with a cigar. Those Members of the Committee who have not enjoyed one should understand that it takes at least an hour to enjoy a proper cigar; you have to toast the foot, turning it slowly—ideally using a splint or a match—and then you puff at it gently, relishing, savouring and enjoying it while reflecting that it is an act of a free and happy person.
They are artisanally crafted, derived from a specific place—where, by the way, we wish to trade. Honduras, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and, of course, Cuba are all countries with which this Government have made it a priority to increase trade. It is an all-natural product, not filled with chemicals. It is vegan compliant and fully biodegradable, which should please the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, who wishes to reduce pollution—I cannot see her in her usual place, so that joke is lost on her.
We should carefully consider the loss to our domestic economy too. It is an industry made up almost entirely of small and micro-businesses, as we have heard. They are mostly family owned. From Hunters & Frankau, the main Cuban importer, to the incredible Sahakian-owned Davidoff, via Fox’s and Cigars.com, all contribute to a legal and important industry, employing nearly 800 people and generating nearly £100 million in taxes. We should be aware that these specialist retailer characteristics are well established as exceptions and are protected under the 2002 Act and the tobacco and promotion regulations. I am not asking noble Lords or the Minister to do anything out of the ordinary; I am simply asking for consistency in establishing the basic facts.
I did some research over the past few days on their importance to our economy—not by smoking copious cigars to see how delicious they were, I assure you, but by visiting the shops down St James’s Street. It turns out that hundreds of people a week come to London, including non-smokers who have never smoked a cigar their lives, simply to visit these stores. They go into Davidoff’s to meet Mr Sahakian, or Fox’s, because they want to see our heritage. These icons of our culture, beacons of our heritage, are vital to tourism in London. Dismember these totems at your peril.