Plain speaking over proposals to change tobacco packaging

Mr Ridgway, the former managing director of packaging company Weidenhammer UK in Bradford and head of a group lobbying against plain packaging, has called for better support for the manufacturing sector, which he says is “under-recognised”, despite Government declarations it aims to re-balance the economy away from its dependency on sectors such as financial services.

“The industrial strategy on manufacturing has been forgotten about by governments of all parties,” he said. “It’s the manufacturing of goods, particularly those that can be exported to emerging economies, which should be encouraged.”

But proposals by the Government to bring in standardised packaging for tobacco products to reduce the numbers of young people taking up smoking would act as “an open invitation” to the black market trade, claims Mr Ridgway.

He said that this will threaten well paid, skilled manufacturing jobs in the packaging sector, as demand for the bona fide products would decrease. “These are just the sort of jobs the country needs”

The Government’s consultation, which ended in August, looked at the potential public health benefit of standardised packaging. The Department of Health says packaging would be required to have coloured picture warnings and brand names would appear in a standardised form.

Mr Ridgway said: “So, for instance, a packet of Marlboro cigarettes wouldn’t have anything to do with a cowboy with a hat on. It would have the name Marlboro printed it in very small type size in one part of the product. The rest of it would be taken up with health warnings and non-advertising, non-promotional material.

“At the moment cigarette packaging is a highly complex process. If you move to a standardised pack... it would be able to be copied much more easily.”

Mr Ridgway acts as spokesman on the issue for companies including Chesapeake in Bradford, API Foils, Weidenhammer Packaging, Payne and Parkside Flexibles in Normanton. He said better education should be the key to dissuading young people from taking up smoking, adding: “It is not illegal to proxy-purchase cigarettes in England. It is illegal in Scotland. That’s something the Government could do, quite honestly, immediately if it wanted to.”

Fifty one MPs signed a letter calling for the Department of Health to abandon its proposal, warning that it ‘threatens more than 5,500 jobs directly employed by the UK tobacco sector’.

Mr Ridgway argues that regulation is stifling business in the UK, and the proposal for plain packaging would only make the situation worse. He recently took part in a CBI study which described medium-sized businesses as the UK’s “forgotten army”, with the potential to inject between £20bn and £50bn into the economy by 2020. Firms with a turnover of between £10m and £100m represent less than one per cent of businesses but generate 22 per cent of economic revenue and 16 per cent of all jobs, the CBI said.

Meanwhile, Lurene Joseph, chief executive at the former Marketing Leeds, now known as Leeds and Partners, recently said in an interview with the Yorkshire Post that she has identified four sectors initially that she wants the city to promote more coherently: professional services, financial services, healthcare and digital. Mr Ridgway accused the organisation of “forgetting” that Leeds is “an excellent centre for manufacturing”.

Ms Joseph responded by saying that her comment related to opportunities for inward investment, adding: “But clearly manufacturers have a key role to play in creating jobs and driving growth through trade and export.

“As well as offering support for manufacturing in Leeds, through recruitment support, skills development and resource efficiency, the city is spearheading the drive for investment, particularly through the Aire Valley Leeds enterprise zone.”

The organisation said Leeds’ manufacturing sector employs more than 35,000 people.