Brussels right to regulate e-cigarettes

THE letter by Hugh Rogers (Yorkshire Post, September 13) was a disappointing misrepresentation of the discussion on tobacco products at present in the European Parliament.

The draft Tobacco Products Directive, on which I am leading in the European Parliament, has the full support of the UK Conservative/Lib Dem government as well as most other governments across Europe. It seeks to implement the provisions of a legally binding international agreement, the World Health Organisation’s Convention on Tobacco Control, and it has the support of leading UK health organisations such as UK Cancer Research, the British Heart Foundation, the BMA and the Royal College of Physicians.

The draft law focuses on making smoking less attractive to young people. Cancer Research UK has estimated that 570 children start smoking every day, often tempted by glossy packaging and products such as slim and flavoured cigarettes. I wonder how many of your readers have seen the perfume-style pink packs of slim cigarettes designed to lure teenage girls into smoking?

With regards to e-cigarettes, no-one is proposing to ban them. I have seen evidence that they can help smokers quit or cut down on smoking and could help save lives. But the question is how should they be regulated? The UK government, through our British regulator, supports a light touch medicines regulatory approach for e-cigarettes because its own research showed that the current lack of regulation in terms of both the manufacture and the chemicals means there is great deal of variation in how safe and effective they are. MEPs from across the political spectrum supported this position at the committee stage (as does at least one major British e-cigarette company) but before anything can become law, the whole Parliament has to vote in October and after that agreement must be reached with ministers for across the EU.

The tobacco industry is lobbying hard against this new law as are some e-cigarette companies. However, the job of legislators, both MEPs and ministers, is to put public health first.

Managing in a time of crisis

From: Terry Hodgkinson, former chairman, Yorkshire Forward, St John’s North, Wakefield.

I NOTED the comments by Bernard Ginns on the now dissolved RDA Yorkshire Forward (Yorkshire Post, September 17).

He is quite right. Between this agency and the now equally dissolved Government Office, they, along with others, had a collective responsibility for crisis management.

They were able to act quickly and decisively. We had foot-and-mouth disease that wiped out our countryside of cattle and with it many farmers’ livelihoods, to the floods in Sheffield and of course the financial crash of 2007/8.

In each case, quick assessment and intervention was the name of the game and we today see many thriving examples of the then newly established diversified rural businesses which were helped with aid and now run alongside the now replenished fields of livestock.

On the financial crisis one of the points that went unnoticed was the quick pulling together of the big purse holders in 2008 like universities, the NHS, colleges, along with business heads with influential memberships such as the CBI, FSB and IoD.

Within weeks, we had pulled forward significant budgets from future years to current spend to re-inflate a dwindling regional economy. This was a godsend to industries like construction which is usually one of the first industries to feel the pinch in emerging recessions.

It would be hard to see, as Bernard pointed out, what would happen in today’s current set up. Let’s hope we don’t have to find out.

Lucky there’s not more muck

From: Allan Davies, Heathfield Court, Grimsby.

MARGARET Scott, who bemoans having to negotiate horse muck and cat droppings on her daily walk (Yorkshire Post, September 14), is more fortunate than she thinks. Worse, much worse, might have happened.

Towards the end of the 19th century, there was concern at the increase of horse-drawn traffic 
on our streets.

One particularly concerned individual predicted that if the then rate of growth continued, by 1940 our streets would be nine feet deep in horse muck. Henry Ford saved the day!

Interested readers can find fuller details in Stephen Davies’ “The Great Horse-Manure Crisis of 1894” (The Freeman, 54, Number 7. September 2004).

I came across the anecdote in Nate Silver’s The Signal and the Noise: The Art and Science of Prediction.

Law is an ass on face veil verdict

From: John Watson, Hutton Hill, Leyburn.

IT appears that the European Convention on Human Rights has said that the lady who appeared in a court of law with only her eyes showing was allowed to do so on religious grounds (Yorkshire Post, September 17).

I can recall several occasions where a native of this country wearing a small cross to work was asked to remove it because it caused offence to others of different religions. Nearly every week there is a similar story in the press and it leads me to believe that we appear to be living in a foreign country.

Leaving aside the religious aspect, I would have thought that it is only common sense that in a court of law you should be easily recognised and your face uncovered.

From: J Hutchinson, Kirkbymoorside, York.

ONCE again, the subject of covering the face with a veil is back on the agenda. When we see images of Islamic countries I am surprised by how few women have their faces covered. Yet on a day trip to Dewsbury market I was surrounded by burkas, making me feel like a foreigner in my own land.

This obviously emphasises the fact that wearing a veil is cultural, not religious, and should not be allowed in an open Western community.

What happened to the adage “When in Rome do as the Romans do”?

For surely this is still traditionally a Christian country where other religions are tolerated, not persecuted, for their beliefs – but there is a limit to our forbearance.