FWD wins tobacco concession

The FWD has won a major concession from the Government in new tobacco control measures that have been announced.

When draft proposals for The Tobacco Advertising and Promotion (Display of Prices) (England) Regulations 2010 were published last year the FWD pointed out that they would apply to wholesalers who sold tobacco products to PBU (professional business user) customers, because their definition of a wholesaler was a business selling solely to trade customers.

In addition wholesalers would be restricted to minimum selling units of 200 cigarettes and 250g of tobacco, even though some outers contain 100 cigarettes and RYO tobacco is usually sold in outers of 125g (10 x 12.5g).

In its response to the draft the Federation called for the definition of a wholesaler to be amended to a trader selling a minimum of 90% of its cigarettes in outers of 200, and a minimum of 90% of its RYO tobacco outers of 250g, and these changes have been included in the legislation.

FWD chief executive James Bielby said the amendments meant that all wholesalers should be exempt from the new legislation.

He added: “This is good news for our members and a victory for the FWD. It demonstrates that the FWD has real credibility within Whitehall.”