Duty-free plan ‘is a threat to nation’s health’

THE proposed return of duty-free cigarettes and alcohol drew criticism from Health Secretary Matt Hancock yesterday – a day after it was announced to great fanfare.

Chancellor Sajid Javid’s policy – which would cut £2.23 off a bottle of wine for those travelling to Europe in the case of a no deal Brexit – has sparked fury from public health experts, who described it as the return of ‘cheap booze and fags’.

Mr Hancock stoked the row yesterday, telling the Public Health England conference that he had not been briefed about the policy before it was announced on Tuesday. He promised to intervene, telling delegates at the meeting in Warwick to ‘leave that one with me’.

Matthew Ashton, director of public health in Sefton, Merseyside, told the Health Secretary at the conference: ‘There appear to be some differences in approach between your vision [of] health and social care and the one taken by the Treasury.

‘your vision around smoke-free by 2030 is a very important message but what’s coming out of the Treasury is around postBrexit and duty-free availability and access to cheap booze and fags and how great that will be.’

Mr Hancock replied: ‘I don’t think that the return of duty free was really seen from within a public health context, shall we say, before publication. Certainly, I didn’t see it before publication.’

Just the day before, Mr Javid had said the return of duty-free within the EU would help people’s ‘cash go that bit further’. duty-free shopping was scrapped in the EU in 1999, seven years after the formation of the single market.

Mr Javid said on Tuesday: ‘As we prepare to leave the EU, I’m pleased to be able to back British travellers. We want people to enjoy their hard-earned holidays.’

He said that people travelling to the EU would be able to take advantage of dutyfree shopping, meaning they would not have to pay UK excise duties on cigarettes and alcohol. Travellers can already make use of duty-free shopping in non-EU countries. The Treasury said it would be shortly consulting on its long-term strategy on duty-free shopping.

dr Jennifer dixon, of the Health Foundation think-tank, said the policy was ‘ironic at best’, adding: ‘ Reducing alcohol consumption and smoking is a central plank of government health policy – tobacco use remains the leading cause of death in the UK.

‘The promotion of cheap alcohol and tobacco in this way runs counter to the Government’s stated objective of preventing ill health and reducing inequalities.’