Tobacco trade brings ethical foreign policy under fire

THE GOVERNMENT'S ethical foreign policy has come under fresh fire from doctors, Third World lobby groups and anti-tobacco campaigners over the use of British embassies to promote cigarettes made by companies based in the United Kingdom.

They want the Government to ban British tobacco companies from using our embassies as a base to seek new markets, following a similar move by the United States.

The US State Department, worried about the health implications of cigarettes, recently sent a confidential memo to its ambassadors banning them from promoting "the sale or export of tobacco or tobacco products".

The guidance, seen by the Independent on Sunday, also bans US embassy staff from attending receptions or trade promotions held by tobacco companies abroad.

Campaign groups, including the British Medical Association, are furious with Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, who has refused to take action to stop tobacco firms from using British embassies to promote their products, and say that it should be part of his commitment to an ethical foreign policy to do so.

The row over the Government's attitude to the tobacco trade has been simmering for months, but came to a head last week over the appointment of Kenneth Clarke, the former Conservative chancellor, to an official trade post by Prime Minister Tony Blair. Mr Clarke has been named as the London co-ordinator of a new British-Mexican business network, and is also deputy chairman of BAT, the British tobacco giant which in the summer paid $1.5bn (around $900m) for Mexico's leading cigarette company, CLM.

In letters explaining his stance on tobacco and embassies, the Foreign Secretary says that "it would not be fair to discriminate" against British tobacco companies and that "all British companies are entitled to avail themselves of the Government's range of Overseas Trade Services, provided their products and services are mainly of UK origin and are legal."

But private correspondence suggests a different, and less accommodating stance on the part of other Government departments. Letters show that the Department of Trade and Industry, which has responsibility for trade abroad, takes a less bullish line and believes that the question could be considered as part of the Government's review of policy on tobacco.

The row over embassies comes as the Government prepares to launch a White Paper on smoking and health, which will lead to unprecedented measures to discourage people from smoking.

The Department of Health is understood to want an international dimension to be included in the proposals, so that tough rules on advertising in Britain mean that tobacco companies do not seek to beef up advertising abroad.

Tessa Jowell, Minister for Public Health, is about to enter final discussions with Tony Blair about the content of the Paper. It is believed that the role of embassies is likely to be referred to in discussions about whether to back a multilateral agreement on tobacco promotion proposed by the World Health Organisation.

Government departments have taken different lines on whether tobacco firms should be able to use British embassies.

A letter from the office of Peter Mandelson, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, says: "As you know the Government is currently developing its overall policy on tobacco in the context of the forthcoming White Paper on this subject. It would obviously be unwise to pre-judge the outcome of ministerial deliberations in advance of this Paper's publication."

But the letter from Robin Cook, sent in the summer to Action on Smoking and Health (Ash), the anti-smoking lobby group, takes a firmer, pro-trade line.

The Foreign Secretary wrote: "I do not think that at this stage it would be fair to discriminate against British companies to the potential advantage of overseas manufacturers".

Embassies play a key role in promoting British trade and offer advice and support services to companies starting up or expanding. Health organisations believe that cigarette firms should be excluded from such help.

"We are very concerned about what is happening in the developing world," said Bill O'Neill, ethics and science adviser of the British Medical Association. "And we are getting increasing reports of an increasing amount of tobacco advertising in eastern Europe and all over the world where people can least afford it."

The US memo to its embassy staff says: "In light of the serious health consequences of tobacco, the US government will not promote the sale or export of tobacco products ... posts should not promote the sale or export of tobacco ... and should not assist the efforts of US firms or individuals to do so."

Clive Bates, director of Ash, said: "Things have really reached rock bottom when the Americans have more ethical trade policies than we do."

Tobacco battle, page 15