Chris Davies - MEP

[fred]

So, I emailed the guy who did the article in the Bolton paper.

Dear ****, fred

 

Thank you for your email to Chris regarding the proposed Tobacco Products Directive.  As you can imagine, we’ve had a lot of replies from smokers and ex-smokers all over the UK, so he’s taking a little time to sort through everything and will reply to everyone as soon as he can.

 

Chris is the UK team leader on the Environment and Public Health Committee, although his Belgian colleague, Frédérique Ries MEP, leads on the issue for European Liberals.  He is greatly in favour of harm reduction as a principle and it may be the case that e-cigarettes help to reduce the numbers of smokers where so many other methods have not had such impressive success rates.

 

He thinks it will be necessary to introduce regulations to ensure their safe content, but he is opposed to banning them and is not convinced by the European Commission's proposal to restrict their nicotine content. Safety regulations that he could get behind might be for example obliging manufacturers to list the ingredients or including a warning such as “nicotine may be addictive” on packaging.

 

The aim of these regulations should be to keep e-cigarettes available as a harm reduction tool for adults while possibly restricting marketing to ensure they are not attractive to young people, for example not advertising near schools or in magazines aimed at young people.

 

Some people who have got in touch have been concerned that regulations will mean products will disappear until they can be approved.  This will most certainly not be the case.  European regulations and directives almost always have transition periods of at least a year (if not several) between the legislation being passed and them actually coming into force, so there would be no danger of existing users suddenly being unable to purchase their refills.

Research into the long term effects of vaping is not extensive and so the committee has commissioned some research from its policy department.  MEPs have also been hearing from “stakeholders” such as E-cigarette manufacturers and public health experts, and Chris hopes that the views of those who have got in touch about vaping will also be taken into account.

 

The Rapporteur (the MEP in charge of guiding the legislation through the Parliament) is Linda McAvan, a Labour MEP, who seems quite keen to crack down hard on health issues so Chris is consulting with her as to what amendments she may accept.  It seems there has been some research done last year that suggests these devices may act as a “gateway” to smoking cigarettes (although every reply from constituents that we’ve seen so far suggests the opposite).

 

Chris’s impression is that a substantial number of MEPs appear to be prejudiced against E-cigarettes because they look like cigarettes, and are perhaps overlooking the benefits they may bring to those who are trying to give up smoking.  Clearly there is a difference between those looking like this and vapourisers which look more like a fountain pen.

 

Linda McAvan MEP has completed her initial report on the Directive Proposal, and Chris is likely to put down some amendments so he might email you again nearer the votes to encourage other MEPs to support certain points he will make.

 

You should know that the process will take a number of months.  There will be initial discussion on the 25^th of April and then the Committee will meet on the 10^th and 11^th of July to vote on the report.  The first plenary (full parliament) votes are scheduled for September 2013.  You can keep up with the proposals and the Parliamentary procedure here.  

 

Thank you again for giving Chris your views on this subject.  It is wonderful that so many of you have taken the time to contribute.

 

I hope this email has given you a little background about where the proposals will go from here.  Do get in touch if there is anything else you would like clarifying.

 

As an aside, we usually ask constituents for their postcodes just so we can keep our records up to date.  If you could reply to this email with this information then we can keep track of who we’ve got in touch with in the constituency.

 

Kind regards,

 

Kat Dadswell | Casework Assistant

Looks like he might he might be coming round even more. Only reply I could find was @storm's here post 7, which in itself was positive, but I think he now has received more info, and is actually reading it!!

[matt1988]

Yeh it is good that MEP's are slowly coming around. But I am worried that there aren't enough against it.

[fred]

Apr 13, 2013 18:01:15 GMT matt1988 said:

Yeh it is good that MEP's are slowly coming around. But I am worried that there aren't enough against it.

So far, from the info I've collated:

18 against the bill
4   support the bill

19 unsure, on the fence

31 of them - I have not found any response from them, or information on how they're at.

I'll get this info to MarkS & Jemima for the ECCA meeting tomorrow (I'll not be able to make it ), & hopefully it can be put to use in 'pestering' these people till they help us out, just to make us go away!

If we keep pestering them, though, they have to listen.

Since I've found out about this, it seems that:

Torys - beginning to listen to Martin Callanan - can only be a good thing.
Lib Dems - seems like they're beginning to listen a bit to evidence & constituents rather than propaganda
Labour - seem to be toeing the party line against us
UKIP/BNP/Independents - seem to be coming onside, if not there already
Greens - seem to be against us, even though we're polluting the atmosphere less
SNP - still seem totally unsure

Not sure about any of the parties in Northern Ireland yet.

If we keep landing evidence on these peoples doorsteps, I feel we have a good chance of sorting this out.

[MarkS]

Good stuff Fred.

This will be my first ECCA meet so I will do my best along with Jemima to get as much out there as possible.

Even if some of the stuff doesn't come up at the meet, I'll definitely get it to the right people whoever they maybe after the meet.

Nice one my friend.

[Jemima]

excellent work fred and thank you so much for doing it all