UK accused over cigarette lobbying abroad

Medical experts and campaigners have accused Britain's top diplomat in Pakistan of breaking government rules by attending a meeting at which one of the world's biggest cigarette companies lobbied ministers.

Philip Barton, the British high commissioner to Pakistan, has come under fire for attending a meeting in Islamabad at which British American Tobacco urged the Pakistani finance minister to drop plans for larger warnings on cigarette packets.

The London-listed cigarette company secured the meeting on March 13 to discuss issues affecting its business in the country. During the meeting, BAT executives made clear their opposition to Pakistani plans to print pictorial health warnings on the front of cigarette packets that would take up 85 per cent of the surface area.

Pictures taken at the meeting show Mr Barton next to Donato Del Vecchio, BAT's global head of international trade and fiscal affairs, alongside other company executives. On the other side of the table are Ishaq Dar, Pakistan's finance minister, and Saira Tarar, the health minister.

The health warnings were supposed to come into effect last week, but have been delayed until May 31 to allow the industry more time to comply with the legislation.

This is not the first time British diplomats have been criticised for helping tobacco companies, and is another sign of the tensions caused by the government's desire to put trade at the centre of foreign policy.

The government drew up guidelines to prevent this in 2013 after the Financial Times revealed the British ambassador to Panama had intervened on BAT's behalf in 2012.

The guidelines state that diplomats must not "lobby against any local administration's policies that are aimed at improving public health, or engage with foreign governments on behalf of the tobacco industry".

The Foreign Office insisted that Mr Barton had not been lobbying on behalf of BAT. It said: "At no point did the high commissioner lobby the government of Pakistan on the issue of health warnings. He made clear that he was not at the meeting to do so."

UK officials said Mr Barton had instead attended the meeting to help push attempts to combat counterfeit packaging. Tobacco companies often highlight the risk of counterfeiting as a reason why governments should not impose stricter regulations on packaging.

Dr Nick Hopkinson, a lecturer at the UK's National Heart and Lung Institute, said: "We were astonished to learn that the British high commissioner in Pakistan had taken part in a lobbying meeting with British American Tobacco.

"It is morally incoherent to advance tobacco control at home but oppose measures in other countries intended to reduce the burden of this lethal habit."

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of the antismoking group Ash, has written to Sir Simon Fraser, the lead civil servant at the Foreign Office, demanding the government apologise for Mr Barton's actions.

BAT said it had originally arranged the meeting to discuss the illegal trade in tobacco with the Pakistan finance ministry, rather than to lobby over health warnings.

It added: "Politicians and policy makers have the right to hear all sides of any debate when formulating new laws."

The meeting came a year before tobacco companies in the UK were to be forced to introduce plain packaging, something the British government first promised in 2011.

The legislation to enforce this was one of the final acts passed by the coalition government, but came after a lengthy row over whether Lynton Crosby, a Downing Street adviser, had pressed David Cameron to drop the plans. Both Mr Crosby and the prime minister denied this was the case.

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