The story is here. The writer speculates that an appeal to the Supreme Court could cause trouble, if the Supreme Court ruled against the Scottish Government.
However the Supreme Court has already rejected an appeal from Sinclair Collis (vending machine company owned by Imperial Tobacco) on the legislation that will ban vending machines this year.
Much as I would like to see the courts overturning the legislation, I fear that they have already been lent on by legislators, and they are not providing the impartial service that they should be providing.
Legislators are not minded to heed appeals from what they perceive as tobacco interests – even though the results of a recently published European consultation on tobacco regulations revealed that ordinary citizens argued against the display ban in the same terms as the tobacco industry (para 6.6.4).
Such prejudice should not even register with the courts.
Showing posts with label Sinclair Collis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sinclair Collis. Show all posts
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Monday, 1 August 2011
Supreme Court refuses to hear appeal on vending machine ban
Isn't it nice that the Supreme Court will avoid wasting court time by refusing to hear a manifestly unjust case, thus avoiding the clear obligation to vote against the government?
There is clearly an alternative option to a vending machine ban: mandating effective age-verification, and using equipment that allows only one sale each time a machine is activated following age verification. Yet the Supreme Court will not allow this case to be made.
I suspect it may be for the same kind of reason that the Scottish Parliament refused to allow a trial of radio-controlled vending machines – that it would put them behind in the tobacco control league tables. Juvenile or what?
There is clearly an alternative option to a vending machine ban: mandating effective age-verification, and using equipment that allows only one sale each time a machine is activated following age verification. Yet the Supreme Court will not allow this case to be made.
I suspect it may be for the same kind of reason that the Scottish Parliament refused to allow a trial of radio-controlled vending machines – that it would put them behind in the tobacco control league tables. Juvenile or what?
Sunday, 5 June 2011
Scottish government delays tobacco vending machine ban pending legal action
On Thursday, the Scottish Government announced that the vending machine ban, due to be implemented on 1 October, has been delayed, as legal proceedings by Sinclair Collis are ongoing. Sad for Michael Matheson to be making such an announcement in his first tobacco-related press release as Public Health Minister – but he is confident that the Scottish Government's case will be victorious, and such setbacks are to be expected in political life.
I can't see that the Scottish Government has a leg to stand on in trying to persuade the courts that vending machines, the most expensive retail outlet for tobacco, need be banned to ensure that children don't use them to access tobacco. The fact that children obtained them in test purchases does not prove that most children would choose to spend over the odds on getting tobacco out of vending machines regularly.
In any case Sinclair Collis, the Imperial Tobacco vending machine subsidiary, has developed radio controlled vending machines described here (I can't get the video to work, can anyone else). The idea is that staff activate machines only following age verification, and activation lasts only for a single purchase. No purchase can take place without activation following age verification if needed.
A final stage amendment requesting ministers to consider the use of these machines was voted against in January last year, partly for fear that Scotland would fall behind in the fight against tobacco (start at col 23116). The idea that someone had a technological answer to the bare possibility of children obtaining tobacco from vending machines was regarded as a dangerous distraction from the serious business of denormalising tobacco.
The tobacco display ban, which requires retailers to conceal packs of tobacco on sale rather than display them, has also been delayed by a legal challenge.
I can't see that the Scottish Government has a leg to stand on in trying to persuade the courts that vending machines, the most expensive retail outlet for tobacco, need be banned to ensure that children don't use them to access tobacco. The fact that children obtained them in test purchases does not prove that most children would choose to spend over the odds on getting tobacco out of vending machines regularly.
In any case Sinclair Collis, the Imperial Tobacco vending machine subsidiary, has developed radio controlled vending machines described here (I can't get the video to work, can anyone else). The idea is that staff activate machines only following age verification, and activation lasts only for a single purchase. No purchase can take place without activation following age verification if needed.
A final stage amendment requesting ministers to consider the use of these machines was voted against in January last year, partly for fear that Scotland would fall behind in the fight against tobacco (start at col 23116). The idea that someone had a technological answer to the bare possibility of children obtaining tobacco from vending machines was regarded as a dangerous distraction from the serious business of denormalising tobacco.
The tobacco display ban, which requires retailers to conceal packs of tobacco on sale rather than display them, has also been delayed by a legal challenge.
Sunday, 15 May 2011
Legal challenge to vending machine ban in Scotland fails
The report is here.
I can't say what part of the European Convention on Human Rights is supposedly contravened by a ban on tobacco vending machines. I would just say that such a ban is unnecessary, and taking the most highly priced cigarettes out of the market in order to deter kids from using them is a waste of time as well as damaging to industry.
Radio-controlled vending machines have been developed specifically to deal with age verification. An amendment by Rhona Brankin MSP (Labour) asking for time to trial these machines was rejected out of hand by all three major parties in the final stage debate, because it 'would not work' (Ms Brankin attempted to withdraw the amemdment but it still went to the vote). And because it would involve existing machines remaining in service while the trials proceeded.
But probably most of all because in the words of Shona Robison, then Minister for Public Health and Sport: .
I can't say what part of the European Convention on Human Rights is supposedly contravened by a ban on tobacco vending machines. I would just say that such a ban is unnecessary, and taking the most highly priced cigarettes out of the market in order to deter kids from using them is a waste of time as well as damaging to industry.
Radio-controlled vending machines have been developed specifically to deal with age verification. An amendment by Rhona Brankin MSP (Labour) asking for time to trial these machines was rejected out of hand by all three major parties in the final stage debate, because it 'would not work' (Ms Brankin attempted to withdraw the amemdment but it still went to the vote). And because it would involve existing machines remaining in service while the trials proceeded.
But probably most of all because in the words of Shona Robison, then Minister for Public Health and Sport: .
I am sure that no one in the Parliament would want Scotland to lag behind England on a tobacco control measure. [Official Report, col 23102]Reassuring?
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