Standardised packaging of tobacco products
Applies to England
Read the full outcome
Detail of outcome
An overview of the responses to the consultation on standardised packaging of tobacco products and the main themes raised.
Feedback received
Detail of feedback received
There were many thousands of consultation responses, which fell into two categories:
Detailed responses.
There were 2,444 responses that answered several (or all) of the consultation questions. These responses are listed in the Excel spreadsheet. Each response is listed as a separate line of data and has a unique identifying reference number.
Most people responded online or completed the response form supplied with the consultation. These responses are all set out within the spreadsheet, except where individuals/organisations requested that their responses were not to be published.
Other people responded by letter and these have been scanned and compiled into 6 PDF files.
To help navigate these files and locate individual responses, Annex A lists each scanned response by its identifying reference number from the spreadsheet, the name of the file that it can be found in and the page number within that file. Annex B lists the questions that were included in the consultation document.
We have removed names, phone numbers and personal addresses for anyone responding as a member of the public, an individual health or a social care professional, or anyone who asked for their details to be withheld from publication. In addition, where a response is from an organisation or business, we have removed individual names but left on the record the respondent’s job title, where this was easily located. We have removed instances of offensive language and replaced the letters with underscores.
Campaign responses
A number of campaigns were run that encouraged multiple respondents to answer only a handful of consultation questions (for example, many campaigns only addressed whether standardised packaging of tobacco should be introduced or not).
These responses used template documents (typically postcards, emails or letters), or were in the form of a single letter signed by multiple people, or were received in the form of a petition. Each person who signed a petition was counted as a separate campaign respondent. In total, 665,989 responses were received in this category. The details and number of respondents for each campaign is set out in Appendix C of the ‘Consultation on standardised packaging of tobacco products: Summary report’.
If you have any questions or queries about these responses please contact the tobacco policy team at:
Original consultation
Consultation description
The consultation on standardised packaging of tobacco products asked people for views on whether standardised tobacco packaging would:
- reduce the appeal of tobacco products to consumers
- increase the effectiveness of health warnings on tobacco product packaging
- reduce the ability of tobacco packaging to mislead consumers about the harmful effects of smoking
- have a positive effect on smoking-related attitudes, beliefs, intentions and behaviours, particularly among children and young people
The consultation was accompanied by a systematic, academic review of the evidence for standardised packaging.
The Department of Health received many thousands of consultation responses with strong views on both sides of the debate.
Documents
Updates to this page
Last updated 26 June 2014 + show all updates
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details of responses received for the consultation on standardised packaging of tobacco products
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Summary of responses report added.
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First published.