Replies to LegCo questions

LCQ6: Ordinances related to smoking

Following is a question by the Hon Andrew Cheng and a reply by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today (December 10):

Question:

Regarding the implementation of the Smoking (Public Health) (Amendment) Ordinance 2006 ("the Amendment Ordinance") enacted by this Council in October 2006, will the Government inform this Council:

(a) as the authorities had stated that after 12 to 15 months from the enactment of the Amendment Ordinance and upon completion of the work of setting up a fixed penalty system for smoking offence, it would commence the work to designate statutory no smoking areas in bus termini and public transport interchanges, of the progress of the work and when the relevant smoking ban will be implemented;

(b) as the Amendment Ordinance imposes a general ban on misleading descriptors on all tobacco product packaging, and the one-year grace period for this requirement already expired on October 26 last year, whether the Government has investigated if tobacco products with packaging containing such descriptors are still on sale in the market; and

(c) whether it knows if the sale of tobacco products and the proportion of smokers in the population have dropped since the implementation of the Amendment Ordinance, and whether the Government will consider increasing the duty on tobacco products in the next financial year to drive up the prices of tobacco products, so as to discourage members of the public from buying these products?

Reply:

President,

(a) As I explained when proposing amendments to the Smoking (Public Health) Ordinance in 2006, the no smoking areas would be expanded in a gradual and orderly manner. We would first introduce a fixed penalty system for smoking offences before designating no smoking areas in public transport interchanges (PTIs). Regarding the timetable, as explained in my reply to Hon Andrew Cheng's question last year, the fixed penalty system would be put in place around 10 months after the enactment of the principal legislation, and the Administration aimed to put the fixed penalty system into operation in 2009.

Following the passage of the Fixed Penalty (Smoking Offences) Ordinance by this Council in July 2008, the Department of Health is now taking steps in collaboration with the relevant departments to put in place an administrative mechanism and information system for implementing the fixed penalty system. We are also drafting subsidiary legislation to deal with the technical details. It is expected that the tasks involved will be completed in the second quarter of next year as scheduled. After the establishment of the fixed penalty system, we will proceed to designate PTIs as statutory no-smoking areas. Our initial plan is to consider designating as statutory no-smoking areas those PTIs with superstructure first, followed by open-air PTIs. According to the current plan, the designation of the first batch of PTIs as statutory no-smoking areas is expected to be completed in 2009.

(b) The provision in the Smoking (Public Health) Ordinance (the Ordinance) which prohibits tobacco packaging bearing terms, descriptors, trademarks, fugitives or signs that may create an erroneous impression that the product is less harmful to health than other tobacco products came into force on October 27, 2007. Since the Ordinance came into force, the law enforcement agencies have been closely monitoring the sale of non-compliant tobacco products in the local market. So far, no packaging of tobacco products suspected to violate the above provision has been found. The Administration will continue to pay close attention to the packaging of tobacco products. Once suspected breaches are identified, the Administration will carry out follow-up investigation and seek legal advice to ascertain if there is sufficient evidence for enforcement action.

(c) The Administration does not have any sales figures of tobacco products. Nevertheless, the Customs and Excise Department recorded a total of 3.756 billion sticks of duty-paid cigarettes for the 12 month's period between October 2007 and September 2008, representing an increase of 9.1% when compared with 3.443 billion sticks over the same period from 2006 to 2007. Nevertheless, the Thematic Household Survey conducted by the Census and Statistics Department revealed that the percentage of daily smokers aged 15 or above decreased from 14% between February and May 2005 to 11.8% between December 2007 and March 2008. Smokers aged between 15 and 19 in Hong Kong decreased from 3.5% in 2005 to 2.4% recently. At the same time, 57% of the public found that they had less exposure to second-hand smoke in public places. This encouraging trend shows that the amendments to the Smoking (Public Health) Ordinance which came into force in 2007 have achieved considerable effect.

The HKSAR Government has been taking a multi-pronged approach, i.e. through a combination of legislation, taxation, publicity, education, enforcement as well as smoking cessation services, to contain the proliferation of tobacco use and minimise the impact of passive smoking on public health. With regard to the question about an increase in tobacco duty, the Financial Secretary will, as in the past, review the necessity of adjusting tobacco duty in the annual Budget exercise after taking into consideration factors such as public finance, economic conditions and relevant policies. Policy-wise, we will continue to monitor tobacco use and its impact on public health and take these into account when we review the rate of tobacco duty.



Ends/Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Issued at HKT 15:39

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