Tobacco giant fights Scots ban on cigarettes display

Published on Tuesday 29 June 2010 17:35

ONE of the world's biggest tobacco companies launched a legal bid yesterday against a law which bans the open display of cigarettes in Scotland's shops.

Imperial Tobacco is also challenging a ban on cigarette vending machines.

The Tobacco and Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Act was granted Royal Assent on 3 March. Large retailers have until 2011 to implement the display ban and smaller shops have until 2013. The vending machine ban will begin next year.

Imperial Tobacco has gone to court to try to overturn the measures, claiming they fall outside the legislative scope of Holyrood. A hearing, which could last six days, got under way yesterday at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

Anti-smoking campaigners said in January that the act bolstered Scotland's reputation as a "world leader" in tobacco control. But retailers and the tobacco industry said the legislation would hit small shopkeepers already trying to cope with the effects of a recession.

Imperial, the firm behind Lambert & Butler and Richmond cigarettes, argues that parts of the new law would "criminalise currently lawful activities relating to the display and sale of those products".

The firm is calling for the relevant parts of the act to be set aside in a judicial review. It argues that the measures regulate the sale and supply of goods to consumers, which strays into territory reserved to Westminster.

Imperial also maintains that the measures modify freedom of trade provisions between Scotland and England, set out in the Act of Union.

Scottish ministers will put forward their arguments later in the hearing before Lord Bracadale.