Mike Ridgway, director of (CPMA), said reports contained in the latest government planning papers relating to a non-Brexit deal state the UK will be unable to use the EU copyrighted graphical photographic images that currently appear on packs and pouches indicating the dangers of smoking.

Ridgway told Packaging News that the technical papers issued by the UK government from the Department for Exiting the European Union indicated health issues records that medically approved photos are ‘owned’ by the EU and will require the UK to provide new ones for the graphical warnings.

These were imposed by the EU-Tobacco Products Directive which came in to force in May last year and saw that all packs had to legally comply to the regulations by May 2018.

The CPMA added that the “anniversary of the failure of the policy this year in May [showed] the introduction of plain packaging by the UK Government has not achieved appreciable decline in smoking levels and the non-achieving of the original health objectives. Instead an upward trend of the tobacco illicit trade including increases in the seizures of counterfeit cigarette products across the UK has been recorded.”

Ridgway said: “Would it not be an ideal time to now following the UK’s departure from the EU to ditch plain packaging , the ending of the banning of brands and the regulations of pack sizes which have not seen to be effective and has had a detrimental effect on the packaging industry and the country as whole by encouraging the trade in illegal products.”