TOBACCO TRADE BRINGS ETHICAL FOREIGN POLICY UNDER FIRE

The Government's ethical foreign policy has come under fresh fire from
doctors, third world campaign groups and anti-tobacco lobbyists over the use
of British embassies to promote cigarettes manufactured in the United
Kingdom.

They want the Government to ban British tobacco companies from using our
embassies as a base to seek new markets, following a similar move by the
United States.

The US State Department, worried about the health implications of
cigarettes, recently sent a confidential memo to its ambassadors banning
them from promoting "the sale or export of tobacco or tobacco products".

The guidance, seen by the Independent on Sunday, also bans US embassy staff
from attending receptions or trade promotions held by tobacco companies.

Campaign groups, including the British Medical Association, are furious with
Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, who has refused to take action to stop
tobacco firms from using British embassies to promote their products, and
say that it should be part of his commitment to an ethical foreign policy to
do so.

The row over the Government's attitude to the tobacco trade has been
simmering for months but came to a head last week over the appointment of
Kenneth Clarke, the former Conservative Chancellor, to an official trade
post by Prime Minister Tony Blair. Mr Clarke has been named as the London
co-ordinator of a new British-Mexican business network, and is also deputy
chairman of BAT, the British tobacco giant which in the summer paid $1.5bn
(around $900m) for Mexico's leading cigarette company, CLM.

In letters explaining his stance on tobacco and embassies, the Foreign
Secretary says that "it would not be fair to discriminate" against British
tobacco companies and that "all British companies are entitled to avail
themselves of the government's range of Overseas Trade Services, provided
their products and services are mainly of UK origin and are legal".

But private correspondence suggests a different, and less accommodating
stance on the part of other government departments. Letters show that the
Department of Trade and Industry, which has responsibility for trade abroad,
takes a less bullish line and believes that the question should be
considered as part of the Government's review of policy on tobacco.

The row over embassies comes as the Government prepares to launch an
influential White Paper on smoking and health which will lead to a
unprecedented measures to discourage people to smoke.

The Department of Health is understood to want an international dimension to
be included in the proposals, so that tough rules on advertising in Britain
mean that tobacco companies do not seek to beef up advertising abroad.

Tessa Jowell, Minister for Public Health, is about to enter final
discussions with Tony Blair about the content of the Paper. It is believed
that the role of embassies is likely to be referred to in discussions about
whether to back a multilateral agreement on tobacco promotion proposed by
the World Health Organisation.

Government departments have taken different lines on whether embassies
should be included in tobacco talks.

A letter from the office of Peter Mandelson, Secretary of State for Trade
and Industry, says: "As you know the Government is currently developing its
overall policy on tobacco in the context of the forthcoming White Paper on
this subject. It would obviously be unwise to pre-judge the outcome of
ministerial deliberations in advance of this Paper's publication."

But the letter from Robin Cook, sent in the summer to Action on Smoking and
Health (Ash), the anti-smoking lobby group, takes a firmer, pro-trade line.

The Foreign Secretary wrote: "I do not think that at this stage it would be
fair to discriminate against British companies to the potential advantage of
overseas manufacturers".

Embassies play a key role in promoting British trade and offer advice and
support services to companies starting up or expanding. Health organisations
believe that cigarette firms should be excluded from such help.

"We are very concerned about what is happening in the developing world,"
said Bill O'Neill, ethics and science adviser of the British Medical
Association. "And we are getting increasing reports of an increasing amount
of tobacco advertising in eastern Europe and all over the world where people
can least afford it,' .

The US memo to its embassy staff says: "In light of the serious health
consequences of tobacco, the US government will not promote the sale or
export of tobacco products . posts should not promote the sale or export of
tobacco or tobacco products and should not assist the efforts of US firms or
individuals to do so."

As Clive Bates, director of Ash, said: "Things have really reached rock
bottom when the Americans have more ethical trade policies than we do."

Checked-by: Don Beck