Tobacco Advisory Council

Background

The Tobacco Advisory Council (TAC) was a British tobacco industry trade and lobbying group. Its members were:¹

• Gallaher
• Imperial Tobacco
• Rothmans
• British American Tobacco
• Manchester Tobacco
• RJR Reynolds

TAC also had individual membership, most notably:

• Neil Hamilton, Conservative Member of Parliament 1983-1997

The TAC was renamed the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association (TMA) in 1994.²

Lobbying and Countering Threats

The TAC organised meetings between member companies and Government officials ³ and lobbied on their behalf.⁴ It also organised opportunities for industry executives to lobby MPs and Lords, such as a cocktail party and parliamentary lunches.⁵⁶
The TAC worked on countering a range of ‘threats’ to the industry, such as health risks caused by second-hand smoke.⁷ It also appears to have produced a regular newsletter called Hear the other side, which put forward industry arguments on issues such as workplace smoking.⁸
In the 1980s and 1990s, the TAC employed the public relations company Edelman.⁹¹⁰

A Brief History

A TMA memorandum to the House of Commons Select Committee on Health in 2000 outlined the history of the TAC and how it became the TMA:

“The Tobacco Manufacturers’ Standing Committee (TMSC) was established in June 1956. It was formed by UK tobacco companies to sponsor research into smoking and health questions and to make information available to scientific researchers and the public… In January 1963 the TMSC became known as the Tobacco Research Council (TRC) in recognition of its direct involvement in smoking and health research… In August 1978, the TRC was reconstituted as the Research Committee on the Tobacco Advisory Council (TAC) to reflect the increasing emphasis on its own research programmes and expenditure. The TAC also absorbed the Tobacco Advisory Committee, a body initially established in the 1940s to advise the Government on the buying of leaf overseas but whose role had developed over the years to become more concerned with public relations issues and commercial matters of significance to its members.”

It continued:

“In January 1994 there was a further name change to the TMA as it was felt that the name TAC did not clearly reflect the change of focus in its role to that of a trade association for the UK companies, representing them in negotiations and other dealings with government and other authorities on issues of concern and interest to them.”

‘He Knows Exactly Where We Are Vulnerable… Dying Smokers’

A letter from ADC Turner, the TAC’s Executive Director Industry Affairs, to member companies in October 1993 complained about the effectiveness of an ASH spokesman, Stephen Woodward. Turner wrote: “He goes for the soft underbelly all the time and knows exactly where we are vulnerable… with invitations to come and see dying smokers which he can number in the tens of thousands wherever he may be in the world etc.”
He added: “Next time those of us concerned with such matters meet together I want to talk about what effective counters there are available to me on certain of the assertions and invitations made, and I suggest this is important if we assume Mr. Woodward is likely to be around us for the foreseeable future.”¹¹

Junk Science

An August 1993 letter from the TAC to member companies outlined a proposed seminar on what it called “junk science”. The TAC was to contact Lord Stoddart and ask him to invite the following people, “on his notepaper”:¹²

• Dr James Lefanu to chair the meeting
• Dr Gio Gori to question the introduction of legislation on “unsound scientific argumentation and assertions”
• Dr Petr Skrabanek (a Reader in community health at Trinity College in Dublin) to reinforce the above
• Peter Lee to be the statistical expert

TobaccoTactics Resources

• Neil Hamilton