A health minister has urged the coalition to press ahead with forcing cigarettes to be sold in plain packets to reduce sales, despite the plan being dropped from the Queen's speech because of unease in Downing Street.
Norman Lamb, a Liberal Democrat, has urged ministers to make Britain the first country in Europe to adopt what he claims would become a key element of the legacy of government's time in power.
"As a liberal I would always defend someone's right to smoke, if that's what they choose to do. But, given we're dealing here with a product that kills between 80,000 and 100,000 people a year, I think it's legitimate for government to seek to control the marketing of that deadly product," Lamb told the Guardian.
"I think it would be a legacy for this government to have legislated on something which would be a landmark public health reform and to be out there in front in Europe. It's something that both Liberal Democrats and Conservatives could be very proud of"," he added.
The care and support minister said he intended to keep fighting to secure the introduction of plain packs, even though it did not appear as expected in the government's legislative programme unveiled last week. David Cameron ditched it amid fears of a backbench revolt against a "nanny state" idea and tobacco industry warnings of job losses if it went ahead.
"MPs from all three parties support this, so I will continue to argue the case for us to act. There could still be an opportunity in this parliament to act and I will argue the case for it," said Lamb.
Other Lib Dem ministers and MPs agreed with him, he said, although the education minister, David Laws, and the Home Office minister, Jeremy Browne, who are on the right of the party, are thought to be against it. Representatives for Nick Clegg and the business secretary, Vince Cable, declined to say if either personally supported plain packs, which the Liberal Democrats have backed as a party since 2008.
MPs who support plain packs claim Lynton Crosby, the Australian brought in by Cameron to spearhead the Tories' 2015 general election campaign, helped stop the plan as part of his drive to "get the barnacles off the boat" – unnecessary policy commitments – of Conservative policy before then. Officially the policy is still under discussion, but privately supporters fear Cameron has been persuaded to abandon it.
Lamb's intervention has reignited coalition tensions over the issue. Westminster sources say the government's entire team of five ministers at the Department of Health, including the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, support plain packs, which would end the use of glitzy packaging and manufacturers' logos and compel cigarettes to be sold in plain dark green packets featuring prominent health warnings. Australia became the first country to introduce standardised packaging last December, and New Zealand plans to follow suit.
Stephen Williams, the Lib Dem MP who chairs parliament's all-party group on smoking and health, said: "The vast majority of Lib Dem MPs would like to see this happen, including many ministers. Lib Dem MPs don't want this to drop. I've told Nick Clegg about the strength of feeling on our benches about this."
Doctors' groups and health charities back the move and say it would help reduce the 200,000 young people a year in the UK who take up smoking and also encourage adult smokers to quit. They welcomed Lamb's remarks.
"We applaud the health minister's comments. Tobacco is a uniquely dangerous product that will kill half of all long-term smokers, and existing packaging makes smoking more attractive to young people. Norman Lamb's intervention is further evidence of the strong support for plain, standardised packs in the government and across the political spectrum," said Sarah Woolnough, Cancer Research UK's executive director of policy and information.
Deborah Arnott, chief executive of the anti-smoking group Ash, said: "We're delighted that Norman Lamb has joined other ministers and politicians from all parties in parliament in backing standardised packaging of cigarettes. His decision to speak out will only add to the pressure on the government to allow parliament an early chance to vote on the issue."
She added that the coalition would not be able to reduce the number of premature deaths by 30,000 a year by 2020 unless it cut the number of people smoking.
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