A decision to delay a vote in the European parliament on whether to tighten up cigarette packaging rules has been welcomed by an industry campaigner.

MEPs were due to vote this week on new regulations to severely limit packaging design, ban some products and limit the size of some tobacco product packets.

The decision has been delayed partly due to the German general election until the Parliament’s plenary session in Strasbourg on Thursday, October 10.

The vote will be attended by Mike Ridgway, spokesman for a UK packaging industry campaign group including Chesapeake and Weidenhammer, which employ more than 250 people in Bradford.

Packaging producers say further restrictions on designs, along with threatened imposition of plain packs in the UK – an idea put on he back burner by UK ministers after being excluded from he Queen;s Speech — would threaten hundreds of jobs locally and nationally.

On the EU vote, Mr Ridgway said: “The proponents of the regulations were attempting to push this through during the first session back after the summer holidays.but the European Parliament has very sensibly agreed that they need more time to evaluate the situation.

“Also the large group of German MEPs needed to be in Germany campaigning for the General Election to be held next week.”

The existing proposals would impose restrictions on cigarette packs and also ban on menthol products, slim cigarettes and restrict the pack weight for hand rolling tobacco as well as outlawing the sale of cigarettes in packs of less than 20 with no shape variations permitted.

Health warnings would have to cover 75 per cent of the pack surface along with changes to the positioning of tax stamps and warnings.

Mr Ridgway, a former senior executive of both Chesapeake and the Weidenhammer in Bradford, said: “We welcome the delay in voting on the Tobacco Products Directive. This is good news for the packaging industry and their employees who would have been affected by the extreme measures proposed in the Directive.

“It is also a sign of common sense and good governance as the Euro MEP’s agreed that more time was needed to discuss and reflect upon these severe restrictions.

“We hope that the European Parliament will consider all the consequences of such measures and in particular the increase in the illicit trade in counterfeit product that would arise from simplifying the specification of the packaging.”

He stressed that the industry had always supported effective regulation of tobacco to reduce the number of young people taking up smoking but believed that this should be achieved by education, better information and increased awareness of the implications of smoking.

Mr Ridgway said there was no evidence that tighter rules would work and feared they would increase the availability of counterfeit, and more dangerous, cigarettes in the UK.