A Bradford MP opposed to forcing tobacco companies to sell products in plain packets is to host a House of Commons summit for campaigners next month.

The move follows the recent decision by Australia’s High Court to uphold the country’s government’s plans to ban branded tobacco packaging Down Under from November.

Gerry Sutcliffe, MP for Bradford South, is a non-smoker, but is concerned that following Australia’s example and enforcing plain packaging would increase counterfeiting and threatened local jobs.

The former Government minister is a former employee of Bradford packaging firm Fields, whose business was subsumed into the US-owned Chesapeake Corporation, which retains key operations at Lidget Green .

Bradford’s packaging industry was boosted by the opening last year of the purpose-built £10 million Weidenhammer Packaging factory at Buttershaw , which stands in Mr Sutcliffe’s constituency and currently employs 65 people. Its key customers include major tobacco brands.

Mr Sutcliffe said: “I’ve never smoked and supported the introduction of the smoking ban, but I believe this proposal (to enforce plain tobacco packaging) does not make sense. Apart from a serious threat to local jobs, plain packaging could lead to a surge in illegal cigarette smoking, which is a growing problem in my constituency.”

Paul Barber, general manager of Weidenhammer Bradford, said: “These proposals could have serious implications for our business as tobacco packaging is vital to our turnover.”

An industry campaign group which represents firms including Weidenhammer and Chesapeake, said the Australian High Court decision was “disappointing”.

Group spokesman Mike Ridgway, a former senior executive with both Chesapeake and Weidenhammer, said: “It is disappointing that the Australian Court has taken this view. The view of the packaging industry in the UK is unchanged in that we believe that plain packaging is not the way to address the issue of younger people taking up smoking.

“Better education and information backed up by effective law enforcement is more appropriate and proving to be more successful as studies are indicating from the UK and Germany.”

According to the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association the recent Government consultation on plain packaging proposals had seen an ‘unprecedented’ reaction and had generated around 500,000 responses from consumers, retailers and across the packaging sector.

Jaine Chisholm Caunt, TMA secretary general, said: “Plain packaging is an assault on UK business in a double-dip recession. Plain packs would be far easier to copy, and would therefore be a gift to the criminal gangs behind the illegal trade in tobacco and increase the £3.1billion that is currently lost to the UK Treasury as a result of this crime.”