Smoking-Related Diseases

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Young, for securing—and whipping —this debate, and the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, with his outstanding record on this subject, for taking it over. I wish to focus on the international dimension.

We know how challenging it was and still is in the UK, and in the West, to counter the tobacco industry. It was only through the remarkable work of Sir Richard Doll, based on the metadata that he had available to him through the NHS and cancer registries—something not as comprehensively available in the US—that the correlation of smoking with cancer and other diseases was decisively demonstrated. We know what measures the tobacco industry took to undermine that research and its conclusions.

How vulnerable are those in developing countries, where the tobacco industry is now looking to replace its western markets, and where corruption, poverty and lack of transparency undermine good governance? The WHO has sought to address this with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the world’s first treaty on public health. One hundred and seventy-nine countries and the EU are parties to this treaty, but signing up is one thing and implementing is another. I know of so many instances where the industry has run rings around those provisions in developing countries.

Last year, the world signed up to the sustainable development goals. Ending poverty, ending hunger, ensuring healthy lives and so many of the other goals are undermined by smoking and the tobacco industry. The SDGs call specifically to strengthen the implementation of the WHO framework. The United Kingdom is rightly committed to spending 0.7% of GNI on aid. The noble Lord, Lord Crisp, said that, as part of that commitment, in December 2015 Jane Ellison—then Public Health Minister—announced that the DH had been awarded an ODA fund to assist countries to develop their tobacco control policies. She said that she would update Parliament in due course. I seek that update. Given our expertise in the field, it is vital that we play our full part internationally to stem so far as we can the terrible suffering which otherwise the tobacco industry will inflict on those least able to bear it round the world.