National No Smoking Day

Debate between Liz Twist and Clive Efford

Thursday 9th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I thank the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for securing this important debate.

As we have heard, smoking is the biggest driver of preventable lung disease and health inequalities. According to the charity Asthma + Lung UK, it is responsible for half of the difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest. In particular, smoking causes nearly twice as many cancer cases in England’s most deprived areas as it does in the least.

I want to acknowledge the progress that has been made, specifically in my region of the north-east. The north-east has seen the biggest decline in adult smoking rates since 2005, when our region became host to the UK’s first ever dedicated regional programme for tobacco control, Fresh; but smoking remains a key driver of health inequalities in our region, where four out of 10 households with a smoker are living in poverty.

In my local authority area of Gateshead, where 17% of adults still smoke, healthy life expectancy is just 58 years. That is five years lower than the national average, and there is an even wider gap between Gateshead and more affluent areas. That is a real problem. I see too many constituents suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, of which smoking is the leading cause. Their lives are limited and cut short by COPD—by the effects of smoking. Some of us on the all-party parliamentary group on respiratory health have raised this issue in debates on COPD.

The Government have promised to extend healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035. Last year, the Khan review argued that the smoke-free 2030 target was vital for achieving that objective, as we have heard, but the review also found that without further action England will miss the smoke-free target by at least seven years, and the poorest areas will not meet it until 2044.

It has now been nearly a year since many of us went over to Church House to hear Javed Khan present the findings of his review, which were widely welcomed. Many of them, indeed, picked up on the report of the all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health from the previous year. The Government have had a few other things on their mind since then, with the ministerial merry-go-round of the summer and a revolving door of Ministers, but they must now focus on implementing the recommendations of the Khan review.

The indoor smoking ban in 2007 demonstrated that policy can change social norms and, in doing so, save lives. That is why we should look on smoking not only as a problem to be tackled but as an opportunity. Smoking helps to sustain deprivation, just as deprivation helps to sustain smoking. By tackling that connection, we can allow people to lead more healthy and fulfilling lives. Most people who smoke began as children; for every three young smokers it is estimated that only one will quit, and one of the remaining smokers will die prematurely from smoking-related disease or disability. In the north-east, the average age of smoking onset is just 15 years old.

The Khan review also outlined steps to facilitate a smoke-free generation by implementing a gradual rise in the age at which it is legal to purchase tobacco. The ambition of the recommendation is welcome, but its success will rely on tackling the illicit tobacco trade as well. Almost three quarters of young smokers in Tyne and Wear, County Durham and Northumberland have been offered illegal tobacco, and just under half have bought it. If we prevent children from ever starting to smoke, we can close gaps in healthy life expectancy for years, and generations, to come.

Children are four times more likely to start smoking if they live with an adult who smokes, which gives us all the more reason to tackle smoking in pregnancy. Unfortunately, since 2017, the number of mothers smoking at delivery has fallen by only two percentage points. The Khan review recommended financial incentives to support all pregnant women to quit. It also advocated the appointment of a stop-smoking midwife in every maternity department to provide expert support on the frontline. That will help to tackle another key driver of health inequalities. Currently, smoking in pregnancy is five times more common among the most deprived groups than among the least deprived. Rates are also much higher among people with a mental health condition. In my local authority area of Gateshead, more than 40% of people with a diagnosed serious mental health condition are smokers. The Government must do more to support high-risk groups who are disproportionately impacted by smoking and therefore most likely to bear the brunt of those inequalities in the future.

Smoking perpetuates inequality via its impact not only on health, but on personal finances. As we have heard, the average smoker spends just under £2,000 on tobacco. In Gateshead alone, almost 10,000 households are driven into poverty when income and smoking costs are taken into account. Meanwhile, more than 1,000 households are economically inactive due to smoking-related disease and disability. Put these financial effects together with the impact at the macro level, where local economies lose out by billions of pounds each year, and the impact is even more clear.

So what can we do? As the Khan report demonstrates, it is clear that comprehensive investment is needed to tackle smoking in our communities and address the scourge of health inequalities that result—but over the past decade, drastic cuts have undermined efforts to support people to quit smoking, particularly in the most deprived areas.

The public health grant, from which local authorities allocate funds for smoking cessation services, has been cut by almost half since 2015. That has been accompanied by a 60% fall in the number of people supported to stop smoking over the same period. Meanwhile, as we have heard, the four largest tobacco manufacturers make around £900 million of profit in the UK each year.

I am pleased that in the north-east all 12 councils and the North East and North Cumbria integrated care board have pledged funding to the Fresh programme for the next two years so that it can continue that really important smoking cessation work. I am glad to see that its latest campaign, “Don’t be the one”, will be launched on our north-east media on 20 March. If they and other smoking cessation services are to be able to continue their work effectively, to get out that message about not smoking, not least in the media, what is needed is much greater national funding.

When used as recommended by the manufacturer, cigarettes are the one legal consumer product that will kill most users. Two out of three people who smoke will die from smoking. A “polluter pays” tax will force the corporations to take responsibility for the social outcomes of their products and raise the money that is so desperately needed to fund easily accessible, high-quality support. Smoking costs the NHS £2.4 billion per year. This is a matter of invest to save. In particular, we need a specific approach for the most deprived communities and at-risk groups, including distribution of free swap-to-stop packs.

We have the opportunity now to prevent inequalities for the future. The Government must act to implement the recommendations of the Khan report and must urgently produce a tobacco control plan for England. Frankly, I do not want to be in this debate again next year, as I have been for the last three or four years, asking for a tobacco control plan again. My big ask for today is quite simple: that the Government get on with the tobacco control plan, incorporate the Khan recommendations and, simply, stop more people dying and becoming ill from smoking.

[Clive Efford (in the Chair)]

I intend to move to Front-Bench speeches at 2.28 pm. We have two speakers left. That should give you some idea of how long you have to speak, in order to allow 10 minutes for each of the Front-Bench speakers and two minutes for Bob Blackman to sum up. I now call Rachael Maskell.