Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Third sitting)

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 1st May 2024 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I inform Committee members that we have 14 minutes to go and three people who have not yet spoken and would like to. I want to bring in the Minister and the shadow Minister at the end. I notice that there is huge unanimity among our panel members. Could I also ask you to be brief and perhaps get one of your number to answer a question so that we get everybody in? Bambos Charalambous is next.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

Q Sir Chris, you mentioned tobacco-related diseases. I want to focus on the impact that that has on the NHS. How would the Bill help the NHS in the short term and then in the long term?

Professor Sir Chris Whitty: In the interests of brevity—the medical director of the NHS is one of your next witnesses—there would be an immediate effect on the NHS because things like asthma attacks in children would be affected almost immediately. Over time there will be a growing positive impact on the NHS as people do not prematurely become unwell with chronic diseases that are extremely difficult to treat and consume enormous resources, in addition to the much more important thing of the extraordinary impact on individuals and their families, their social life, their work life and so on. So there will be a positive and growing impact. If you look forward 30, 40, 50 years, the impact of the Bill on the NHS will be substantial, but we will start to see the effects rapidly, particularly at the paediatric end of the spectrum.

[Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con)]

Q Bearing in mind what the Chair just said about being brief, can the panel explain the stages of addiction—the physiological, psychological, biological impacts of addiction—and perhaps comment on the frequently heard statement that this is a free country, people should have choice and then use discipline?

Professor Sir Chris Whitty: I will reiterate my point and then hand over to Sir Frank for a longer answer. Cigarettes are a product designed to take choice away. That is the whole basis of the industry. If you are pro-choice you are anti-cigarette—absolutely, straightforwardly, no question.

Sir Francis Atherton: As I have said, nicotine is an incredibly addictive substance and it does not take long to become addicted, so it is not really a stage; it is almost instantaneous. People smoke a few cigarettes and the nicotine addiction kicks in. Obviously, it varies from person to person, but by and large it is highly addictive to young people. The younger you start, the more addictive it is, but it is addictive across the whole of the lifecycle, so nobody is immune to that addiction. Breaking that cycle of addiction and getting out of it gets you into psychological dependencies and repeated attempts to quit—the things that many smokers have been through, which cost them so much time, energy and effort, in terms of money and their personal effort and wellbeing. That is all I can say about the status of addiction. Was there anything more specific that you wanted to know?