Cigarette Stick Health Warnings Bill [HL]

Baroness Merron Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 3rd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in this Second Reading debate on a Bill on which varying views have been expressed. I fear that the noble Lords, Lord Moylan and Lord Naseby, will be somewhat disappointed in me, but it is a risk I am prepared to take because I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Young, on bringing the Bill forward today. He rightly commands much respect across the House and is a doughty and informed campaigner on this issue.

I am pleased to say that this measure, which was proposed in the other place as an amendment to the Health and Care Bill, has the support of these Benches. It is important to remember why we are talking about it today. We are not talking about it as a measure for a measure’s sake, but as a major contribution to the improvement of people’s health, the reduction of inequalities and people living longer and healthier lives. That is the reason we are discussing it today.

We welcome the Government’s ambition to be smoke-free by 2030, and I hope the Minister will be able to welcome the measures outlined in the Bill. If we look at the 2019 prevention Green Paper, the Government committed to making smoking obsolete, but regrettably there is still no sign of the proposed and promised bold action that they agreed was essential to achieve that extremely challenging shift. There have been great strides in reducing smoking rates and improving people’s health and life expectancy over the past 20 years, but we must acknowledge that a continuing decline in smoking rates is not guaranteed and needs further work. As we have heard, evidence shows that we must constantly renew and refresh our tobacco control strategy to avoid stagnation in smoking rates and a widening of the already significant inequalities in rates between those who are richer and those who are poorer. With only nine years left to end smoking, Cancer Research UK analysis shows that the 2030 target will be missed by seven years and that it will be doubled for the most disadvantaged. I hope that is of concern to this House.

I am pleased to observe that tackling smoking is not a party-political issue. Governments of all stripes have implemented a comprehensive approach to tobacco control, starting at the beginning of this century with banning smoking in public places and in cars carrying children, then the point-of-sale display ban, which I saw through as Minister of Public Health at the time, through to standardised tobacco packaging. They have all helped to drive down smoking rates and have discouraged people, particularly the young, from starting smoking in the first place.

Nowhere is this consensus more evident than in the cross-party support for the Government’s smoke-free 2030 ambition, which if delivered would represent one of the most transformative public health statements and achievements in modern history. It is supported by more than three-quarters of the public, with majority support from voters of all political parties. This suggests a mandate to demand bolder action from the Government to end smoking by 2030.

Ending smoking will improve the quality of people’s health and save millions of lives in decades to come. It will also help to dramatically reduce health inequalities and lift thousands of households out of poverty, making it absolutely central to the levelling-up agenda. Tobacco is the leading cause of health inequalities in our society and is responsible for half the 10-year difference in life expectancy between the richest and the poorest. For every smoker who dies, another 30 are suffering from serious smoking-related diseases that affect not just the smoker but all those around them. This burden is dis- proportionately concentrated in our poorest communities; the Covid pandemic has really laid this bare for all to see. Consequently, people in these communities would accrue the greatest benefit from policies to deter people from smoking and make it easier to quit. Ending smoking for all would lift 500,000 households out of poverty. That includes 740,000 working-age adults, 180,000 pensioners and 330,000 children concentrated in the north and Midlands.

Ending smoking in these communities would not just benefit the health and well-being of individuals but inject into local economies money previously and literally going up in smoke. This would show just how serious the Government are when they talk about levelling up, but disappointingly they have thus far opted not to support the amendments proposed to the Health and Care Bill to get us on track to meet the smoke-free 2030 ambition. This includes the measure we are discussing today. These amendments form a key part of the comprehensive package of messages and measures needed to drive down overall smoking rates while also tackling the disproportionately high rates of smoking among poorer and more vulnerable groups.

To their credit, Ministers in the other place expressed support for the principle behind the amendments, but said they needed more time to consider the proposals. My point to the Minister today is that it has been more than two years since the Government announced the 2030 ambition. With that in mind, when will action be under way to deliver this important commitment?

Ministers have also stated that the Health and Care Bill is not the right place for measures to tackle smoking, which will instead be announced and introduced in the forthcoming tobacco control plan. However, this plan has already been delayed twice and seems unlikely to be published this year as proposed, meaning that we might not see concrete action to deliver the smoke-free 2030 ambition until 2023. When can we expect to see the plan?

We cannot afford to wait this long. The Government have the opportunity to adopt this Bill or accept the tobacco amendments to the Health and Care Bill. We have an opportunity now to move this agenda forward and start building back the nation’s health as we emerge from the worst of the pandemic. I urge the Government not to waste this chance. The Bill would play a contributory and important role in helping us reach the smoke-free 2030 ambition. I hope the Government feel able to support it.

Cigarette Stick Health Warnings Bill [HL]

Baroness Merron Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 18th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, this Bill extends the logic of health warnings on cigarette packs to the cigarettes themselves. If implemented, it would require both cigarettes and cigarette papers to display health warnings such as “Smoking kills”. This is likely to be particularly effective for dissuading children, who tend to start smoking with individual cigarettes rather than packs.

While England is undoubtedly among the most successful nations in the world at tackling the tobacco epidemic, we have tended to follow rather than lead when it comes to the implementation of bold policies to address this deadly addiction. The Bill gives us the opportunity to be the first, helping to cement our place as a world leader in tobacco control.

We know that only one-third of the 280 children who take up smoking every day in England will successfully quit, and another third will go on to die from smoking-related diseases. These cigarette warnings were one of the recommendations by the APPG on Smoking and Health for the forthcoming tobacco plan, which we discussed at a recent meeting with Javed Khan, the chair of the Government’s independent review into smoking. We were encouraged by his interest in all our recommendations, including this one, and we look forward to seeing his report, which is due to be published on 22 April.

While we could be the first to implement cigarette warnings, this is not a novel policy. I first proposed cigarette warnings as a Health Minister in Margaret Thatcher’s Government in the late 1970s. By 2024, I will have been in Parliament for 50 years. I hope I will not have to wait that long before this policy is introduced. I beg to move.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, for his tireless efforts and creativity—over many decades, as we have heard—in tackling the negative effects of smoking on the health of individuals and communities. This is a considered and sensible Bill, and we are happy to support it today.

Additional health warnings at the point where people are about to smoke, on cigarettes and cigarette papers, is not a measure for its own sake; it is a further step towards helping to drive down smoking rates and indeed discourage people—especially the young, as the noble Lord referred to—from starting to smoke in the first place. By our doing this, people will have the chance to live longer and have healthier lives, and health inequalities between the richest and the poorest stand a chance of being reduced. For every smoker who dies, there are another 30 who are suffering from serious smoking-related diseases.

Just this week, on Report on the Health and Care Bill, your Lordships’ House voted in favour of a consultation to explore whether the “polluter pays” principle might be effective in the case of tobacco. This Bill seems to chime well with the mood about the direction that smoking legislation in the UK needs to go in. I wish the Bill every success and once again congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham on progressing his Private Member’s Bill to this stage and securing this important debate. I am sure the many numbers of people who wish to quit smoking will also be grateful to my noble friend for his long-standing commitment to this cause, as my noble friend himself said, since his time as a Health Minister in the 1980s.

I thank noble Lords for their contributions today and at Second Reading, as well as during the debate on the Health and Care Bill when tobacco controls came up. Your Lordships’ continued engagement highlights how important this issue is and how it will continue to be an important issue for this House.

As I have stated before to this House, the Government are committed to reducing the harms caused by tobacco and are proud of the long-term progress that successive Governments of different parties have made in reducing smoking rates, which are currently, at 13.5%, the lowest on record. However, we cannot be complacent. With nearly 6 million smokers in England, smoking is still one of the largest drivers of health disparities and causes a disproportionate burden on our most disadvantaged families and communities.

I am grateful to noble Lords who have acknowledged that, as part of our plans to make England smoke free by 2030, we have commissioned the independent review into tobacco control, led by Javed Khan OBE. The Khan review has been asked to set up focused policy and regulatory recommendations for the Government on an evidence-led basis, including on what the most impactful interventions could be to reduce the uptake of smoking, particularly among young people, but also about how we support smokers in quitting for good. As my noble friend rightly said, we are hoping that this will be ready by the end of spring this year.

I am grateful to all noble Lords who have met Mr Khan directly, sharing their ideas and allowing him to consider them and the proposal in the Bill among other reforms to encourage smokers to quit. The independent review will both inform the health disparities White Paper and support the development of a robust tobacco control plan. I have been assured—because I know noble Lords are not always keen on the phrase “in due course”—that the White Paper and the tobacco control plan will be published later this year.

Our plans will have a sharp focus on helping to level up society and support disadvantaged groups. As I hope many noble Lords will acknowledge, this Government are committed to tackling disparities. I am sure that noble Lords will probably get tired of the number of times that I have spoken about the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. We have to tackle those disparities. Where we know that the rates of smoking are highest, we truly want to make smoking a thing of the past. We want to have a healthier population as we build back better from the pandemic.

Once again, I thank my noble friend for this important debate. I thank all noble Lords, and I hope we can all work together to help to make England smoke free by 2030.