Draft Tobacco and Related Products (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Neil O'Brien

Tuesday 11th July 2023 General Committees

[Neil O'Brien]

We have driven down smoking rates in England to a record low—from about 40% in the 1970s to about 20% in 2010 and down to a record low of 13% today. We have done that partly by doubling excise duties and partly by introducing a minimum excise on the cheapest cigarettes.

We continue to move forward in our efforts to cut smoking. I recently set out plans to give all women who smoke during pregnancy new incentives to quit smoking, and plans to give 1 million smokers help to “swap to stop” with free vaping kits. The Government are taking determined action to drive down rates of smoking, and we will keep all measures about comparability between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK under review.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

The Minister has not responded to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central.

[Neil O'Brien]

Which point?

[Debbie Abrahams]

The point about the inequalities that there will be between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, and whether there has been an assessment of them. I gently remind the Minister that it was a Labour Government that introduced smoke-free zones and ensured that people were protected from second-hand smoking. The Government need to recognise that.

[Neil O'Brien]

We keep all those things under review. Flavourings in heated tobacco are a relatively niche issue, but of course we will look at the regulation of those things. The mainstay of our policy is raising tax on cigarettes, which has driven down smoking rates, and using vapes, but not heated tobacco, as a potential substitute to get people off smoking.

I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Neil O'Brien

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Neil O’Brien]

I know how intensely my hon. Friend is campaigning on this issue. The amount of NHS dentistry being delivered has gone up by a fifth over the last year, partly as a result of the reforms we are already rolling out. He will have seen in the workforce plan that we are going to increase training places for dentists by 40% so that we have the NHS dentists we need. However, that is not all we will do, and our forthcoming dental plan will take further steps.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

We have known for a while that our life expectancy is shorter than it was in 2010. However, we are now seeing impacts on children in the UK, who are about 7 cm shorter at five compared, for example, with the children of our neighbours in Holland. What is the Secretary of State doing on this issue, and will he support the all-party parliamentary group on health in all policies in assessing the impacts on health and health inequalities?

[Neil O’Brien]

Of course we are taking action to improve public health, and that includes children’s nutrition. That is why we are spending £150 million on healthy food schemes, such as the school fruit and vegetable scheme, the nursery milk scheme and Healthy Start. It is also why we are investing £330 million a year in school sport and the PE premium and a further £300 million through the youth investment fund. We will continue to take action on this key issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Neil O'Brien

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Neil O’Brien]

My hon. Friend is quite right that we absolutely need to go further. That is why, through the primary care recovery plan, we are taking some of the pressure off general practice, investing £645 million in the new Pharmacy First service, which will free up about 10 million GP appointments a year. That is why we are investing about £60,000 per practice in new IT and modern online systems. None the less, he is totally right: we need those doctors in general practice. We have about 2,000 more now than we did in 2019, but we will go further. We have already increased GP training and we are looking at building on that further.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Can the Minister clarify when Oldham will receive its share of the 6,000 additional GPs that were promised in the Conservative 2019 general election manifesto? Today we are running with fewer GPs, and that is not helpful to anyone.

[Neil O’Brien]

I have already noted that we have increased the number of doctors in general practice by nearly 2,000 since 2019 alone. The number of direct patient-facing staff in general practice is 50% higher in total than in 2019, and that is up right across the country. However, of course we will go further and grow the number of clinicians in general practice, building on what we have already done.