Tobacco Control Plan

Liz Twist Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Miller. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) and the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for securing this important debate to consider smoking cessation.

I will start with a few figures, just to show why this issue is important to me. It is very difficult to get constituency figures, as I am sure colleagues have found, so we are looking at local authority areas. The covid-19 pandemic recovery makes it particularly important to set out an ambitious national strategy to tackle smoking and to address, once and for all, the tragic health inequalities that smoking causes.

In Gateshead, 17.1% of the population smokes, compared with 15.3% across the north-east. That figure is well above the England average of 13.9%. It is estimated that smoking costs Gateshead around £48.3 million a year through smoking-related health and care needs, lost productivity and premature death. Between 2016 and 2018, there were 1,227 deaths attributable to smoking in Gateshead, which is significantly higher than the per population average for England. Between 2016 and 2018 in Gateshead, there were 515 deaths from lung cancer and 412 deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. More than 80% of those disease cases were caused by smoking. Between 2016 and 2018, there were, sadly, 29 stillbirths in Gateshead, which is above the per population average for England. Smoking during pregnancy has been shown to double the risk of stillbirth.

Although adult smoking rates have declined in recent years, inequalities in smoking rates between different groups have remained stubbornly high. The next tobacco control plan must go further in providing additional quick support for smokers in communities and groups with high rates of smoking. That is essential if we are to tackle the health inequalities in our society after covid-19, and indeed before that time comes.

I support wholeheartedly the recommendation of the APPG that tobacco manufacturers should pay the costs—on the “polluter pays” principle—of creating a smoke-free 2030 fund and helping to meet that target. Indeed, it is absolutely essential that we achieve that target.

Smoking during pregnancy is the leading modifiable risk factor for poor birth outcomes, including stillbirth, miscarriage and pre-term birth. The Government’s ambition is to reduce smoking in pregnancy to 6% by 2022, but with a rate of 10.4% in 2019-20, that target is unlikely to be met. National rates of smoking in pregnancy have only declined by 0.6 percentage points since 2015, although some regions—such as the north-east, I am glad to say—have seen much larger declines. Clearly, there is much to be done.

Ensuring that pregnancies are smoke-free and that there is greater consistency across the country must be a major focus of the next tobacco control plan, if we are to deliver a smoke-free start for every child by 2030 and give them the best start in life. The highest rates of smoking among pregnant women are in young pregnant women. Nearly a third of pregnant women in England under the age of 20 are smoking during early pregnancy and at delivery, compared to around one in 10 pregnant women overall. As well as being more likely to smoke in the first place, younger mothers are less likely to quit prior to conception, whereas older mothers are more likely to have quit when planning a pregnancy. As such, driving down rates of smoking in the younger population should have a rapid impact on rates of smoking in pregnancy.

A woman’s circumstances also greatly affect the likelihood that she will smoke in pregnancy, with smoking in pregnancy concentrated among those who live in an area of deprivation or high smoking prevalence, those who live with a smoker, those who smoked through a previous pregnancy, and younger women.

There is so much more we could say on this issue, but the key thing is that we need to consider ideas such as financial incentive schemes. Those that have been implemented in Greater Manchester and south Tyneside are highly effective at reducing rates of smoking in pregnancy among women from deprived backgrounds. They are also cost-effective, with an estimated return on investment of £4 for every £1 invested.

To finish, can the Minister assure me that the next tobacco control plan will include a national strategy for reducing rates of smoking in pregnancy, learning the lessons from the areas where the greatest declines in smoking in pregnancy have occurred? Will she commit to introducing a national financial incentive scheme to achieve the aim set out in the tobacco control plan? Will she also commit to consulting on raising the age for the sale of tobacco to 21, to reduce the number of young people who become addicted to smoking?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Churchill]

Indeed I do. Actually, the levelling-up agenda and our manifesto commitment to ensure five more healthy life years must be driven by achieving the targets we have set ourselves. Smoking has such a direct correlation with other illnesses. My right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West mentioned his interest with Cancer Research UK, and we know about the link to cancer, but there is also a link to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as well as other respiratory challenges and so on. As I say, a disproportionate burden is borne by those disadvantaged families and communities.

I thank the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) for making an interesting point. I assure him that we are focused on the need to make these interventions local. The local directors of public health and PHE drive plans in localities. I would like to think that we have taken, and can take, much learning from the successful local interventions of the past 18 months, such as with the vaccination programme. There are also clever uses of technology, where we have prompted people to take a vaccination. That might be interesting to look at in connection with recommendation 11, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) alluded—I think it was him—requiring people to be prompted annually. They might look at that particular behaviour in order to modify it.

I could not agree more with the person who said that data saves lives—indeed, it does. The more we understand about the data held across the NHS, the more we can use it effectively to target interventions and to ensure that people get not only the right treatment but the right care, at the right point on their life’s journey.

In the new plan, we will ensure that we have a strong focus to drive down rates across the whole country, ensuring that they are level to where rates are the lowest, because everybody deserves to live in an area where we have targeted smoking rates and are achieving success. For too long, the harms from smoking have hit those areas that already face challenges. One in 10 babies is born to a mother who smokes. It is estimated that one in five new mothers smokes in Kingston upon Hull, compared with one in 50 in west London. It is those disparities that we need to tackle.

We must also close the gap seen among smokers with mental health conditions and smokers in routine and manual occupations. Could we be cleverer? Could we work in workplaces, for example? It is vital we continue to support interventions that make the most difference, helping people to cease smoking and encouraging them to move to less harmful products.

[Liz Twist]

We have not had much time to talk about mental health in any detail. Will the Minister ensure that funding is found to deliver the original NHS long-term plan commitment to provide tobacco dependence treatment to all smokers accessing secondary mental health services?

[Jo Churchill]

If I have time, I will come on to that—I will try to speed up.

Many Members will be pleased to know that, within the plan, we will recommit to our evidenced approach to e-cigarettes. The products certainly have a role in supporting smokers to quit, and we will ensure that they remain accessible to smokers while protecting non-smokers and young people.

The fight against tobacco is not one we can win alone. It requires a joint effort through the health and care system and working across Government. There are good examples of that, because while NHS England is working to roll out the tobacco dependence treatment and the commitments in the long-term plan—we know there have been some delays—we are putting effort into driving the agenda forward, funding seven early implementer sites across England and establishing services as we speak.

Other Departments, such as HMRC, are tackling illicit tobacco. Her Majesty’s Treasury has taken action to raise tobacco taxation. We have also introduced a ring-fenced grant of £1 million to support an HMRC and trading standards intelligence cell called Operation CeCe. That was operational earlier this year. We are also working with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the suitability of options for littering.

I shall have to come to a close, but I will address the question of my right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West about how we are working with the WHO. We are a global leader in tobacco control and were instrumental in the framework convention on tobacco control. We will continue to take our treaty obligations seriously, including the commitment under article 5.3. I was particularly proud that we have been recognised in that work. The recognised commitment to our global prevention work with the WHO is important.

I hope the Chamber is aware that I am determined to protect the population from the harms of tobacco. As we build back better, we must make smoking a thing of the past, to improve the health of the nation and level up society, freeing up the billions of pounds spent on smoking by disadvantaged families and protecting the NHS. Clearly, with investment and with us all pushing in the same direction, we can truly make that target.