Smoking-Related Diseases

Lord Borwick Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Borwick (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for raising this important Question for debate at the behest of my noble friend, and I declare my interests as a long-standing trustee of the British Lung Foundation. I know from its extensive work that the health of lungs is strongly correlated with wealth. Smoking prevalence is higher among those on lower incomes. That of course means that those people are more likely to get lung problems, and to be crippled by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer—on top of all the other pressures faced by those on the lowest incomes. There are social stigmas, too. Guilt associated with smoking-related diseases means that diagnoses are made much later, reducing the effectiveness of treatment. To top it all off, poorer people also tend to live nearer to roads and traffic, which further increases the likelihood of developing some kind of lung disease.

All that makes the objectives of public health initiatives laudable. Having seen the shocking human impact of smoking-related diseases, I think that it is good that people want to do something about it. Research published today in the BMJ found that e-cigarettes helped about 18,000 extra people in England give up smoking in 2015. Public Health England also found last year that e-cigarettes are 95% less harmful than regular cigarettes. Surely that is a welcome shift in the fight to reduce and prevent smoking-related diseases. After all, it is not nicotine that kills people or causes lung diseases—it is the tar and other chemicals found in cigarettes. While I would absolutely like more research to be done on the long-term impact and potential harms of e-cigarettes, it is important that they are not overregulated or treated in the same way as other tobacco products.

Evidence suggests that marijuana is more harmful than an ordinary cigarette. That may be because smokers inhale it more deeply and hold it in their lungs. It may be more to do with the illegality of marijuana than its inherent carcinogenic nature—although I have no doubt that that exists, too.

We also have a continuing problem with emissions from vehicles. PM 2.5s are particles that come from diesel engines that cause damage similar to that caused by cigarette smoke. Which is worse for our lungs? How do they interact and does one make the other worse? The truth is that we do not really know—but we should, and we would if we were able to spend larger sums on research.

We will need to ensure that the forthcoming tobacco control plan is robust and ambitious enough to lead to reductions in smoking-related illnesses. It should target those most in need of smoking cessation—those who already have a lung disease. This plan should be helped with a cross-departmental government strategy on improving air quality. Together, such actions will help better progress in ensuring that people breathe clean air, and in tackling smoking-related diseases.