Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me join the hon. Lady in being proud of representing a country which I think has some claim to say that we are one of the most successful multiracial, multi-faith, multi-ethnic countries anywhere in the world. There is more to do to build opportunity and fight discrimination. I agree with her that it is right that we exclude people when they are going to radicalise or encourage extremism. I happen to disagree with her about Donald Trump. I think his remarks are divisive, stupid and wrong, and if he came to visit our country I think he would unite us all against him.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

Q7. By the time the House next meets for questions, many people will have started their new year’s resolutions. For many, one resolution will be to give up smoking. Given that Public Health England recently stated that e-cigarettes are 95% safer than tobacco and half the population is unaware of that fact, will the Prime Minister join me in highlighting the role that e-cigarettes can play in helping people give up tobacco for good?

[The Prime Minister]

Certainly, speaking as someone who has been through this battle a number of times, eventually relatively successfully, lots of people find different ways of doing it, and clearly for some people e-cigarettes are successful. We need to be guided by the experts, and we should look at the report from Public Health England, but it is promising that over 1 million people are estimated to have used e-cigarettes to help them quit or have replaced smoking with e-cigarettes completely. We should be making it clear that this a very legitimate path for many people to improve their health and therefore the health of the nation.