National No Smoking Day

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I congratulate the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on securing this really important debate to mark national No Smoking Day. For the record, I am vice-chair of the APPG on smoking and health and was Gateshead Council’s cabinet lead on public health for 10 years, so I am passionate about making smoking history. It is telling that a number of Members present are from the north-east, and we will be reiterating the same messages.

The last tobacco control plan expired at the end of last year, and we are still waiting for the response from the Government to Javed Khan’s independent review on tobacco control. While we wait, thousands of people are getting sick and dying from smoking-related illnesses that are wholly preventable. Since 2000, more than 113,000 people in the north-east have died from smoking, and one person is admitted to hospital in the UK every minute due to smoking.

Although there is rightly a lot of discussion about smoking being the No. 1 cause of cancer, it is important to recognise the host of life-threatening and life-altering illnesses caused by smoking, including COPD, heart disease, dementia, stroke and diabetes. I am therefore delighted that this year’s No Smoking Day campaign is shining a light on the link between smoking and brain health. Smoking has been identified as one of the 12 risk factors that, if eliminated, could collectively prevent or delay up to 40% of dementia cases. Alzheimer’s Research UK found that dementia is the most feared health condition for people over the age of 55. However, only one in five people who smoke in the north-east are aware that smoking raises the risk of dementia. It is therefore vital to get that message out there. It is great that Fresh’s radio ad on this issue is estimated to reach more than 670,000 people in the north-east. I am proud that the north-east has been a trailblazer on this issue, with local authorities across the region working together to fund Fresh, which is a highly effective tobacco control programme. It has nearly halved the smoking rate in the north-east since it was set up. I am pleased to hear that Fresh will once again be funded by all 12 local authorities in the region.

Although it is great to see that work happening locally, it is vital that it is supported by much more investment at a national level. It is shocking that England is on track to miss the smoke free 2030 ambition by nine years, while projections by Cancer Research UK suggest that it will take a further 20 years to get smoking down to 5% in England’s poorest communities. The north-east is the most disadvantaged region in England. With that come high rates of smoking, which means there is further for us to go to become smoke free. The fact that smoking rates are disproportionately high among deprived communities highlights the fact that smoking is one of the leading drivers of health inequalities in our society. As we have heard, smoking during pregnancy is five times more common in the most deprived communities than in the least deprived. In County Durham, 704 women a year are smokers when they give birth, while 41,233 children live in households with adults who smoke. That not only has severe health consequences for children living in deprived areas, but increases fourfold their chance of taking up smoking and remaining a smoker in adulthood.

As well as having a shorter life expectancy overall, men and women in the most deprived areas also suffer from ill health for more of their lives. The levelling-up White Paper identified addressing health inequalities as a priority, yet little has been done so far. The Government’s lack of action and their delay in responding to the Khan review threaten our ability not just to achieve the 2030 smoke free goal but to level up. They must take action now and look urgently to implement the recommendations in the report from the APPG on smoking and health and in the Khan review to tackle the prevalence of long-term illness in areas of deprivation.

We all know that smoking is our biggest preventable killer and, as we have just heard, it is devastating for the thousands of families who lose loved ones each year. It also has significant implications for our economy, our local authorities and our health service. It is estimated that smoking costs County Durham £211.9 million each year, £26 million of which is spent on healthcare. Preventing ill health is key, and it is clear that effective Government action on the issue would relieve the significant pressure that smoking places on our health and social care services. There is no time to waste when we consider that our NHS is in crisis as resources are stretched to the absolute limit.

We must also ensure that smokers have the best chance of success when they attempt to quit, whether that is through support from local stop smoking services or access to alternatives. At the same time, we must prevent children and young people from taking up smoking in the first place, reduce the demand for and supply of illegal tobacco, and support further enforcement around illicit tobacco.

Four years ago, the Government set out their ambition for England to become smoke free by 2030. In April 2022, I asked the Government to ensure that the tobacco control plan would deliver their ambition and that it would be published no later than three months after the Khan review. Here we are, nearly 12 months on, and I am still asking the same question and we are still waiting for action. The chair of the Durham health and wellbeing board even wrote to the Secretary of State about the Khan review, but she received a non-committal response. With that in mind, will the Minister tell us when he plans to publish the tobacco control plan and what the Government intend to commit to on the back of the Khan review? Every day that we wait, too many people are dying needlessly.

[Clive Efford (in the Chair)]

Absolutely impeccable. Thank you very much—you have made it very easy to chair.