Tobacco Products (Plain Packaging) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Nick Smith
Main Page: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)Department Debates - View all Nick Smith's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Tobacco Products (Plain Packaging)
Nick Smith Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on securing this debate and on his principled support for plain packaging.
It bears repeating that the costs of smoking are huge. The cost to the NHS in Wales alone is estimated at around £400 million. A Welsh health survey in 2012 showed that 23% of the population smoke and, sadly, in my constituency that figure is 28%. The Welsh Government’s commitment to reduce it to 16% by 2020 is a massive challenge.
The smoking ban has made our pubs and cafés healthier and more pleasant places in which to relax, but young people are still being recruited to the habit and more than 200,000 under-16s start to smoke every year. We expected that by now the message that smoking is bad for you would have ended the recruitment of new young smokers. Yet in the summer of 2012, when ASH Wales had a campaign road show around Wales to talk to schoolchildren about the impact of tobacco marketing on them, when shown the marketing currently on the shelves, they described cigarettes as looking like perfume boxes, posh tissues and even Lego.
ASH Wales estimated that 40 teenagers every day try smoking cigarettes. Cigarette packs come in a wide range of shapes, sizes and designs that are fashionable, colourful and attractive to young smokers. I have been told that slimline feminine packets are perfect for small handbags, and such comments underline why plain packaging is supported by the chief medical officer for Wales and the Children’s Commissioner for Wales. It has majority public support of 63% and is widely supported by parents in my constituency.
I am pleased that the Welsh Minister for Health and Social Services is looking at our devolved powers to see what unilateral action might be taken to introduce plain packaging, but I have no doubt that concerted action throughout the UK is the best option. We must defeat the mantra that those who want to up the pace of reform are advocates of the nanny state and greater regulation. Instead, we must show that plain packaging will save lives and money, and is clearly right.