Health and Care Bill

Debate between Paula Barker and Mary Kelly Foy

Report stage
Monday 22nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mary Kelly Foy]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. A theme throughout these new clauses is that most people start smoking when they are children or when they are young, and most of them say that they wish they had never started. The new clauses would tackle young people’s access to tobacco-related products.

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

It is often vulnerable children, and often those in care, who start smoking early, so does my hon. Friend agree that it is incredible that the Government have so far said that they will not support these new clauses?

[Mary Kelly Foy]

Yes, it is absolutely incredible. We have heard that a tobacco plan might be on its way, but every day that goes by without our putting these recommendations in place is another day on which someone dies of tobacco harm, and on which more young people become addicted to nicotine products.

Discussions with the Treasury on the “polluter pays” levy would not be necessary. The Food and Drug Administration administers the user fee in the United States, and the Department of Health and Social Care could and should administer such a scheme here.

New clause 11 has been revised in the light of the Government’s response to our proposal in the Committee, in which they cited the need to

“review the evidence base of increasing the age of sale to 21 in more detail”.––[Official Report, Health and Care Public Bill Committee, 28 October 2021; c. 816.]

They also stated the need for a public consultation. I agree that a consultation is the appropriate next step, so the new clause has been revised to require the Government to consult on raising the age of sale for tobacco from 18 to 21 within three months of the passage of this legislation.

To sum up, my new clauses address loopholes in the law. They would take incremental and obvious next steps to strengthen tobacco regulation still further, and they would provide the funding that is desperately needed to deliver the Government’s smoke-free 2030 ambition—funding that the spending review failed to deliver. When I was chair of the Gateshead tobacco control alliance, I saw the damage that smoking can do. It shortens life expectancy, increases the pressure on our health services, drives down productivity and drains wealth from our poorest communities—and for one in every two smokers, it will kill them. Eventually, the Government will have to accept that the measures proposed are necessary. The only question is how long they will wait, and how many lives will be ruined by tobacco in the meantime. I urge the Government to accept these new clauses in full.