Tobacco Control Plan

Debate between Sharon Hodgson and Bob Blackman

Thursday 19th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Hodgson]

That is important, especially when, as the Minister has acknowledged, we are in such straitened times when it comes to local authority budgets. I am sure that Fresh north-east will be very grateful for what he has said.

Sadly, other areas are not as lucky. They do not have a Fresh north-east; if only they did. Stop smoking services are roughly 300% more effective than quitting by going cold turkey, but in some places the specialist services are being decommissioned altogether. For example, in Blackpool, smoking prevalence is 22.5%, while the average for England is 15.5%, yet Blackpool Council recently decommissioned its specialist smoking cessation service, citing a number of factors including public sector budget cuts.

That example leads me to my next point. Between 2012 and 2014, the healthy life expectancy for newborn baby boys in England was the lowest in Blackpool at 55 years. Again, the shortest life expectancy among men was in Blackpool too, at 74.7 years. Interestingly, in 2014, Blackpool had the highest smoking prevalence at 26.9%. Wokingham had the lowest smoking prevalence at 9.8%, but the highest healthy life expectancy of 70.5 years. That is a 15.5 year difference between healthy life expectancies, and while there will be several factors in play in these figures, it is clear that smoking is one of the largest causes of health inequalities in England.

Some 26% of routine and manual workers now smoke, compared with 10% of those in managerial and professional jobs. This has slightly increased rather than decreased the inequality from 2016. Some 28% of adults with no formal qualifications are current smokers compared with only 8% of those with a degree. It is these people—manual workers or those from low socioeconomic backgrounds—who suffer the most when the Government cut spending to public health services. I therefore ask the Minister what steps his Department is taking to ensure that these people are reached by local smoking cessation services. What assessment has the Minister made of the impact that smoking rates have on widening health inequalities, and how does he intend to address them?

Finally, I move on to smoking in pregnancy. The Government’s ambition to reduce smoking in pregnancy to 6% or less by 2022 is laudable. In 2015-16 the rate was 10.6%. However, new data published recently showed that the rate of smoking during pregnancy in 2017-18 had increased slightly, to 10.8%. It is therefore deeply concerning that the Smoking in Pregnancy Challenge Group, which I recently met, has warned that this ambition is unlikely to be met unless urgent action is taken.

In 2010, 19,000 babies were born with a low birth weight because their mothers had smoked during pregnancy. Up to 5,000 miscarriages, 300 perinatal deaths and around 2,200 premature births each year have been attributed to smoking during pregnancy. In addition, many other children will be three times more likely to take up smoking in later life because they live in smoking households. If we are going to have a smoke-free generation in the future, the Government must take urgent action to ensure that rates of smoking in pregnancy fall. We must not forget that it will be those very babies who will become the smoke-free generation that we all hope to see.

The current target is to reduce smoking in pregnancy to 6% or less by 2022. If that is achieved, it could mean around 30,000 fewer women smoking during pregnancy, leading to between 45 and 73 fewer stillborn babies, 11 to 25 fewer neonatal deaths, seven to 11 fewer sudden infant deaths, 482 to 796 fewer pre-term babies, and 1,455 to 2,407 fewer babies born at a low birth weight. That is something to aim for, but it will only happen if the Government take urgent steps to reduce the number of women smoking during pregnancy.

[Bob Blackman]

On behalf of the all-party group on smoking and health, I thank the hon. Lady for speaking at the launch of our recent report. Does she agree that we must encourage not only pregnant women to give up, but their partners, too, so that pregnant women no longer have to face the challenge of not only being deprived of smoking, but of seeing their partner smoke in front of them? This should be a partnership for both parties.

[Mrs Hodgson]

That is a very pertinent point. We all know the damage of passive smoking. It is all well and good if the mother gives up smoking—that will definitely help her and the baby during pregnancy—but if smoking is still going on in the household, the children will still be growing up in an environment of passive smoking. I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that important point and for his excellent work as chair of the all-party group.

I welcomed what the Minister said about tackling smoking in pregnancy, but will he also tell us how he will target work to encourage younger women and women from more disadvantaged backgrounds to give up smoking during pregnancy? Teenage mothers are nearly four times as likely to smoke before or during pregnancy than those aged 35 and over. Young mothers are less likely to quit before or during pregnancy, and only 38% of mothers under the age of 20 did so, compared with 58% of mothers aged 35 or above. It is clear that the Government need to tackle smoking in pregnancy, and smoking in childhood, as a matter of urgency to achieve their ambition of a smoke-free generation.

The Minister and his Department have a huge challenge on their hands if they are to meet the ambitious targets set out in the tobacco control plan. I still welcome the plan as the right thing to do, as I am sure the Minister does. Anything that is worth doing is going to be hard. We have four years to go before the target date, and the Minister must now look at how the Government can properly fund smoking cessation services to drive down smoking rates and support those who need extra help to stop smoking. I look forward to the remainder of the debate and the Minister’s closing remarks.