Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the impact of chewing tobacco on health inequalities among Bengali women.

No formal assessment of the safety of chewing tobacco has been made and there are no current plans to assess its impact on health inequalities among Bengali women. However, traditional smokeless tobacco products are harmful to health by causing oral, oesophageal and pancreatic cancers. It remains our policy to help people to quit all forms of tobacco use through behavioural support from stop smoking services, nicotine replacement therapy or e-cigarettes.