Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether it remains the Government's policy to reduce the prevalence of adult smoking to 5% or less by 2030.

Smoking rates in England have been consistently falling and are currently at the lowest rate on record at 12.7%, based on 2022 data.

The Government remains firmly committed to the ambition of England being Smokefree by 2030, namely a smoking prevalence of 5% or less, and recognises that progress must be accelerated to meet this bold ambition. On 4 October 2023, the Prime Minister unveiled plans to introduce a new law to stop children who turn 14 this year or younger from ever legally being sold cigarettes, in a bid to create the first ‘smokefree generation’. This announcement was accompanied with additional funding including £70 million extra per year to fund local stop smoking services and £5 million this year and then £15 million per year thereafter to fund national stop smoking marketing campaigns.

This is in addition to a range of other measures which we announced in April 2023. The measures included a new national swap to stop scheme to provide vapes to one million smokers to help them to quit, and an evidence-based financial incentives scheme to help all pregnant smokers to quit.

We are confident that these new measures, in addition to the actions we are already taking, will set us on course to achieve our Smokefree 2030 ambition. We will continue to monitor progress.