Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the annual Stoptober campaign in getting smokers (a) to switch to vaping and (b) to quit entirely.

The primary objective of Stoptober is to generate quit attempts amongst smokers in England. Latest available data show that 16% of smokers in England reported making a Stoptober quit attempt in 2017.

Although switching to vaping is not the primary objective of the campaign, latest figures show that 42% of smokers who made a Stoptober quit reported using an e-cigarette in 2017.

In 2017, 8% of smokers making a Stoptober quit attempt reported still not smoking by early November. Public Health England does not measure beyond this point.