Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of children under the age of 16 that smoke who smoke in each year since 2003.
The smoking prevalence among regular smokers aged 11-15 years has been falling since 2002. The most recent estimate was 3% in 2016, down from 9% in 2003 as presented in the following table:
Year | Smoking prevalence (%) |
2003 | 9 |
2004 | 9 |
2005 | 9 |
2006 | 9 |
2007 | 6 |
2008 | 6 |
2009 | 6 |
2010 | 5 |
2011 | 5 |
2012 | 4 |
2013 | 3 |
2014 | 3 |
2015 | -* |
2016 | 3 |
Note: *No data available as the survey changed from annual to every two years.
Source: NHS Digital – Smoking, drinking and drug use in young people survey.