Results 1-13 of 13 for smoking speaker:Stephen Timms

Written Answers — Treasury: Non-domestic Rates: Valuation (28 Oct 2008)

Stephen Timms: A copy of the Valuation Office Agency's Rating Instruction and Advice reference 260106, which was updated to include advice on the Smoking Ban in June 2008, has been placed in the Library.

Orders of the Day: Clause 1 — Charges and rates for 2007-08 (30 Apr 2007)

Stephen Timms: No, this certainly is not smoke and mirrors; rather, it is an actual reduction. An examination of tax, national insurance and tax credits shows a reduction of take to the Treasury of £2.5 billion. The Budget also increased taxation on polluting activities, announced a major reform of empty property rate relief, and addressed avoidance. Those three measures between them provided the...

Royal Assent: Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation (27 Mar 2007)

Stephen Timms: ..., we have; the total envelope of projections was set out in the Red Book. The hon. Lady has declined to match that, and I will return to that point. The Opposition have said that the Budget is all smoke and mirrors; that point was made in tonight's debate. I am pleased to be able to say that the public have seen through that false claim. What the Budget does is clear, so it is no surprise...

Finance (No. 2) Bill: Clause 1 — Rates of Tobacco Products Duty (6 Apr 2005)

Mr Stephen Timms: The inflation increase in clause 1 maintains the high real price of cigarettes. The aim is to encourage people to smoke less or to quit, and to discourage children and young people from taking up the habit. The organisation Action on Smoking and Health has welcomed the proposal. The hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) is right to raise the issue of smuggling. The Government have...

Mineworkers' Compensation (16 Oct 2003)

Mr Stephen Timms: ...evidence of substantial exposure to dust. The criterion for entry to the process was evidence of pneumoconiosis—a disease that occurs only as a result of dust exposure and not as a result of smoking. As my hon. Friend will appreciate, there is a need to disentangle the two. The claimants' solicitors felt unable to accept that offer on the basis that they believed all men in the...

Mineworkers' Compensation (16 Oct 2003)

Mr Stephen Timms: ...COPD in the great majority of surface-only workers, even over a working lifetime. It follows that if surface-only workers have COPD, according to our advice it is most likely to have been caused by smoking, as it certainly can be. It is worth remembering that, under the terms of the underground scheme, the effects of smoking 15 cigarettes a day are held to cause damage equivalent to the...

Mineworkers' Compensation (16 Oct 2003)

Mr Stephen Timms: I think that my hon. Friend may not have quite caught my point. I was making the point that, indeed, under the terms of the underground scheme, the effects of smoking 15 cigarettes a day are held to cause damage equivalent to the dust exposure of a face worker, and compensation payments are discounted accordingly. The Department's medical advice is based on the only dust figures for the...

Public Bill Committee: Finance Bill: Clause 4 - Rates of tobacco products duty (26 Apr 2001)

Mr Stephen Timms: ...is made, but it is important to place on the record that the catastrophic situation described by the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs is not borne out by evidence and that the prevalence of smoking is not rising. I agree with comments about the seriousness of tobacco smuggling and that no one should be doing it. I welcome the robust position taken on that by my hon. Friends and the...

Public Bill Committee: Finance Bill: Clause 4 - Rates of tobacco products duty (26 Apr 2001)

Mr Stephen Timms: ...that the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight) made. He misrepresented the Government targets, but I will come to that later. I draw his attention to the submission from Action on Smoking and Health, which was prepared in the run-up to the Budget. In section 2, entitled ``Tobacco taxation—a successful policy'', it describes how tobacco duty rises since 1997 have...

Public Bill Committee: Finance Bill: Clause 4 - Rates of tobacco products duty (26 Apr 2001)

Mr Stephen Timms: ...debatable assumptions about how the amount of hand-rolling tobacco is translated into the number of cigarettes. The key measure is not the number of cigarettes consumed but the number of people who smoke. The general household survey shows clearly that that has not been increasing. Indeed, the data show a considerable drop in teenage smoking since 1997. His pessimism on both fronts is...

Public Bill Committee: Finance Bill: Clause 4 - Rates of tobacco products duty (26 Apr 2001)

Mr Stephen Timms: No, I am advising the hon. Gentleman that the general household survey shows clearly that the prevalence of smoking has not been rising. That is an observed fact. The key objective of the Department of Health, quite rightly, is that the number of people who smoke should be controlled.

Public Bill Committee: Finance Bill: Clause 4 - Rates of tobacco products duty (26 Apr 2001)

Mr Stephen Timms: ...join my right hon. Friend and other hon. Members in welcoming you back to the Chair, Dr. Clark. Your immense experience of our proceedings as well as your well known fairness will help us greatly. Smoking is the single largest cause of preventable illness and premature death in the UK, killing 120,000 people every year. The increase in duty on cigarettes has encouraged existing smokers to...

Orders of the Day — Finance Bill: Rate of Duty on Beer (2 May 2000)

Mr Stephen Timms: My hon. Friend is right about the importance of tobacco duty as part of an anti-smoking policy. Interestingly, the shadow Health Secretary agrees with him on that point. During the debates on last year's Finance Bill, the Opposition tabled amendments to freeze or reduce all tobacco duties on the grounds that the rises encouraged smuggling. To listen to some speeches from Opposition Members...