Orders of the Day — Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Bill [Lords]

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:30 pm on 29 April 2002.

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Photo of Alan Milburn Alan Milburn Secretary of State, Department of Health 4:30, 29 April 2002

I am sure that they and others have played their part in ensuring that we secure what we all want—an improvement in public health for all people in our country.

This Bill forms a core part of our strategy to reduce smoking and so improve health. Smoking is the single biggest cause of early death in our country. As Sir George Alberti, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said in the college's report "Nicotine Addiction in Britain",

"the humble cigarette is responsible for a dozen times more deaths in the UK in the past 40 years than British casualties from world war two—over 5 million."

Every year, smoking kills 120,000 people. It causes one in five deaths in Britain. It causes 85 per cent. of lung cancer deaths. It causes cancer of the mouth, larynx, oesophagus, bladder, kidneys, stomach and pancreas. It causes one in seven deaths from heart disease. Smoking is also one of the principal causes of health inequalities in our country. In pregnancy it contributes to low birth weight among babies, itself one of the principal causes of higher rates of infant mortality. Quite simply, it is a public health disaster, and we are determined to tackle it.

Our 1998 White Paper "Smoking Kills", published by my right hon. Friend Mr. Dobson, was the first comprehensive programme of action produced by any Government to prevent and reduce deaths from smoking. That programme has helped us to secure a reduction in smoking prevalence. Among adults, tobacco consumption had been falling consistently until 1994. It rose in 1996, but I am pleased to say that, according to figures obtained from the general household surveys undertaken in both 1998 and 2000, it has now fallen again. Perhaps even more significantly, smoking among manual groups, where tobacco consumption is highest, has also fallen, after rising between 1992 and 1996. Because the fall among manual groups has been faster than that in society as a whole, it is helping to tackle health inequalities in our country.

That progress reflects the approach we have been taking in recent years to tackle the problem of smoking. First, we have taken fiscal and other measures. We have increased tobacco duties, because there is a clear link between price and consumption levels. We have also taken measures to crack down on the real problem of illegal smuggling of cigarettes and other tobacco products into the UK. More than £200 million is being spent by the Government on tackling that illegal trade, which poses such a health hazard to our country. Again, that effort is beginning to pay dividends, with Customs successfully seizing almost 3 billion cigarettes in 2000–01 alone— 1 billion more than in the previous year.

Secondly, we have launched a major public education campaign, including television advertising and an NHS smoking helpline, which so far has taken 400,000 calls. In my view, people have a right to choose to smoke. If that is what they want to do, they have a right to do it, but they also have a right to know the implications of their decision for themselves and, more importantly, for others.

Thirdly, alongside information to encourage people to give up, we are providing more help for smokers who say that they want to give up. It is worth bearing in mind that all the surveys say that seven in 10 people who smoke say that they want to quit the habit. We are giving them more help to do so than they have ever had. Today, the NHS has the most comprehensive smoking cessation services anywhere in the world. Both Zyban and nicotine replacement therapy are available on prescription. There are specialist counselling services to help those who find it hardest to quit, especially in the poorest areas. Those resources are producing results.

In the first six months of the last financial year, over 50,000 people had quit smoking with help from those services. Smoking among pregnant women is falling. We will be looking to expand those services still further in the years to come.

The next step in that comprehensive programme of action on smoking is to end tobacco sponsorship and advertising. Some have said that the Bill is anti-smoker and anti-choice. In my view, it is a tough but I hope proportionate response to the marketing and promotion of the only legally available product that is guaranteed to kill one in two of its regular, long-term users. It will help reduce tobacco consumption.