To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much the NHS spent on the treatment of smoking-related diseases in 2011.

The Department does not maintain an annual record of the cost to the national health service of treating people with smoking-related diseases.

However, the estimated cost to the NHS of treating smoking-related illnesses in 2006-07 was £2.7 billion. Further information about NHS costs relating to smoking is set out in paragraph 2.10 of “Healthy Lives, Healthy People: A Tobacco Control Plan for England”, published in March 2011.

The cost of tobacco use are much greater than just the cost to the NHS. In 2010, the report “Cough up: balancing tobacco income and costs in society”, Policy Exchange, London, estimated that the wider cost to society of tobacco use is almost £14 billion per annum.

A copy of the Tobacco Control Plan and the Policy Exchange’s report have already been placed in the Library.