Smoking is responsible for around 80,000 deaths a year in the UK, costs our country £17 billion a year and puts a huge burden on the National Health Service. That is why we will shortly introduce the tobacco and vapes Bill to Parliament in the coming weeks, to create the first smoke-free generation and further crack down on youth vaping. The Bill will be informed by our recent consultation, which we will publish soon.
My Lords, all parties have agreed on the need to reduce the prevalence of smoking in this country to below 5% by 2030, so the Bill to prevent young people ever becoming smokers is vital. Does the Minister accept that we need to do more to help the over 6 million people in this country who are addicted smokers, most of whom are struggling to give up smoking and want to? They are damaging their health and that of others affected by smoking. Does he agree that allowing integrated care boards to make further cuts to tobacco dependence treatment budgets will not help us to achieve this target?
I thank the noble Lord. Actually, Khan recommended four major things to achieve that in his report Smokefree 2030. The first was to increase the anti-smoking spend that the noble Lord refers to. As part of this, we propose to increase that spend from £70 million to £140 million—so we are doing absolutely what the noble Lord suggests. The second was to increase the age of sale, which of course this legislation is all about. The third was to promote vaping to help quit smoking. Again, the legislation will do that. The fourth was to increase NHS prevention methods which, again, we will do from here. So it is very much a range of measures to stop people ever smoking but also to stop many who are currently smoking by helping them to quit.
Further to the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, the Government commissioned the independent Khan review, which concluded that the Government would miss their smoke-free target for England by several years unless an additional £125 million a year was spent on prevention. Given the pressure on public expenditure, the Khan review instead suggested a levy on the profits of the tobacco industry, based on the polluter pays principle. Does that proposal not commend itself to my noble friend?
As I say, we have tried to answer the four major points that Khan put forward, including doubling the spend from £70 million a year to £140 million. The levy was the one thing that was not so much favoured; there was a lot of modelling done on it and the thought was that the net increase would be only about £25 million or so. That is why it was thought better to look at taxes on tobacco itself as a way of raising revenue, and generally introducing the four major methods that Khan recommended.
My Lords, I refer to my interests as set out in the register. Would the Minister agree that smoking in pregnancy has enormously damaging effects, leading to much poorer birth outcomes than for mothers who do not smoke? Would he also agree that incentives to pregnant women not to smoke have been very effective? In the light of this, could he give a guarantee that the existing scheme, which comes to an end this year, will be continued with adequate resources, so that it is not in any way disrupted?
I totally agree with the noble Baroness on the importance of stopping smoking—always, but especially during pregnancy. In fact, we have a maternity debate coming straight after this, where this will be one of the things that we discuss. I hope, from showing that we are putting all this spend in place, that we are backing everything that works. As long as the anti-smoking in pregnancy measure continues to work, that will be one of the major features to make sure that we are continuing to stop all activity, but especially in pregnant ladies.