Before we begin, I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when not speaking in the debate, in line with current Government and House of Commons Commission guidance. I remind Members that they are asked by the Commission to have a covid lateral flow test twice a week if coming on to the parliamentary estate. This can be done either at the testing centre in the House or at home. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated, and when entering and leaving the room. That is particularly important today—it is so cold in this room that I do not blame you for huddling together. If any of you wish to put extra clothing on or to use a coat as a blanket, please do so.
That this House has considered the delivery of a new Tobacco Control Plan.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone—I believe for the first time in this place. I speak as, and declare an interest as, the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health. We welcomed the Government’s announcement of the new tobacco control plan, and we welcomed that it would be published this year, to deliver the Government’s smoke-free by 2030 ambition. I do not want to put any pressure on my hon. Friend the Minister, but she does not have long to achieve the first ambition. The Government’s ambition to reduce smoking rates to 5% or below, making smoking obsolete, is one that all of us in the all-party parliamentary group share. I believe that will be endorsed on an all-party basis this morning, because it is clearly a great way to ensure the health of the nation.
For me, this is deeply personal. Both of my parents died of cancer caused by smoking. My late mother was only 47 when she died of lung and throat cancer, as she was a very heavy smoker for most of her life. I do not want to see families go through what my family had to go through during those terrible days. For me, it is a lifetime ambition to ensure that people understand the risks of smoking, the damage to their health and the damage to their families.
The all-party parliamentary group is keen to support the delivery of the ambition of a smoke-free Britain, which is why, in June this year, we published a report setting out our recommendations for the tobacco control plan for England. Those recommendations were endorsed by more than 50 organisations, including the Royal College of Physicians, Cancer Research UK and the British Heart Foundation. On behalf of the APPG, I am pleased to welcome my hon. Friend the Public Health Minister to her new post, and indeed to welcome her opposite number; to put our recommendations on the record; and to give the Minister the chance to respond to those views.
I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing forward this debate. On the point about the 70,000 deaths, is it not important to understand that that is year after year after year? Would he set that in contrast with the awful toll we have had from covid and the terrible restrictions that we have necessarily placed upon the population of this country, and agree with me that getting rid of this horrible substance would be far less of an intrusion on people’s liberties than the sort of things we have seen over the past 18 months? Over time, that would have a far greater impact on health, wellbeing and people’s ability to go about their daily lives. It would reduce the burden on the national health service very substantially indeed, and address the health inequalities that sadly mean the life expectancy of the richest and poorest in this country are currently separated by upwards of 10 years.
I could not have put it better myself. My right hon. Friend quite clearly makes the comparison between covid-19 and smoking. People cannot help catching covid, but when they smoke they make the choice as to whether they inflict life-changing circumstances on themselves.
Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
Like my hon. Friend, I had a parent who died in their 40s from throat cancer. As we try to migrate 7 million people away from burnt tobacco, the challenge is to move them to less harmful forms of nicotine. Their addiction is to the nicotine; they crave nicotine, not the burning of tobacco. If we can make these transitions, we can reduce harm at a much quicker rate.
My hon. Friend is quite right. Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs on the market, if not the most addictive, and perfectly legal to consume. The issue is whether someone, once addicted to nicotine, can quit. The damage is done not necessary by the nicotine, but by the delivery mechanism by which someone gets the nicotine.
Anything that reduces the risk of cancer or other related diseases has got to be good news. We can migrate people and encourage them to quit. Ideally, they give up completely. However, because it is so addictive they may need help and assistance to do that. Vaping and non-heated tobacco are ways of migrating people to safer means of delivering the nicotine they desire.
Taking up the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), ending smoking is essential if we are to level up the nation’s health after the pandemic. We need to reduce health inequalities between rich and poor, and increase healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035, in line with the Government’s manifesto commitments.
As well as being necessary, tobacco control measures are popular with voters for every main party, including the Conservative party, which both my hon. Friend the Minister and I represent. Results from the annual YouGov survey of over 10,000 adults in England, funded by Action on Smoking and Health, show that more than three quarters of the public support the Government’s smoke-free 2030 ambition, and eight out of 10 members of the public support Government intervention to limit smoking.
The Government have the full support of the APPG in delivering the smoke-free 2030 ambition. However, as the Government stated in the 2019 prevention Green Paper, achieving that ambition will require “bold action.” Inequalities in smoking rates have grown in recent years, not shrunk. In order to be smoke-free by 2030, we need to reduce smoking by two thirds in just a decade—we have only nine years left to achieve that—and by three quarters for smokers in routine and manual occupations. At current rates of decline, Cancer Research UK has estimated we will miss the target by seven years, and double that for the poorest in society.
I must say that I am opposed to punitive taxation policies, because I do not think they work. Does the hon. Member accept that tobacco companies already pay the Government £13 billion? An additional levy could lead—and most likely would lead, as the evidence shows—to a significant increase in criminality, because instead of paying for taxable product, people will buy smuggled product. Is that not a huge worry that he has about introducing a levy?
I will come to some of these issues in a few moments, if the hon. Gentleman will be patient and let me build the case. Obviously, it has been estimated by ASH that the funding needed for a comprehensive tobacco control plan to deliver a smoke-free 2030 would cost around £266 million for England and £315 million in total for the UK. A levy could raise around £700 million from the tobacco manufacturers, to be spent on tobacco control and other public health initiatives. The devolved Governments would also have the ability to opt into the scheme, should they so wish.
Such a scheme is more than justified in response to market failure that allows an industry, whose products kill consumers when used as intended, to make exorbitant profits. While net operating profits for most consumer staples, such as food, beverages and household goods, stands at 12% to 20%, Imperial Brands in the UK enjoyed net operating profits of 71% in 2019. That is £71 in profit for every £100 in sales. In 2018, it is estimated that tobacco manufacturers made over £900 million in profits in the UK alone.
Sir Charles Walker
The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) makes an interesting point about taxation. Would it be possible for politicians, with all their imagination, to use the taxation system to encourage cigarette and tobacco companies to transition their products away from combustible tobacco to less dangerous nicotine-delivery mechanisms?
My hon. Friend makes a good point; clearly, research could be undertaken to establish how we could use the taxation system to transition people in that way. I personally welcome the escalators that have been put on tobacco products and continued by the Chancellor.
Despite the enormous profitability for those companies, major tobacco manufacturers pay very little profit tax in the UK. That probably reflects their global engagement in diverse and elaborate tax avoidance strategies, which allowed Imperial Brands to lower its UK corporate tax bill by an estimated £1.8 billion over the past 10 years, and British American Tobacco to reduce its bill by an estimated £760 million over the same period. Public support is strong for such a measure, with 77% of the public supporting making tobacco manufacturers pay a levy or licence fee to the Government for measures to help smokers quit and to prevent young people from taking up smoking, and just 6% opposing it.
The covid-19 pandemic has put huge pressure on public finances, and there is a desperate need for bold, properly funded policies to level up public health after the pandemic. Our recommendations on the “polluter pays” approach are backed up by a much more detailed policy paper on how this would work, which we commend to the Minister and her officials. Will the Minister commit that the recommendations for a “polluter pays” mechanism will be included in any consideration of how the tobacco control plan should be funded?
My last major point is about raising the age of sale. If England is to be smoke-free by 2030, we need to prevent people from starting smoking at the most susceptible ages—when they are adolescents and young adults. Two thirds of those who try smoking go on to become regular smokers, only a third of whom succeed in quitting during their lifetime. Experimentation is rare after the age of 21. Therefore, the more we can do to prevent exposure and access to tobacco before that age, the more young people we can stop from becoming hooked into this deadly addiction.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for securing the debate and for his work as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health, of which I am vice-chair.
Two years after the Government stated their ambition to make England smoke-free by 2030, projections show that they will miss that target by seven years, and double that for the poorest in society. Despite a promise of further action on tobacco, we are still waiting for the new tobacco control plan, which the Government pledged to publish this year. In the absence of that new plan, the Health and Care Bill is a timely opportunity to take the first step towards a smoke-free 2030.
Despite the urgency of the issue and my best efforts in Committee, the Health and Care Bill fails to make a single mention of tobacco or smoking. To correct that oversight, I tabled amendments to the Bill, based on recommendations made by the APPG on smoking and health, including proposals for a “polluter pays” levy, health warnings on cigarettes and inside packaging, and to close the loophole allowing e-cigarettes to be marketed at children. Those measures are all low-cost or revenue-generating, are popular with the public and could be implemented quickly and easily by the Government. Although the Government expressed support for the principle behind the proposals, they rejected every single one, saying that they wanted to wait and see the evidence.
The Government have cited the need to wait for the publication of the post-implementation reviews of the Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations 2015 and the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016. The Government were required by law to publish those by May 2021. That has now drifted to an aim to publish by the end of the year. Will the Minister say how much longer we will have to wait for the Government to start taking action to deliver the smoke-free 2030 ambition? She should know that if the APPG’s amendments are not adopted in the House of Commons, they will be retabled in the other place.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I join the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), as the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health, on securing an important debate, and I compliment his outstanding record in the subject area of smoking cessation. As he will know, I chair a separate APPG—the all-party parliamentary group for vaping—which I established in 2014. I do not vape, have never smoked and have no personal interest in vaping, but I set up the APPG after meeting with a proprietor of a small business in my Rugby constituency, who was concerned that impending legislation from the EU—the tobacco products directive—might mean that his customers would not have access to a product that had enabled many of them to finally stop smoking.
Another reason for getting involved was that a member of staff in my office had tried every mechanism available to him—patches and other routes—to quit smoking, but the only thing that had worked was vaping. Since setting up the APPG for vaping, we have heard from many members of the public about the benefits of vaping in enabling them to stop smoking, and the support that has been given to that position by Public Health England’s assertion in 2015 that vaping was 95% safer than smoking combustible tobacco.
I believe that two points should be integral to the treatment of vaping in the forthcoming tobacco control plan. First, there is the recognition of relative risk and harm reduction products, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker). Secondly, there is the fundamental importance of distinguishing between combustible tobacco, which we all know and have heard in the debate already is extremely harmful, and the far less harmful non-combustible alternatives that are available. The new plan should continue on the progressive path that the UK has forged over the last few years by continuing to recognise the importance of reduced-risk products in reducing smoking prevalence in our country. It is absolutely essential that we do not conflate smoking combustible tobacco with vaping. That position is not helped by the fact that we regularly see in public places signs telling people that smoking is not permitted and nor is vaping. Signage and messages such as that are putting it in people’s minds that there is an equivalent harm between smoking and vaping, when we know that is not the case. They are entirely separate activities and should be treated as such.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on securing this important debate. He and I share many interests in common in this House, and this is one of them. I welcome the new Public Health Minister to her role. It is vital that smoking should be at the top of the Government’s list of priorities. Although Northern Ireland and the devolved nations are responsible for our own public health policies, the Government in Westminster retain responsibility for important UK-wide policies. Ensuring that the Minister understands the importance of urgent action on smoking is therefore vital for ensuring that we make the progress we need to make in Northern Ireland.
Last year, a review of Northern Ireland’s progress in the 10-year tobacco control survey, published in 2012, was released. Although we met our target in ensuring a minimum of 5% of the smoking population accesses smoking cessation services annually, that was the only target from the 2012 strategy that had been achieved, which is disappointing. Quite clearly, we are not hitting our targets at a population level. Results from Northern Ireland’s health survey show there has been no significant change in smoking rates from 2018-19, with 17% of the adult population still smoking—the highest rates in the UK. This is extremely disappointing and, as my party’s health spokesperson, I am concerned about what is happening.
Of most concern, however, is that we are failing the most disadvantaged smokers. The target was to reduce smoking rates among manual workers from 31% to 20% by 2020. We are far from this, with rates among manual workers still at a very stubborn 27%. Similarly, rates of smoking in pregnancy have barely declined over the years, despite that having been a priority in the strategy, as the hon. Member for Harrow East mentioned. We had hoped to reduce levels from 15% in 2010 to 9% by 2020. However, the proportion of pregnant women who smoke at the time of delivery is still a very disappointing 14%. We all know that that puts women and their babies at risk of serious and avoidable harm. We are, however, doing better with children and young people—another priority area. Smoking rates among 11 to 16-year-olds have been halved to 4% since 2010. We had set a target of 3%, which was missed. We are not there yet, but that is one area of improvement.
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The APPG has a long-term track record of acting as a critical friend to the Government on the tobacco control agenda. I am confident that this collaborative and constructive relationship will continue. Although smoking rates in my constituency are lower than the English average, there is no room for complacency. In Harrow, more than one in 10 people still smoke and smoking kills around 250 people a year. That is obviously far too many. In 2018-19, there were 1,566 smoking-attributable hospital admissions and 370 emergency admissions for chronic respiratory disease, which is caused almost entirely by smoking. That is in one constituency, so imagine what smoking does to the national health service up and down the country.
Research presented to the all-party parliamentary group shows that, on average, smokers are likely to need social care a decade earlier than non-smokers, and particularly never-smokers. Smoking-related disease and disability make it hard to carry out normal daily activities such as getting dressed, walking across a room and making a meal. Most of us take these things for granted, but we should not.
The importance of the smoke-free 2030 ambition is clear. As the Minister herself stated recently,
“tobacco continues to account for the biggest share of avoidable premature death in this country. It contributes half the difference in life expectancy between richest and poorest.”—[Official Report, 1 November 2021; Vol. 702, c. 621.]
More than 70,000 people died from smoking last year in England alone. For every person killed by smoking, at least another 30 are living with serious smoking-related illnesses.
There are still nearly 6 million smokers in England. We will only achieve a smoke-free 2030 by motivating more smokers to make quit attempts, using the most effective quitting aids, while also reducing the number of children and young adults who start smoking each year. With 1,500 people dying from smoking-related diseases every week and less than a decade to achieve a smoke-free 2030, there is no time to waste.
Disappointingly, with the end of the year in sight, there is still no sign of the tobacco control plan that was promised this year. My first question to my hon. Friend the Minister, therefore, is whether she can she set out a timeline for the publication of the next tobacco control plan. But the tobacco control plan is only as strong as the measures it includes. That is why the APPG was disappointed that the Government rejected the amendments to the Health and Care Bill tabled by my friend the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy), and supported by myself and other officers of the APPG, in Committee.
Those amendments would have closed the loopholes in the regulations that expose children to the insidious marketing tactics of the tobacco industry, provided funding for tobacco control and strengthened the regulation of tobacco. As it stands, the Bill fails to include a single mention of smoking or tobacco and represents a major missed opportunity to introduce key policies for achieving a smoke-free 2030. That is why we have retabled the amendments on Report. I hope the Government will look at them sympathetically, because the Bill is the ideal opportunity for them to deliver their 2019 commitment to finish the job and introduce the legislation that is needed if we are to achieve a smoke-free 2030. My second question is whether the Minister will commit to considering the adoption of tobacco amendments to the Health and Care Bill on Report.
My next area is the “polluter pays” levy. The bold action that the Government acknowledge is needed cannot be taken without investment. The Health Foundation estimates that a minimum £1 billion is needed to restore public health funding to its 2015 levels, with more needed to level up public health across the country. While there was some positive news on tobacco taxation in the recent spending review, which we welcomed, unfortunately the Government opted not to increase the public health grant to local authorities. As a consequence, we need to establish new sources of funding.
The Government promised to consider a US-style “polluter pays” levy on tobacco manufacturers in the 2019 prevention Green Paper. This scheme would mirror the approach taken in the United States, where user fee legislation raises $711 million annually from the tobacco manufacturers, with the funds then used to cover the cost of stop smoking campaigns, tobacco control policy development, implementation and enforcement.
Raising the age of sale from 16 to 18 was associated with a 30% reduction in smokers aged 16 and 17 in England, as was increasing the age of sale to 21 in the United States among 18 to 20-year-olds. University College London estimates that increasing the legal age of sale from 18 to 21 would immediately result in 95,000 fewer smokers aged 18 to 20 in 2022, and an additional 77,000 fewer smokers over the long term, to 2030. That would reduce smoking prevalence among 18 to 20-year-olds to 2%, compared to 9.6% without the intervention. It would be simple and inexpensive to introduce, as ongoing enforcement costs are already factored into the existing age regulations. This is the regulatory measure that would have the biggest impact on reducing smoking prevalence among young adults.
Compared to non-smokers aged 18 to 20, smokers in this age group are more likely to be from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. As such, the effect in increasing the age of sale would be particularly beneficial in poorer and more disadvantaged communities. It could also have knock-on benefits. Smoking during pregnancy, for example, is concentrated among young, disadvantaged mothers, and whether a woman smokes during pregnancy is significantly affected by her wider environment. Discouraging experimentation and the uptake of smoking among young, disadvantaged people would prevent smoking in young women who may go on to become pregnant, as well as their male partners, friends and family members. That then reduces the likelihood that young women and their children will be exposed to toxic second-hand smoke during, or indeed after, pregnancy.
In keeping with the current age of sale legislation, raising the age to 21 is not about criminalising those under that age, but about making it much more difficult for them to get hold of tobacco. Increasing the age of sale is supported by a majority of the adult population, with 63% in favour and just 15% opposed. The support is consistent among Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat voters—I do not have figures for the Democratic Unionist party. That is also true for those aged 18 to 24, among whom 54% support the measure and just 24% oppose, and for 11 to 18-year-olds, of whom 59% support and 14% oppose.
Given the strength of the evidence and the public consensus that this is the right thing to do, I and other members of the all-party parliamentary group urge the Government to launch a public consultation on raising the age of sale. It is particularly important to encourage children and young adults, who will be most affected by the policy, to participate.
Experience of smoke-free law implementation in England in 2007 showed that a public consultation can help raise awareness and bolster compliance with legislation. For example, 98% of all premises and vehicles inspected in the first nine months after the law was implemented complied fully with the legislation, and 81% of business decision makers thought the law was a good idea.
When the Government rejected the amendment to the Health and Care Bill that would have provided the power to raise the age of sale to 21 by regulation, they said that they would like to review the evidence base for increasing the age of sale to 21 in more detail. That seems to me and others a very good idea. The best way to do that would be by carrying out a consultation, which is what we are calling for in the revised amendment on Report. I urge the Minister not to wait for the debate but to give her support to the consultation now.
My final question for the Minister is this: will she give a commitment to conducting a consultation on raising the age of sale from 18 to 21 within three months of Royal Assent of the Health and Care Bill? That brings me to my conclusion, Mr Bone. I welcome the opportunity to have this debate and look forward to contributions from right hon. and hon Members and the replies from the Front Benchers.
Today I want to briefly make the case for my proposals and address the Government’s arguments against them. The first proposal is to include health warnings on cigarettes and cigarette papers. Substantial research supports their implementation, and they are already under consideration in Canada, Australia and Scotland. Such warnings would be cheap and easy to implement through a simple amendment to the Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations 2015. The Government said they were sympathetic to the aims of the measure, but they are not willing to adopt it, citing the need to conduct further research and for more evidence. Warnings such as “smoking kills” have been shown to be effective on billboards and tobacco packs, so why would they not be effective on cigarette sticks, too? Adding warnings to cigarette sticks is also important because young people in particular are likely to begin smoking with an individual cigarette rather than packs. There have also been at least eight peer-reviewed academic studies published since 2015 that specifically looked at warnings on sticks and found them to be effective, particularly in making cigarettes less attractive to younger adolescents and never-smokers.
Cigarette pack inserts that provide health information have been required in Canada since 2000. Substantial evidence shows that they are effective, and research supports their use in the UK, too. The Government have already acknowledged in the prevention Green Paper that there could be a positive role for inserts giving quitting advice in tobacco products. Pack inserts are easy and cheap to introduce and, as the Government have acknowledged, could be implemented by a simple revision of the Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations 2015. Again, the Government refuse to adopt the amendment, citing the need for further research and public consultation and to wait for the recommendations of the post-implementation review of the SPOT regulations, yet there is no guarantee that the review will contain concrete recommendations. Indeed, the 2019 review failed to do that. My concern is that the measure needed will just get kicked into the long grass, putting the 2030 ambition at risk.
There are currently no controls on the use of branding to promote e-cigarette products, some of which, particularly e-liquids, are branded in a way that is clearly attractive to children through the use of bright colours, sweet names and cartoon characters. Research by YouGov for ASH found that in 2021, 3.3% of 11 to 17-year-old never-smokers have tried e-cigarettes once or twice; 0.5% use them less than weekly; and 0.2% use them more than once a week. Although those percentages seem low, it still amounts to 174,900 never-smokers trying e-cigarettes. Another 26,500 carried on using them, and 10,600 used them more than once a week. The ASH YouGov survey of adults and young people found that standardising the packaging of e-cigarettes and refills reduces the appeal of vaping to young people, particularly young children, while having little impact on adult smokers’ interest in using the products to quit smoking. Frustratingly, the amendment was voted down by the Government in Committee.
A further issue that must be addressed is that although it is illegal for e-cigarettes to be sold to children under 18, it is not illegal for them to be given out as free samples to under-18s. That loophole fails to deliver on the spirit of the legislation, which is designed to protect children from nicotine addiction. Clearly, the legislation needs amending to ban the sale and free distribution of any consumer nicotine product to under-18s. The Government inexplicably voted down that proposal in Committee. They said that they did not have a firm or robust evidence base at present to suggest that there was a widespread problem. As stated, around 174,900 never-smokers aged 11 to 17 have tried e-cigarettes and another 10,500 use them more than once a week. Does the Minister genuinely think that we should wait until their use of e-cigarettes becomes a significant problem before taking action to remove this loophole?
Finally, I want to talk about flavourings. The ban on flavourings in smoking tobacco was introduced because flavourings, particularly menthol, make it easier for young people to start smoking and increase the likelihood that they will become addicted smokers. However, the flavour ban only prohibits characterising flavours, which are subjective and difficult to measure, making the ban easy to circumvent and complex to oversee. Legislation in Canada bans all flavours, which is easier to implement and enforce. There is good reason to do that, as the tobacco industry has introduced several innovations that have exploited loopholes in the regulations to undermine the impact of the ban. For example, Japan Tobacco International launched a range of alternative products containing menthol, but which they claimed complied with the law. Figures in the Expressrevealed that 12 months after the ban came into force in 2020, the company had sold more than 100 million packs and made around £91.65 million in profits from menthol brands.
In addition, modified smoking accessories have been introduced, including cards, filter papers and filters, that are designed to add a menthol flavour to both hand-rolling tobacco and cigarette sticks. UCL’s smoking toolkit study found no decline in the proportion of smokers in England reporting menthol cigarette smoking following the introduction of the ban, and it suggested that smokers of menthol cigarettes were able to take advantage of the loophole. The flavour ban is clearly failing to prevent the sale of flavoured tobacco, which is why I propose extending the ban to all tobacco flavours, not just those described as characterising.
Again the Government oppose the measure, claiming that
“it is not clear how a ban on flavours would be enforced in practice”.––[Official Report, Health and Care Public Bill Committee, 28 October 2021; c. 815.]
That is not logical as it is much easier to enforce a complete ban on flavours than on only those defined as characterising, which is very subjective.
Does the Minister agree that the tobacco industry is making a mockery of the current flavour ban? Will she commit to closing the loophole by removing the limitation to only include flavours defined as characterising as soon as possible and extending the ban, which currently only applies to cigarettes, to all tobacco products and smoking accessories?
It was concerning to read through some of the documents from the recently concluded framework convention on tobacco control COP9 meeting and see a concerted effort by some to treat vaping as smoking. The hon. Member for City of Durham mentioned that concern. We should push back against such messages at all costs. Earlier, and by contrast, it has been pleasing to see the Government acknowledge the importance of vaping. They did so in the 2017 tobacco control plan and I believe the case for vaping has increased since that time. Of the estimated 3.3 million vapers in the UK, 1.8 million are ex-smokers and the balance are smokers who also vape. We need to recognise that category of people, who reduce their exposure to tobacco by continuing to smoke from time to time but who also use vaping as an alternative device. If we assume that when they are vaping they might otherwise be smoking, their use of vaping products at that time helps their health.
Vaping has played a significant role in recent years in reducing smoking prevalence. If the Government are serious about their 2019 commitment to getting smoke-free by 2030, the role of vaping should be reinforced and supported through the new tobacco control plan. However, as we have heard, we know that approximately 7 million people continue to smoke in the UK and we need to do all that we can to help the many people who have tried to move from cigarettes to safer, reduced-risk products, as my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne said.
Over the past year the APPG for vaping has conducted two inquiries, with two reports, which I know the Minister has seen. The first focused on the UK’s position at the recent COP9 and the second analysed the opportunities available for tobacco harm reduction policies post Brexit. I thank the Minister for her receipt of our reports and for meeting the members of the APPG ahead of COP9 last week. I know that all Members, not just the members of APPGs, will be interested to hear from the Minister some of her thoughts on the outcome of COP9. She will, I know, acknowledge the delay in publishing the tobacco control plan that we expected this summer, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East. Can the Minister confirm that the post-implementation review into tobacco-related products will be published beforehand, as recommended by the APPG in its most recent report? I hope that she can also confirm that the new plan will not be published prior to the publication of Office for National Statistics data for 2021 on smoking prevalence. We understand that that was something that her predecessor intimated.
The APPG’s expert recommendations on how we can achieve a smoke-free 2030 can embrace the ideas to help eliminate smoking, tackle inequalities and help level up and strengthen consumer confidence in vaping by tackling some of the misinformation that is currently prevalent. Our report called for the tobacco control plan to ensure that we meet our 2030 smoke-free target by setting out a clear plan to achieve it, embracing the concept of tobacco harm reduction and, as mentioned previously, ensuring that the post-implementation review of the tobacco and related products regulations is published ahead of time. It is imperative that the evidence gathered through the process is properly considered, transparently disclosed and used to best effect before we set out our new policy direction under the new tobacco control plan. The new plan should be used as an opportunity to introduce a multi-category approach that, as we heard earlier, encourages switching to less harmful alternatives when a smoker is unable or unlikely to quit entirely. As we have heard, we know that it is the process of combustion that carries the harm in cigarettes, so we need to fully analyse all the non-combustible reduced-risk products available on the market and align our regulations for all of these products—as has been advocated for by the Royal College of Surgeons.
Finally, we should use the new tobacco control plan as an opportunity for the UK to cement its place as the world leader in tobacco harm reduction. I have been on calls with representatives of other countries; we have a lead in this area that other countries look to and it is important that we maintain that. I know the Minister will agree that that means allowing sensible communication on the benefit of vaping, rather than banning their promotion and looking at the transposed EU tobacco products directive. That way, we can make sure that they are fit for purpose for our more progressive approach to tobacco control and harm reduction. By making these changes we will give ourselves a real chance to reach our smoke-free 2030 target. Without bold leadership—which I know the Minister will provide us with—there is a danger that we will miss that target; as a consequence, we will miss the opportunity to help those 7 million people who still smoke get off tobacco for good.
Although smoking rates have declined among children and young people, analysis by Cancer Research UK estimates that 10 children under 16 take up smoking every day across Northern Ireland. If that does not worry you, Mr Bone, it should. Children who live with smokers are almost three times more likely to take up smoking than children from non-smoking households, which creates a generational cycle of inequality, with smoking locked into disadvantaged communities. It is clear to me, in the statistics that are put forward, that disadvantaged communities are one of the areas that the Government and the strategy need to address.
A third of smokers in Northern Ireland still report smoking inside their home, which demonstrates that there is much further to go in creating smoke-free communities and protecting children and others in the household, but progress is being made. I trust that hon. Members saw the recent announcement that, not before time, Northern Ireland will join the other UK nations in banning smoking in cars carrying children. That overdue but welcome measure will help to protect our young people and prevent the creation of a new generation of smokers.
Smoking is a significant challenge in Northern Ireland, particularly in our most disadvantaged communities, which have faced so much adversity in the last 18 months. Those problems are not specific to Northern Ireland, however, as smoking and the inequality that it causes are challenges for the whole UK. Our job is not over yet. Northern Ireland and the whole UK have much further to go on smoking, and there is no time to lose.
I trust that the Minister agrees with all hon. Members and will be even more steadfast in her conviction by the end of the debate. The recent Budget and spending review was an opportunity to go much further in achieving the smoke-free society that we need. Regrettably, that was not realised. Tax increases are one of the most effective interventions that we have to reduce smoking rates and uptake, although that may not be all hon. Members’ opinion. Vitally, they are also the only intervention proven to reduce inequality.
I am convinced, like the hon. Member for Harrow East, that increasing the cost of tobacco products through taxes drives down smoking rates, increases tax revenues and reduces the cost to public finances and society. I hope that the Minister will give us some reassurance. It is an intervention that we should make the most of. The Chancellor’s announcement that the duty escalator rate on all tobacco products would increase by 2% above inflation, and by 6% above inflation on hand-rolling tobacco was welcome, but we could and should have gone further.
There is still a major gap in excise tax rates between factory made cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco, which makes the latter more affordable and encourages smokers to trade down to it rather than quitting. That disparity has made hand-rolling tobacco increasingly popular over the years, which should have been addressed by the Chancellor. It is not the Minister’s responsibility, but I am keen to hear her thoughts on it and what discussions she may have had with the Chancellor. In 1998, fewer than one in five smokers mainly rolled their own cigarettes, but that number is about one in three in Northern Ireland today. I would welcome that issue being addressed through tax revenue. Tobacco taxes are a reserved issue, so I hope that the new tobacco control plan will commit to maintaining high duty rates on tobacco products, as the last one did. I also hope that the Chancellor will seize future opportunities to increase duty rates for tobacco products.
I have repeatedly raised the issue of licensing for tobacco retailers in this House and I will do so again. In Northern Ireland, since 6 April 2016, retailers have been obliged to register with the tobacco register of Northern Ireland; the final deadline for doing so was 1 July 2016. That built on a similar scheme already in place in Scotland, and a scheme is due for implementation in Wales. Since 2018, we have implemented a track-and-trace scheme that requires every retailer to have an economic operator identifier code registered to their business and a facility identifier code for each store or premises that stores tobacco.
Since leaving the EU, the UK has established and launched its own system, with Northern Ireland operating in the UK and EU systems. That makes it easy for all nations in the UK, including England, to not just implement a retail register scheme, but go further and implement a comprehensive retail licensing scheme. Retail licensing is the obvious back-up to the tracking and tracing of cigarettes and would help to tackle the illicit trade that gives smokers access to cheap tobacco.
In Northern Ireland, there has been a serious issue with paramilitaries using illegal tobacco as one of their revenue streams. Those who sell it have no compunction about selling it to children too. The illegal trade makes it not just less likely that smokers will quit, but more likely that children will start. That double whammy greatly concerns me. The Police Service of Northern Ireland is aware of that and is taking steps to address the issue.
I urged the Minister’s predecessors to ensure that their officials were in contact with the devolved nations on retail licensing and I do so again. Will the Minister ensure that her colleagues at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs talk to their equivalents in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales about their experiences with tobacco retail licensing and the lessons that they have learned regionally from the experiences of the devolved nations?
I am conscious that other hon. Members want to speak. England remains an outlier on this important measure that could help to tackle illicit trade and protect children from tobacco. My absolute priority is stopping children’s access to tobacco. We can and should address those issues collectively, bringing knowledge from the nations that we represent—the four regions of the great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. If we do so, I am confident that we can and will deliver policy that helps not only us but the constituents that we serve. That is our duty.