Tobacco Control Plan — House of Commons, 2017-10-19
Topic: Health
William James Quince (Conservative, Centre-right): I rise to speak primarily as the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on baby loss. I apologise to some extent if I appear a little like a broken record on this subject, but in many respects I do not apologise because we have so much work to do in this area. I want to focus, if I may, on smoking in pregnancy. My hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) has eloquently put some of these points already, but I want to go into somewhat more detail The Prime Minister spoke of the burning injustice that sees the poorest in this country die on average nine years earlier than the richest. It is essential for the tobacco control plan significantly to reduce the health inequality between richest and poorest in Britain. Those who earn £10,000 a year are twice as likely to smoke as those who earn £40,000. As the Minister knows, we have massive issues with regard to smoking in pregnancy and regional variation: 2% in Richmond, 2.2% in Wokingham, and 2.4 % in Hammersmith; yet 26.6% in Blackpool, 24.4% in South Tyneside, and 24.1% in north-east Lincolnshire. Women in routine and manual jobs are almost three times more likely to smoke during pregnancy than those in managerial and professional roles. Teenage mothers are six times more likely than those over 35 to smoke throughout their pregnancy I applaud the success of the 2011 to 2015 tobacco control plan. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) pointed out, we exceeded the ambitions in the plan and reduced the adult smoking rate from 20.1% to 15.5%. I also applaud the Minister’s ambition to reduce the rate of adult smoking from 15.5% to 12% or less by 2022, and I further welcome the ambition to reduce the prevalence of smoking in pregnancy from 10.7% to 6% or less, notwithstanding my earlier point about regional variation To be clear, this is absolutely not about criticising or demonising women who smoke during pregnancy. Tobacco, as Members have already pointed out, is highly addictive and it can be incredibly difficult to stop smoking. In relation to stillbirth and neonatal death, the Government have set some really ambitious targets: to reduce the rate by 20% by 2020, and to cut it in half by 2030. In order to achieve that, we have to be clear about the fact that the biggest modifiable risk factor for those issues is smoking in pregnancy. I have raised these statistics in the House before, and I make no apology for reiterating them today. One in five stillbirths is associated with smoking, and women who smoke are 27% more likely to have a miscarriage. Their risk of having a stillbirth is a third higher than that of non-smokers. Mothers who smoke are more likely to have pre-term births and babies who are small for their gestational age Then we have second-hand smoke. Maternal exposure to second-hand smoke during pregnancy is an independent risk factor for premature birth and low birth weight, but only one in four men make any changes to their smoking habits when their partner is pregnant. The number of sudden infant deaths could be reduced by more than 30% if children were not exposed to second-hand smoke. The Royal College of Physicians has estimated that 20% of pregnant women are exposed to second-hand smoke throughout their pregnancy, increasing the risk of many poor birth outcomes. If every pregnancy were smoke-free tomorrow, there would be around 5,000 fewer miscarriages, 300 fewer perinatal deaths and 2,200 fewer premature births each year I want briefly to raise with Ministers the question of vaping and e-cigarettes. Although I appreciate, notwithstanding points already made by colleagues, that the jury is still out on these products to some extent, and although quitting outright is always the aim, these products must surely be better than smoking, especially for pregnant women. I encourage the Minister to work with the Treasury to investigate some kind of levy on the tobacco industry. Incidentally, the tobacco industry has huge investments in vaping and e-cigarettes; in fact, most of the biggest e-cigarette companies are owned by the major tobacco manufacturers.