WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control — House of Commons, 2020-03-05
Topic: Health
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): I am pleased to have this unexpected opportunity to speak in this important debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on securing it. My politics and his are far apart, but we are brothers in the cause of eradicating smoking. I pay tribute to his work as chair of the APPG and am pleased to serve as his vice-chair. There are around 23,000 smokers in my Stockton North constituency, and 60% of them want to quit. Sadly, due to cuts to Stockton Council’s budget and to budgets across the north-east, councils in the area have cut stop smoking services by 10% in just two years. I will come back to that later Requiring tobacco manufacturers to pay into the smoke-free 2030 fund mentioned by the hon. Gentleman would provide sustainable funding to motivate the smokers in my constituency who want to quit, or who want to give quitting a go, and would fund the specialist support for those who need it. That would be the correct way forward, and it would provide the necessary transparency without the likes of PMI being given free rein to dictate or influence public policy I pay tribute to successive Governments for making tremendous progress. We had the smoke-free pubs and restaurants under Labour, and of course we have had the point-of-sale stuff under recent Conservative Governments. That all plays a part, but the extent to which smoking is reducing has continually slowed down and we need to accelerate it again Although this is a national issue, I will be parochial this afternoon and outline the challenge we face in my part of the world. In Stockton-on-Tees, 16.4% of the population smoke, compared with 16% across the north-east and an English average of 14.4%. Some 17.7% of women are smokers when their babies are delivered, compared with a national average of 10.6%, and that has significant implications for stillbirths, neonatal deaths and birth weight Those statistics hide the reality of what is happening in my constituency. In my inner-city wards, the prevalence of smoking, including during pregnancy, is much higher. Our leafy suburbs and nicer areas—perhaps I should say more affluent areas—bring down the average to that lower level of 16.4%. I do not know of many households in the town centre ward of my constituency in which people do not smoke, which is a terrible situation. We need targeted support for them The prevalence of smoking among adults in my area with serious mental health illnesses is 40%, which is actually slightly below the English average of 40.5%, but it still needs to be tackled. In 2018-19, there were 2,780 smoking-attributable hospital admissions in Stockton-on-Tees, which is a rate of 2,474 per 100,000 of population, notably above the English average of 1,612 From 2016 to 2018, 1,013 deaths in Stockton-on-Tees were attributable to smoking, which is also significantly above the English average. There were 398 deaths from lung cancer and 325 deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and over 80% of those disease cases are caused by smoking. Again, from 2016 to 2018 there were 23 smoking-attributable stillbirths in Stockton-on-Tees, which is above the per population average I have talked about the more affluent areas of Stockton-on-Tees, and the smoking rate among people in managerial and professional occupations is 9.3%. The rate rises to 11.7% among people in intermediate-level occupations and to 23.1% among people in routine and manual occupations. Men are more likely to smoke than women, with a smoking rate of 17% compared with 13% We have much to do if we are to do this, and we have to do it right, without allowing tobacco companies to play the sort of role proposed by PMI, because this is an issue of health inequality. A smoking rate of 16.4% in my constituency compares with 8.3% in mid-Suffolk, where the Minister’s constituency is located Like the hon. Member for Harrow East, I was concerned to hear least week that England is not on track to reach the 5% ambition by 2030. The 20-year difference between when the richest and poorest communities are expected to be smoke free shows that we are failing to support the most vulnerable in our constituencies. So does the Minister agree that the smoke-free 2030 ambition must be more than a headline target and that the Government must ensure that they will also deliver a smoke-free generation for communities such as mine in Stockton The hon. Gentleman mentioned illegal tobacco, so I wish to say just a few words about that. During the general election, I was on the Hardwick estate in my constituency, where a woman was standing at a door. I was walking up the path and then I realised that money was changing hands. The money changed hands and the door closed. When it reopened, someone had a package in their hand. I know what it was, but the woman saw me and said, "Just wait a few minutes." She then said, "How can I help you?" I nearly said, "You could help by not operating an illegal tobacco operation", but I was looking for their vote, so perhaps I prejudiced my principles on that occasion These things are happening day in, day out. My wife was a school nurse and she went to schools to talk about smoking. She used to deploy the economic argument, saying to the kids, "If you have so many cigarettes a week, it will cost you £10. Over a year that works out at £520 and that would take the family on a short holiday." One day, a child put up his hand and said, "Miss, you’ve got the price wrong. They are only £3 a packet from—". He named a person around the corner from where he lived. So it is clear that we still have a problem to solve and we have an education problem to deal with as well Finally, I know that PMI’s proposals for a "tobacco transition fund" in partnership with the industry have already been put to Parliament in a ten-minute rule Bill tabled by my former colleague Kevin Barron in the last Parliament. Kevin is a long-standing supporter of tobacco control, but he admitted to The Guardian that he had had discussions with PMI before tabling the Bill, that he now supported partnering with the industry and that he had spoken to Ministers about the proposals. Kevin was probably the greatest parliamentary campaigner, perhaps even better than the hon. Member for Harrow East, against the tobacco industry for nearly all his 36 years as an MP, so I was really concerned that he was prepared to work with a tobacco company, albeit with the best of intentions, to change the law. Although some people may have been convinced that PMI has been reborn as a public health champion, that is certainly not the case for the all-party group on smoking and health, and I hope the Minister will confirm that the Government agree on that. PMI’s attempts to whitewash its reputation are nauseating, in a company that continues to promote its deadly cigarettes to children and young people whenever and wherever it can get away with it So there is still much yet to be done, and I will be interested to near what the Minister has to say. I want her not just to rule out any sort of relationship with PMI, except perhaps taxing it a bit more, with no recognition of its bid to influence public policy; I also want to hear what the Government are now going to do, perhaps in replying to the Green Paper, to get us the resources we need into public health and elsewhere to start again and accelerate the number of people who quit.