Smokefree England: Covid-19 and PHE Abolition — House of Commons, 2020-11-12
Topic: Health
Richard James Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party, Right): For the second time today, it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), given the knowledge he has of all the subjects we have covered in this debate and the last one. I thank him for his contribution when he was Minister, too. It is always good to see him in his place I congratulate the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) on what I think may be the first debate she has led in the Chamber. If it is, I say to her, "Well done and congratulations." We look forward to many more contributions from her in this place. I was glad to add my name to the request to the Backbench Business Committee for this debate, and to work alongside the hon. Lady to highlight some of these issues I believe that freeing smokers from the tyranny caused by their addiction, and the damage it causes to their health and wellbeing, is an issue not just of health but of human rights. I am my party’s spokesperson for health and human rights, and this debate covers both those issues This issue is close to my heart, as I know it is for speakers on both sides of the House. Public health policies, which are the responsibility of the devolved nations, have a key role to play in tackling smoking, but so do the Government in Westminster and this debate. I am pleased to see the Minister in his place. He and I have been good friends for a long time, and I look forward to his response because I know it will be positive I want to refer quickly, if I may, to the Northern Ireland Department of Health tobacco control strategy, which was implemented in 2012. It was clear that the Northern Ireland Assembly was trying to direct its action at children and young people, disadvantaged people, and pregnant women and their partners who smoked. A review of that strategy undertaken earlier this year found that Northern Ireland has met its target of ensuring that a minimum of 5% of the smoking population accesses smoking cessation services annually, but there is still a group of people who continue to smoke. I am conscious that people have freedom of choice, but we hope that they take note when we present them with the health issues. That target was achieved, but we are not hitting our targets at population level. There was a target to reduce the smoking rate among manual groups from 31% to 20% by 2020. That rate still lingers around 27%, so that target has not been met. There was also a target to reduce smoking during pregnancy from 15% in 2010 to 9% by 2020. To date, however, that rate has barely declined, so we have hit problems in Northern Ireland. At the time of speaking, the rate is 14%, so we have reduced it by only one percentage point. Let us be very clear: smoking when pregnant puts babies at risk of avoidable harm, including stillbirth, premature birth and birth defects We seem to have done better on the target for 11 to 16-year-olds. I am really quite encouraged by that. There has been a reduction from 8% in 2010 to 4%. The target was 3%, so we are one percentage point shy of it, but what we have done there has been quite dramatic. 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 Will the Minister make contact—he probably has—with the Northern Ireland Assembly, and particularly the Health Minister, Robin Swann, to see what has happened there? I feel that we can feed off each other regionally in Administrations, to our advantage. If something is being done right in England, we want to know about it in Northern Ireland, and the same applies in Scotland and Wales The disadvantaged communities worst affected by smoking have also been hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic. Smoking is a leading risk factor for all sorts of things, such as cardiovascular disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which have been identified by Public Health England as being associated with worse outcomes from coronavirus. When households stop spending money on tobacco, it can lift them out of poverty, and it increases the disposable income available to spend in local communities rather than lining the pockets of the transnational tobacco firms Those inequalities are a problem not just for Northern Ireland but in every part of the United Kingdom. The answer is more action at population level through Government interventions that support people, particularly in disadvantaged communities. I believe that the time is right for the Department of Health and Social Care to publish a new tobacco control plan that addresses UK-wide issues as well as those relating just to England—I believe that we should be doing this across the four regions—and provides solutions to the threats posed by Brexit as well as delivering on the opportunities Smoking on screen is an issue close to my heart; we have to find some way of addressing it. Smoking is rarely portrayed in an unattractive manner, or associated with negative consequences. Guidelines on smoking have been established by the communications regulator, Ofcom, but they are often not rigorously applied. The UK Government and Ofcom have committed to working with the British Board of Film Classification to ensure a consistent approach across the piece. On the tobacco control plan, I said in 2018: "A clear causal link has been established between smoking initiation among young people and smoking on screen in the entertainment media. The impact is down to the amount of smoking that young people see, not whether it is glamorised or not." Young people may feel, sometimes unconsciously, that smoking is normal, and that we should all be doing it. However, its depiction is linked to greater risk of smoking uptake. In that earlier debate, I asked: "Will the Minister ask his colleagues who are responsible for the regulation of film and TV in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to work with the Department of Health and Social Care, and press Ofcom and the British Board of Film Classification to ensure that their codes effectively tackle the portrayal of smoking in films and television programmes that are likely to be seen by children?"—[Official Report, 19 July 2018; Vol. 645, c. 685.] At the time, the Minister briefed that Ofcom and the BBFC were dealing with the issue; quite clearly, Minister, that has not happened to the extent that we would like.