Anti-smoking charity ASH has renewed its call for a ‘polluter pays’ levy to be imposed on the tobacco industry as part of its response to the government spending review earlier this week.
While the review ‘rightly acknowledges’ the importance of smoking cessation for disease prevention and the long-term sustainability of the NHS, the £80m annual figure for cessation and enforcement is less than the current spend, the charity states.
‘The government should ensure that all current spending commitments are maintained – including swap to stop, financial incentives for pregnant women and mass media campaigns,’ said ASH CEO Hazel Cheeseman. ‘There is an opportunity, alongside the tobacco and vapes bill, to accelerate progress towards a smokefree future. An additional investment of £97m per year would ensure that there are 2m fewer smokers by the end of this Parliament.’ A polluter pays levy on the tobacco industry would mean that this is ‘not funded by the taxpayer’, she added.
A recent survey commissioned by the charity found that almost two thirds of the public back the ‘smokefree generation’ policy in the tobacco and vapes bill, with nearly half of the 11,000 respondents agreeing that the government ‘isn’t doing enough’ to tackle smoking. The government’s ban on single-use, disposable vapes came into force at the beginning of this month.