Intervening in a Westminster Hall debate in advance of the publication of the Government’s new Tobacco Control Plan, Sir Charles Walker highlights that the challenge is to move people addicted nicotine to less harmful forms of delivering the drug.
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, 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.
Bob Blackman
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.
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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?
Bob Blackman
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.
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Sir Charles Walker
As we have heard, addictions are very powerful, and if we want to get to a smoke-free 2030, we need to break the link between a nicotine fix and smoking lit tobacco.
Maggie Throup (The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care)
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. The burden of tobacco harms is not shared equally: smoking rates are far higher in poorer areas of the country, and among the lowest socioeconomic groups. Alongside the tragedy created by illness and early deaths, the NHS bears the heavy financial burden of £2.5 billion every year from smoking. In 2019-20, smoking was responsible for nearly half a million hospital admissions and around 64,000 deaths.