ASH Says New Bill is a Priority

Deborah Arnott, Chief Executive of Action on Smoking and Health, spoke about the leaked proposals to extend smokefree legislation to outdoor areas: “The priority is to get the Bill back in parliament and put on the statute book, to end smoking for the next generation and curb youth vaping. ASH would support the inclusion of powers to extend smokefree laws outdoors, subject to consultation.

“The Government is catching up with what the public expects, and that’s not to have to breathe in tobacco smoke in places like children’s play areas and seating areas outside pubs, restaurants and cafes. However, it’s also important to ensure that there are still outdoor areas where people who smoke can smoke in the open air, rather than inside their homes.

“Twenty years ago those who opposed banning smoking inside pubs argued it would damage business, and be unenforceable. In fact more people went to pubs after the ban came in, and compliance was 97% from day one. That was a far more radical change, smoking rates have gone down considerably since then, and the public supports extending legislation to areas outside hospitality venues, so it’s hard to see how it can damage the hospitality trade. 

“More to the point, smoking is the leading cause of premature death and is responsible for half the difference in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest in society, and the economic cost to the economy in England alone is at least £21.8 Bn. The more we can do to end smoking altogether, the better it will be for everyone’s health and wellbeing.”

Action on Smoking and Health says local authority seizures due to Operation CeCe has benefited from “significant funding” for Trading standards so that it can conduct its enforcement work. The charity says this has resulted in increased seizures, meaning a reduction in the number of illicit products on the market. 

“For government data on the size of the illicit market see Measuring Tax gaps on tobacco – the key measure is volume rather than value or market share as with tax going up above inflation year on year that means the value of illicit tobacco goes up, and as smoking rates go down illicit volumes could stay the same but they could go up as market share,” Action on Smoking and Health states.

“In 2000/01, thanks to the facilitation of the tobacco manufacturers, the illicit trade was out of control – for cigarettes one in five cigarettes smoked were illicit (20%) and customs estimated it would grow to a third in a few years if action wasn’t taken and 60% of handrolling tobacco (HRT) was illicit. 

“After significant investment in enforcement the illicit market declined significantly despite taxes going up above inflation. By 20202/23 after over 20 years of decline, the illicit market share had fallen from 20% to 7% for cigarettes and from 60% to 33% of HRT.”

Harry Phibbs, Local Government Editor for Conservative Home, said that the extended smoking bans will end up with more pubs closing down and deliver a boost to the black marketeers. 

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Dave Cross

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Dave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.