Contribution
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young, for tabling Amendment 202, to which I have added my name. It would require the Government to publish, every five years, a road map to a smoke-free country: in other words, a plan for the event rather than a review after it.
There are two essential components to achieving a smoke-free country. The first is that no one should start smoking at all. I hope that the Bill will successfully achieve that over time; the Government have shown great ambition in this area. The second component is that all current smokers are supported to quit, so that everyone stops. On this second part, the Government have been a little quieter, until recently. We have heard about the recent success of targets met for the number of pregnant women smoking at the time of delivery: I think it has gone down by half. However, the rates for other groups remain stubbornly high and we are not seeing the same targeting interventions. We need to ensure that we have this type of focus, energy and commitment with other groups, where we know that smoking rates are higher. Plans for these groups could be located in the road map being proposed.
For example, mental health is a key priority area for the Liberal Democrats. There is a dual causal relationship between smoking and mental health: if you smoke, it increases your chances of developing mental health conditions and, if you already have a mental health condition, you are more likely to smoke. Nearly half of those with a serious mental illness in England smoke, alongside a quarter of people with depression or anxiety, compared with 11.6% of the general population. High rates of smoking in this population have a disastrous impact on physical health, particularly for those with a serious mental health illness who, on average, live 15 to 20 years less than someone without. It is estimated that smoking accounts for about two-thirds of this reduced life expectancy.
The pervasive false narrative that smoking somehow alleviates mental health symptoms urgently needs to be addressed, as it creates so many challenges when we are trying to support these smokers to quit. If the Government are going to publish a strategy, a dedicated section on how they will bring down smoking rates in this group would be extremely welcome and needed. I welcome the Government’s concession that vaping vending machines should be allowed in secure adult mental health settings; this should certainly help this population to quit.
Amendment 206, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, would require the Government to publish a review of the Bill. I welcome government Amendment 205, which does something similar but with a lot less granularity. However, would the Minister give us a little more information about where the Government will get their evidence to underpin the review? Can she assure the House that that evidence will be independent and not influenced by any lobbying or so-called evidence put before the Government by big tobacco, or anybody else who would benefit from slowing down the elimination of smoking in the UK?
The intent of this review should be to support the legislation. As several noble Lords have said, the smoke-free generation is a novel policy and we need to demonstrate the impact and evaluate implementation to encourage other countries to follow. There are also many regulations on the way, along with those from other government departments, on nicotine products. A clear analysis of how these policies will work together would be very welcome.
However, the review must not be viewed as a sunset on the smoke-free generation, and I would welcome comments from the Minister on what, at this point, we know will not be in the Government’s review. For example, the Bill’s impact assessment notes that many of the health impacts of the rising age of sale will not be seen for 10 years, so we should be mindful that this part of the Bill is playing a very long game. There may be early data that we are on the right track and the review will perhaps be able to look at compliance, retailer feedback and all the other things that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, mentioned. I feel that much of this falls into the scope of her Amendment 207.
Finally, Amendments 91, 120, 201 and 216, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, raise concerns about the Bill’s implementation in Northern Ireland. I have been reassured by the Government’s response to the TRIS process, which lays out in some detail their response to the concerns raised, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Forbes of Newcastle, mentioned, the legal opinion published in the Daily Mail was commissioned by the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association. Without seeing it, I cannot really comment other than to say it is not surprising that the industry is laying the ground for future legal challenges. It is, as we know, highly litigious and wants to chill the appetite for tobacco control globally. It all goes to show, I suppose, that if you put two lawyers into a room, you get three opinions. There are, as we have heard from the Minister on other occasions, other legal opinions out there that say that the Bill is compatible, but I leave the noble Baroness to answer for those concerns. However, I support the Government to press on with this vital public health legislation, and to plan it and review it as required.