Open letter to Health Secretary Thérèse Coffey

Dear Dr Thérèse Coffey,

Re. Cancer Charity calls for Tobacco Control Plan commitment

Yorkshire Cancer Research is Yorkshire’s independent cancer charity. For over 95 years, the charity has been dedicated to funding pioneering research that has led to improvements in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer, and we are committed to saving lives in Yorkshire.

It is alarming that despite the clear dangers and negative impact of smoking, the government is noncommittal in its approach to tackling smoking and specifically its goal to achieve a smokefree nation by 2030.

Smoking is not a choice. It is an addiction that often starts in childhood, disproportionately impacts the most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities, and drives more than a million people in the UK into poverty. It is a uniquely harmful product that kills two in three long-term users. The continued delay to the publication of a clear plan to tackle tobacco smoking risks reversing the progress made over the last decade and with that, widening health and economic inequalities.

Yorkshire has the highest rate of smoking in England at 15.4% and every day 19 people in Yorkshire die because of this addiction. Given the historical and current high smoking rates in the region, tackling smoking is a key focus for our charity and we are doing all we can to help.

Alongside some smaller scale projects, Yorkshire Cancer Research is currently funding a study that has successfully developed and implemented a blueprint for the integration of stop smoking support with lung screening services, which has been presented to the UK National Screening Committee. In addition, we are funding a large-scale service that provides stop smoking support for inpatients across all trusts within the South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw ICS.

But charities like ours, who are largely funded by the generous donations of the public, can only do so much and unless the government steps up and starts taking this problem seriously, our efforts will be futile.

At the current rate of decline we estimate that Yorkshire will not reach a smoking prevalence of 5% until 2045. It is likely that this prediction may slip further if local government services continue to suffer significant budget cuts, particularly in those areas where they are needed most.

The most deprived areas of our region are also the places with the highest rates of smoking. Smoking accounts for at least half of the difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest of society. Hull, where around 70% of people live in the top 20% most deprived areas, has the second highest smoking rate in England. However, the area’s public health grant has been reduced by £32 per person per year - the largest per capita cut in Yorkshire.

Not only does smoking lead to more than 4,500 new cases of cancer in Yorkshire every year, it also costs the region £1.61 billion in healthcare, lost productivity and social care costs – costs which could be greatly reduced and reallocated with a reduction in smoking rates. To further highlight the scale of the problem within Yorkshire, we have calculated that if all current smokers continued to smoke throughout their life around 80,000 people would die of lung cancer by the age of 75.

Our message is clear: the government must commit to a strong Tobacco Control Plan that is fully funded and contains policies that are ambitious and will make a difference in supporting people to stop smoking, stop people from starting to smoke and ultimately drive down smoking rates. Yorkshire Cancer Research supports the recommendations made in the recent independent review by Dr Javed Khan OBE ‘Making Smoking Obsolete’ and calls for the government to include these, and other key policies, in the Tobacco Control Plan.

1. Invests at least £125 million in stop smoking services through a ‘polluter pays’ levy to tax the tobacco industry for the harm they cause not only within UK society but also to individuals and their families.
2. At a minimum raises the age of sale of tobacco to 21 and considers the option of raising the age of sale by one year every year to create a tobacco-free generation.
3. Requires stop smoking services to consistently offer vaping products as a substitute for smoking, and funds national mass media campaigns to clearly communicate the reduced harm from vaping compared to smoking helping to reduce public misconceptions.
4. Further embeds prevention across all areas of the NHS, with specialist support for people to stop smoking accessible at all touch points.

This list is not exhaustive and there is significantly more the government can do to tackle smoking in this country, from increasing the costs of tobacco duty to introducing a tobacco licence for retailers and creating more smokefree places to de-normalise smoking and protect young people.

Action needs to be taken now to save thousands of families from the negative consequences of smoking. By further delaying the publication of a Tobacco Control Plan, or scrapping it completely as has been rumoured, the government is failing the people of Yorkshire. Since the original time of expected publication in early 2020 we have estimated nearly 20,000 tobacco related deaths have occurred in our region, and many thousands more people continue to live in poor health as a result of smoking.

A fully funded and implemented Tobacco Control Plan will save lives of people in Yorkshire and across the country, reduce the number of people living with tobacco-related disability and ill-health and will help avoid widening health inequalities. Ultimately it will rid our society of this lethal killer that is devastating families.

Evidence shows that people within Yorkshire and across the country want the government to do more to tackle smoking. 77% of adults in the region support the 2030 smokefree ambition. Only 5% of people in Yorkshire and the Humber think that the government is doing too much on tackling smoking, with 47% thinking it needs to do more and 78% of adults being supportive of activities and policies to limit smoking.

Smoking policy should not be about protecting individual liberties. This is about a chronic addiction that is killing thousands of people every year in Yorkshire and disproportionately impacting the most vulnerable. You may not hold personal views on these sorts of matters. If this is true then we urge you to listen to the people of Yorkshire and the country who are telling you more must be done to tackle smoking.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Kathryn Scott
Chief Executive
Yorkshire Cancer Research