One in four adults still smoke in parts of England, official figures show.
Rates have fallen in recent decades thanks to government efforts to eradicate this deadly habit.
Only 12.9 percent of adult Britons, or around 6.4 million, now smoke. By comparison: in the 1970s almost half of the people smoked.
In Mid Devon this figure is 25.1 per cent – the highest rate in the country.
Data shows the rate is almost nine times lower in Stafford, where still only 2.9 per cent of adults light a light.
Rishi Sunak yesterday used his first speech at the Tory conference as Prime Minister to announce that he wants to raise the legal smoking age annually in a bid to try to prevent teenagers from ever using cigarettes. Under the bold proposal, the legal age for purchasing tobacco will rise every year from 2009, meaning a 14-year-old today will never be legally sold a cigarette under the proposed legislation for England.
Rishi Sunak wants to make the country ‘smoke-free’ to save the economy, NHS billions and prevent thousands from dying young.
Yesterday at the Tory conference he unveiled radical proposals to raise the legal age for annual tobacco purchasing. If passed, it would mean that cigarettes would never be legally sold to people under the age of 14.
Charities and health experts immediately welcomed Sunak’s plans, saying it will save tens of thousands of lives from preventable causes linked to smoking, such as cancer, heart attacks and strokes.
But some think tanks, smokers’ rights groups and a handful of Tory MPs claimed the policy was “hideously illiberal” and doomed to failure.
The bold policy was recommended last year in a government-commissioned report by ex-child charity chief Javed Khan.
He was tasked with finding ways to make England smoke-free by 2030 – defined as less than five percent of people smoking.
As well as implementing the policy Mr Sunak announced yesterday, he proposed banning supermarkets from selling tobacco products, making it illegal to smoke in public places such as pub gardens, and banning all films and TV shows featuring tobacco rating of 18+. imagery.
He warned that smoking costs the country £17 billion a year, of which £2.4 billion goes to the NHS alone.
The report also highlighted how smoking rates varied widely across England.
Mid Devon had the highest rates of smoking in 2022, according to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Hastings in East Sussex came in second place (23.7 per cent).
It was followed by three neighboring districts: Lincoln (23.5 per cent), Boston (22.9 per cent) and North East Lincolnshire (21.8 per cent).
At the other end of the spectrum were Stafford and then Rushcliffe in Nottinghamshire (4 per cent).
Only seven of around 300 local areas currently meet the smoke-free target of less than five per cent by 2030.
ONS data also shows that the number of people smoking cigarettes in Britain has fallen to a record low.
A total of 6.4 million adults in Britain – or 12.9 percent – smoked in 2022.
This is the lowest number since measurements began in 2011 and a decrease compared to the 13.3 percent reported in 2021.
Nearly £1.4 billion was wiped from British tobacco companies yesterday following Mr Sunak’s announcement.
Dunhill and Lucky Strike owner British American Tobacco saw around £974 million wiped off its value, while Imperial Brands suffered a £404 million slump.
A spokesman for Imperial said: ‘The proposal to ban the legal sale of cigarettes over time risks significant unintended consequences.’
Smoking kills around 78,000 people in Britain every year, and many more suffer from diseases as a result of their habit – half of which are due to cardiovascular disease, such as heart attack and stroke.
Javed Khan, a former head of the children’s charity tasked with finding ways to keep Britain on its smoke-free target, warned in August 2022 that England will miss the target by at least seven years. He proposed raising the age limit for purchasing cigarettes in England, currently set at 18, by 12 months every year until no one can legally purchase a tobacco product.
But the ONS survey also shows that the number of people smoking cigarettes in Britain has fallen to a record low. A total of 6.4 million adults in Britain – or 12.9 percent – smoked in 2022. This is the lowest figure since records began in 2011 and down from 13.3 percent in 2021 was reported.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast today, Sir Chris Whitty said he supported the move.
England’s chief medical officer said: ‘Very large numbers of people living in Britain today will be sick, disabled and dying for years as a result of smoking.
“We know this will work. When the age for illegally purchasing cigarettes was raised from 16 to 18, this led to a decline.’
Responding to arguments from Simon Clark, director of smokers’ lobby group Forest, who appeared earlier in the programme, he also said: ‘There are two things I think are worth saying.
“The first is – and he’s very open about this – his organization is funded by the cigarette industry and if they weren’t concerned about this, they wouldn’t be going against this.
‘The argument that this will not lead to a decline is nonsense.
“The second thing I don’t think he really took into account is that smoking is a problem based on addiction.”
He added: ‘Most people who smoke wish they had never started. They tried to stop, but they couldn’t.
“And that’s the thing: their choice has been taken away from them.
‘As a doctor I have seen many people in hospital desperate to quit smoking because it is something that is killing them, and yet they cannot. Their choice has been removed.”
It is estimated that around 500,000 hospital admissions in England each year are due to smoking and that smoking costs the economy £17 billion per year.
Of this, £2.4 billion goes to the NHS, £1.19 billion to the social care system, and over £13 billion is lost in productivity costs due to tobacco-related lost income, unemployment and premature deaths.
The 7,000 chemicals in tobacco – including tar and others that can narrow arteries and damage blood vessels – are thought to be responsible for some of the damage smoking does to the heart.
Meanwhile, nicotine – a highly addictive toxin found in tobacco – is strongly linked to dangerous increases in heart rate and blood pressure.
Smoking also releases toxic gases such as carbon monoxide, which replaces oxygen in the blood, reducing the availability of oxygen to the heart.