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** 26 April 2023
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** UK
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** Cumberland Council approve plans for 'smoke-free Cumberland' (#1)
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** Streeting ‘would not look over NHS England chief’s shoulder’ (#2)
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** Long-awaited gambling white paper set to be published this week (#3)
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** International
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** British American Tobacco to pay $635m for North Korea sanctions breaches (#4)
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** UK
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** Cumberland Council approve plans for 'smoke-free Cumberland'
A report delivered to the committee at a meeting in Carlisle on Tuesday, April 25 by Cllr Martin Harris, said that 11.1 per cent (30,000) of Cumberland residents are regular smokers and that approximately 10 per cent of mothers are smokers when they have a baby.
A national review said that all areas should seek to become ‘smoke-free’ by 2030 which would require a reduction to just 5 per cent of residents being smokers which would require around 15,000 successful ‘quits’ in Cumberland and no one else taking up smoking.
The scheme is set to cost £660,000 over a three-year period until March 2026 and is ‘more than quadrupling’ the council’s funding for anti-smoking measures according to Cllr Harris.
“We know that smoking remains the biggest cause of death and ill health in the UK,” Cllr Harris told the executive committee.
“As Cumberland Council has committed to put health and wellbeing at the heart of everything we do, it is fitting that we are more than quadrupling the funding for what remains the biggest cause of ill health, particularly in our most deprived communities.”
The new scheme will see an enhanced universal pharmacy stop smoking service and the recruitment of specialist staff to help target the most deprived communities where smoking rates are the highest.
The report was also backed by the Director of Public Health and Communities for the Cumberland Council, Colin Cox, who told the meeting: “Smoking is one of the things which has got the biggest social gradient in health impacts.
“10 per cent of the population smoke overall but in some parts of Cumberland that’s almost none whilst in other parts it’s more like 40 per cent so it is a significant issue for social deprivation.”
Source: The News and Star, 26 April 2023
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** Streeting ‘would not look over NHS England chief’s shoulder’
Labour’s shadow health and care minister told an event today that an “incoming Labour government would need to… provide a bit of clarity about what the department [of health and social care] is there to do, what NHS England is there to do, what [integrated care systems] are there to do, and what providers are there to do”. This would help “get people pulling together, rather than pulling apart”, he added.
In particular, speaking at the King’s Fund in London, he indicated he would protect NHSE’s independence. The NHS was given operational autonomy from government, under an independent NHSE board, by Conservative health secretary Andrew Lansley’s Health and Social Care Act 2012.
But last year’s act weakened its status, and the current health and social care secretary, Steve Barclay, has been more hands on in NHS operations and finance than recent predecessors. He has also asked NHSE executives to regularly sit and work closely with his teams in the DHSC rather than, as they have since 2013, separately in NHSE’s own buildings.
Mr Streeting said in his speech that fixing problems in the NHS “requires more than just investment”.
In response to a question from HSJ on whether this would involve an austerity-style approach to NHS finances, he said: “The reason why we’re going so heavy on reform is in part because public finances are in a mess, so there is just a practical constraint that we need to be honest about.
“There is a perception in the electorate that Labour’s answer to problems is always more money. In this case, I don’t think the answer is just more money.
“I think investment does matter, but we’d be kidding ourselves if we thought that if we just put more money into the system as it is, everything will be fine.”
He estimated that it would take a “decade to get the NHS back to where it was under the last Labour government”, but that Labour aims to “show real progress” within its first term.
Source: HSJ, 21 April 2023
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** Long-awaited gambling white paper set to be published this week
The long-awaited gambling white paper setting out Government proposals to make regulation of the sector “fit for the digital age” finally looks set to be published this week.
Campaigners are hopeful it will include plans for affordability checks and the introduction of a statutory levy on gambling operators to pay for research, education and treatment of problem gambling met in the white paper.
Other measures hoped to feature include a reduction in stakes for online slot games to match those found in land-based gambling and the creation of a gambling ombudsman to deal with customer complaints.
The Government launched its gambling review in December 2020 but publication of the subsequent white paper has been the subject of repeated delays due to a succession of ministerial changes.
Ministers from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, including gambling minister Stuart Andrew and culture secretary Lucy Frazer, are due to answer questions in the House of Commons on Thursday.
It is thought Downing Street may have scheduled the release of the white paper for that day.
Source: The Independent, 26 April 2023
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** International
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** British American Tobacco to pay $635m for North Korea sanctions breaches
British American Tobacco is to pay $635m (£512m) plus interest to US authorities after a subsidiary admitted selling cigarettes to North Korea in violation of sanctions.
The US authorities said the settlement related to BAT activity in North Korea between 2007 and 2017.
BAT's head Jack Bowles said "we deeply regret the misconduct".
The US has imposed severe sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile activities.
Tuesday's settlement was between BAT and America's Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
BAT is one of the world's largest tobacco multinationals and one of the UK's 10 biggest companies. It owns major cigarette brands including Lucky Strike, Dunhill and Pall Mall.
At a briefing on Tuesday, the DOJ's assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said that BAT was engaged in an "elaborate scheme to circumvent US sanctions and sell tobacco products to North Korea" via subsidiaries.
"Between 2007 and 2017 these third-party companies sold tobacco products to North Korea and received approximately $428m."
Source: BBC, 25 April 2023
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