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** 15 September 2021
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** UK
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** Bristol study finds shops 'undermining' tobacco display ban (#1)
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** Oxfordshire plans to become first UK county to become smokefree (#2)
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** 'You can't level up everywhere', says Sigoma report (#3)
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** NHS leaders 'set for fight' amid signs mental health will miss out on new funding (#4)
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** International
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** British American Tobacco halts production in Belarus as US claims local manufacturer funds Lukashenko regime (#5)
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** Swedish Match plans to spin off and list cigar business (#6)
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** UK
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** The UK tobacco display ban was implemented in 2015 in part to discourage the uptake of smoking amongst young people, for whom there is evidence that tobacco displays are linked to increased smoking and susceptibility to smoking in children. The researchers say that what they found could encourage children to smoke: "their impact on smoking in children merits urgent attention."

The researchers, whose study was published in the journal Tobacco Control, found that it was particularly smaller shops and supermarkets who were not following the guidance. They said that tobacco signage was present in most stores and that 53% of stores were employing some sort of promotional material for e-cigarettes. They also found that many stores had ‘’visible pricing’’.

A new study from University of Bristol researchers has found that shops are undermining tobacco display bans by showcasing “highly visible” smoking paraphernalia and e-cigarettes. Researchers visited 133 shops in Bristol and Cambridge and found that 96% of them had smoking items on show.
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Source: BBC News, 14 September 2021

See also: BMJ Tobacco Control - Electronic cigarette and smoking paraphernalia point of sale displays: an observational study in England ([link removed])
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Oxfordshire County Council has announced plans for Oxfordshire to become the first county in England to become completely smokefree. The plans, set for implementation by 2025, will include measures such as smokefree outdoor restaurant seating and workplaces asking staff not to smoke outside the building.

The council hopes to reduce the percentage of teenagers who smoke to 3% and to the percentage of routine and manual workers smoking to 10%. They also aim to reduce the number of smokers with a mental health issue to under 20% and the proportion of pregnant women who smoke to below 4%. To achieve the smokefree moniker, Oxfordshire must get overall smoking rates down from their current level of 12% of the population to 5% or less.

Dr Adam Briggs, the health official spearheading the plans, said in a report that smoking was the number one risk factor leading to preventable deaths in Oxford and had cost the council £120 million per year. Oxfordshire council and other local authorities within the area will now work with the NHS to implement the smokefree measures and to crack down on illicit tobacco.

Local NHS trusts have been encouraged to do more to promote quitting for smokers coming through the NHS such as enforcing smokefree environments to create a positive no smoking culture. Oxfordshire County Council also provides free online ‘Very Brief Advice’ training for staff who regularly make contact with smokers in a professional capacity. The council have stressed that the plans are not a ban on smoking but an attempt to create an environment which encourages people to be smokefree.

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Source: Mirror, 13 September 2021

See also: Oxfordshire Tobacco Control Alliance - A Tobacco Control Strategy for a smokefree society in Oxfordshire 2020-2025 ([link removed]) ([link removed])
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The Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities (Sigoma) has called on the Government to ensure a “fairer distribution of funding” for councils as it prepares to flesh out its plans for levelling up. Sigoma’s chair Sir Stephen Houghton said ministers need to "focus on the areas that really need 'levelling up' and that "understand that you can’t level up everywhere".

A new Sigoma report sets out the “practical steps” it wants the government to take to ensure the levelling up agenda is successful. The report argues that Government cuts over the last decade have “impacted most heavily on the most deprived areas” with an increasing reliance on business rates and council tax benefitting more prosperous areas as funding allocations are not based upon need.

The network is urging ministers to improve funding for local services using central government's share of business rates income. It calls for “a national spatial plan that sets out explicit long-term funded priorities for all regions”. Sigoma also urges a “recognition of the significant variation in health and social outcomes and the uplift in public spending required".

Councillors attending the report launch on Tuesday 14th September also called for councils to have more access to decision-making over funding in order to help to allocate it to the areas most in need. The Sigoma report itself called for “more freedom for local election decision makers on how funding is targeted”. Councillors discussed the need to balance a clearer geographical focus for levelling up with a need for “spreading opportunity fairly, right around the country”.

Source: LGC, 14 September 2021

See also: SIGOMA - The Levelling Up Policy - How Effective is it Likely to Be? ([link removed])
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Senior sources have told the HSJ that mental health leaders are preparing for a “fight” over the new NHS funding announced by the Government after none of it was earmarked for the mental health sector. The Government’s announcements last week made no new commitments for mental health despite the acknowledgement of “unprecedented demands placed on staff and the public as a whole”.

Well-placed sources told the HSJ that despite the “parity of esteem” between mental and physical health services there are currently no additional increases planned for mental health over the three years from 2022-23. This means that spending on mental health will return to pre-Covid planned investment levels once the temporary additional £500m support provided this year runs out.

The sources told the HSJ that they were discussing the situation and considering how and when to go public with concerns. There are discussions over whether more might be awarded before next April, such as through the Autumn spending review, but there is a recognition that tensions in the Conservative Party over last week’s NHS and social care deal could make this challenging.

Leaders’ concerns come amid rising levels of demand for mental health services this year, particularly for children’s community and inpatient services as well as eating disorder services. NHS providers say the sector has 1.6 million people currently on waiting lists and an estimated 8 million people who need care but are “not meeting the threshold to access the services”.


Source: HSJ, 14 September 2021
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** International
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** British American Tobacco (BAT) has indefinitely suspended manufacturing of its brands at a state-owned tobacco factory in Belarus after Washington accused the factory of fueling tobacco smuggling and helping to finance the repressive Lukashenko regime. BAT said that it had stopped ordering from the Grodno Tobacco Factory Neman (GTF Neman), a government-owned enterprise with a longstanding deal with BAT to make some of its best-known brands for the Belarusian market.

The decision follows US President Joe Biden’s announcement last month of sanctions targeting individuals and entities it accuses of profiting Belarus’ de facto dictator Alexander Lukashenko and his associates. Britain has also placed an embargo on the sale of tobacco manufacturing equipment to Belarus. BAT’s move also represents a victory for pro-democracy campaigners who have called for western companies with business interests in Belarus linked to the regime to divest or withdraw.

It is understood that the move means that no BAT-branded cigarettes are now being made in Belarus. BAT said that as a result of the sanctions it could now not complete an independent audit of workplace conditions at GTF Neman where there have been allegations of human rights abuses against workers who took part in anti-Government protests. GFT Neman did not respond to a request to comment.

Washington has previously described GTF Neman as a “major source of illicit cigarettes in the EU”. The i newspaper revealed earlier this year (2021) that Belarus has been heavily implicated in industrial-scale tobacco smuggling in Western Europe, with about 10% of the 5.5 billion cigarettes sold illegally in the UK every year estimated to have originated from Belarus.

Source: i, 14 September 2021
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** Tobacco and nicotine products maker Swedish Match plans to separate out its US cigar business and list it to shareholders on the stock market. The spin-off would mean that Swedish Match, which sold its cigarette business in 1999, would exit the combustible tobacco products sector altogether. Swedish Match generates the bulk of its profits from its Swedish-style snuff ‘’snus’’ and its growing tobacco-free nicotine pouch business.

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** Source: Reuters, 15 September 2021
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ASH Daily News is a digest of published news on smoking-related topics. ASH is not responsible for the content of external websites. ASH does not necessarily endorse the material contained in this bulletin.

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