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** 6 October 2021
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** UK
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** Duchess of Cambridge backs UCL campaign tracking children's early development (#1)
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** Gove backs vision of 'community-powered' devolution (#2)
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** International
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** Imperial Brands says tobacco sales to slow as people smoke less after lockdowns (#3)
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** Thai Government mulls legalising e-cigarettes amid opposition (#4)
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** UK
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** The Duchess of Cambridge has backed a major new study that will track the development of children over the first five years of their life, including considering the impact of pregnant women’s smoking habits. The duchess spoke as she met the academics leading the Children of the 2020s research project, which will study children born in 2021 from the age of nine months onwards.
The research will look at a wide range of factors affecting a child’s development and education from the home environment and community to early years services and the broader social and economic circumstances of the family. Researchers will begin recruiting up to 8,000 families in January 2022 for babies born in England between April and June of this year (2021).
Researchers told the duchess that previous versions of the study, called birth cohort studies, had asked about pregnant women’s smoking habits which had allowed researchers to track the impact of smoking during pregnancy on a baby’s birth weight and the longer-term effect it had on a child’s life, eventually instigating a public health campaign to stop women smoking whilst pregnant.
The upcoming Children of the 2020s study is being conducted by UCL’s faculty of brain sciences and the Institute of Education, commissioned and funded by the Department for Education. It aims to identify when developmental gaps start to appear in children and what more can be done to support disadvantaged families.
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Source: The Times, 5 October 2021
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** New communities secretary Michael Gove has thrown his support behind a devolution model championed by a group of ten MPs that aims to empower residents to take on some responsibility for public services. Gove and pensions and financial inclusion minister Guy Opperman endorsed proposals in the pamphlet ‘Trusting the People – the case for community-powered conservatism’ at a fringe event at the ongoing Conservative Party conference.
The report endorsed by Gove champions the so-called "Wigan Deal" which pioneered an approach working with residents to "take more responsibility" themselves, which saved Wigan council £115m over ten years while life expectancy rose and council tax was kept low. Gove told the audience that “others in government are incredibly enthusiastic about” the model. He praised other examples of community-based initiatives in Bristol, Manchester, and Newcastle.
Gove also called on councils to “surprise and delight” him with their own devolution proposals. He called on council leaders to resist trying “to work out what's going on in the minds of the ministers” and instead be “as imaginative as possible”. Gove said that empowering communities to own changes in their area was critical given what he called the “desire from people to take back control”. He said that we must “move away just from political leaders on their own to a more plural form of leadership.”
The Trusting the People pamphlet argues that councils, in order to receive more power and funding, should have to agree ‘community covenants’ for their areas to ensure councils were “committing to investing in and supporting community power” through “meaningful engagement" with residents. Opperman said that he was proposing a new “minister for bids” at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities who would manage the budget and allocate funds for projects in line with the “Wigan deal”.
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Source: LGC, 5 October 2021
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** International
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** Tobacco company Imperial Brands has said that its cigarette sales were likely to fall slightly due to the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions, which temporarily boosted sales by changing consumer buying patterns during the lockdowns. Despite this it said that it is “on track” to deliver full-year financial results in line with expectations, with revenue expected to grow by around 1%.
Imperial brands said that its market share in the combustible tobacco business was likely to dip slightly and promised to invest further in its combustibles. It said that its tobacco sales were in line with expectations and its share in the cigarette market was expected to grow by 0.2%. For what it calls its ‘Next Generation Products’, which include its heated tobacco and vape products, second-half revenue was expected to be at a similar level to the first half.
Imperial Brands is currently trialling new heated tobacco products in the Czech Republic and Greece and is pushing a new marketing initiative for its vapour product blu in North Carolina. Imperial Brands’ shared dipped 1% on Wednesday (6^th October) morning.
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Source: Proactive Investors, 6 October 2021
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** Thailand’s Digital Economy and Society (DES) Minister Chaiwut Thanakamanusorn said on Tuesday (5^th October) that he is considering ways to legalise the sale of e-cigarettes, saying that he believes that vaping could be a safer choice for those struggling to quit smoking. Thanakamanusorn noted that at least 67 countries have already approved e-cigarettes as a less harmful alternative to smoking. However, Thanakamanusorn’s announcement was met by opposition from some health groups.
Thanakamanusorn said that as well as the benefits for quitting smoking a legalization of e-cigarettes could help Thailand become a major exporter of e-cigarettes given the quantities of tobacco in the country, therefore benefitting tobacco growers in the country. However, the National Alliance for a Tobacco-Free Thailand (NATFT) said that the Government should protect the public from all forms of tobacco products. NATFT said that all 924 organisations that are members of the NATFT support the government's ban on e-cigarettes.
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Source: Bangkok Post, 6 October 2021
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