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** 17 January 2022
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** UK
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** Sajid Javid plots vaping revolution to help disadvantaged (#1)
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** Millions in UK drinking harmful levels of alcohol at home, experts warn (#2)
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** England's north-south divide is deepening, says new report (#3)
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** Starmer promises to target health prevention under Labour government (#4)
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** Cornwall: Smoking costs Cornwall's economy £177m every year (#5)
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** International
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** Malaysia plans to phase out smoking with generational tobacco ban (#6)
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** UK
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** Health Secretary Sajid Javid is set to announce his intention for a “vaping revolution” in England to help tackle the huge gap in life expectancy between rich and poor in England. Javid, who says that it is a “moral outrage” that the richest people in England live for up to a decade longer on average than the poorest, will announce the “vaping revolution” in a health disparities white paper this spring setting out measures to tackle the causes of health inequalities. It is understood that the “revolution” will primarily mean pushing to allow GPs to prescribe e-cigarettes on the NHS, after the Medicine and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA) approved their use, subject to licensing.

Javid’s vaping plans will be overseen by Javed Khan, former head of children’s charity Bernardo’s. It is reported that Khan will lead a ‘review on smoking’. Under the white paper plans, doctors would decide on a case-by-case basis when it would be appropriate to prescribe an e-cigarette to a patient. The measure comes as Javid last year pledged to tackle the “disease of disparity” in the UK. The difference in life expectancy between rich and poor areas has doubled since the early 2000s, according to a report by the King’s Fund. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the divide, with hospital COVID-19 admissions in the most deprived areas nearly three times higher than those in the least deprived areas and the death rate 2.4 times higher.

Source: The Times, 16 January 2022
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** New figures have revealed that levels of “higher risk” alcohol consumption have risen dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data, from the Government’s Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID), found that eight million people in England are drinking harmful levels of wine, beer, or spirits. Experts said that a switch to home drinking during COVID-19 lockdowns was partly to blame, with drinking sessions sometimes lasting hours longer than they would in a pub.

The figures, based on YouGov surveys, show that 18.1% of adults in England were drinking at “increasing or higher risk” in the three months to the end of October 2021, much higher than in February 2020 when 12.4%, or about six million people, drank at such levels. The data also shows that twice as many men as women are drinking alcohol at hazardous levels. Professor Julia Sinclair, chair of the addictions faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said that the data showed that people were still dealing with uncertainty, anxiety, or bad habits linked to COVID-19 lockdowns.

Sinclair warned that it was unlikely that people who had become physically dependent on alcohol during lockdowns could now simply switch back to a safer level of drinking. She warned that being able to drink in pubs would likely become an add-on rather than replacement for home drinking among those who had formed the habit. She said that these new problem drinkers were doing themselves a “silent harm”, not yet necessarily aware that they were drinking at harmful levels.

Source: The Guardian, 17 January 2022
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** A landmark report entitled State of the North 2021, due to be published tomorrow (18 January) by IPPR North, the northern branch of the Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank, will show that England’s north-south divide continues to deepen despite two years of Government promises to level-up the country. The report will reveal that in the five years to 2019/20, London has continued to receive the equivalent of £12,147 per person while the north has received only £8,125.

The report finds that the south-east is home to one-third of the UK population but accounts for 45% of its economy and 42% of its wealth. Treasury data indicates that if investment in the north had matched that in London over the five years from 2014/15, it would have seen an extra £61bn of spending in areas like transport, infrastructure, and skills. Chancellor Rishi Sunak has effectively capped the main levelling-up fund at £4.8bn for this parliament, which critics say is not enough.

The report compares the UK’s levelling-up efforts to Germany, where successive governments have spent an average of €70bn a year reducing regional divides since reunification in 1990. Jonathan Webb, a report author, said: “Whether we compare with Germany’s successful efforts to rebalance its economy or to London-level investment […] levelling up will be consigned to the list of hollow, unmet promises made to people in regions like the north for a long time now, if it isn’t underpinned by investment and, crucially, fiscal devolution.” The levelling-up white paper detailing the government’s plans has been repeatedly delayed and is now due by the end of the month.

Source: The Guardian, 17 January 2022
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** Labour leader Keir Starmer has outlined Labour’s plans to move “from cure to prevention” as part of “Labour’s contract for better health”. Speaking at the Fabian Society new year conference over the weekend (16 and 17 January), Starmer said that Labour would make wellbeing as important a measurement as national economic output in an effort to generate a healthier population.

Starmer cited Labour’s action on smoking in the early 2000s as an example of such prevention. Tony Blair’s Labour Government banned smoking indoors and cigarette advertising, paving the way for a steady reduction in the number of people smoking in the UK since then. Starmer cited living areas, diet, access to green spaces, and early mental health treatment as other key prevention measures a Labour government would pursue. He also said that England now needed “to learn to live with Covid” and set out a five-point plan for the transformation of social care.

Meanwhile, setting out his expectations for the NHS in The Guardian, Starmer promised a “great renewal” for the NHS, again focused on prevention. He promised that Labour “would switch focus from simply treating illnesses to preventing them”. Labour is gearing up for May’s local elections in England when all London borough councils are up for grabs and one-third of seats in a string of metropolitan boroughs - most were last fought in 2018 when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader.
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Source: Labour List, 15 January 2022

See also: The Guardian - Starmer vows ‘great renewal’ of NHS in bid to make Labour a vote winner ([link removed])
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New analysis produced by Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) has found that smoking in Cornwall costs the county around £177m per year. The research also found that smoking costs the NHS in Cornwall an additional £30m annually with £13m being spent on additional care for people with conditions caused by smoking. Smokers in Cornwall spend about £136m on tobacco annually.

The analysis also looked at wider costs. It found that the cost of damage to property and lives from accidental fires caused by cigarettes is around £3.4m and that huge costs must be paid to clean up the almost 34 tons of cigarette butts dropped in Cornwall every year. Hazel Cheeseman, Deputy Chief Executive of ASH, said “Smoking is a drain on society. It’s a cost to individuals in terms of health and wealth and a cost to us all because it undermines the productivity of our economy and places additional burdens on our NHS and care services. Nationally Government must publish their promised plan for tackling smoking but local councils must also seize the initiative and create plans for communities that account for the tremendous burden caused by smoking.”

Source: Planet Radio, 14 January 2022

See also: Action on Smoking and Health - Ready Reckoner ([link removed])
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** International
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** Malaysian Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has outlined plans to completely ban smoking for the next generation of Malaysians, following New Zealand’s historic move to ban the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 2008. Khairy said that he will table a new Tobacco and Smoking Control Act by the end of March to replace the current tobacco control legislations under the Food Act 1983.

Khairy did not specify when the proposed legislation would come into effect or the cut-off year of birth for the cohort smoking ban. Malaysia’s 2020 report to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) found that Malaysians start smoking at an early age, with 21.3% of those aged 15 and older classed as smokers. The proposed new bill, which Kairy called a “generation end-game” for smoking in Malaysia, would also regulate e-cigarettes.

Malaysia’s efforts to tackle smoking have already included a total ban on smoking in eateries and a free programme for those who need help to quit smoking, called mQuit.

Source: Lowyat, 17 January 2022
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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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