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** 24 March 2022
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** UK
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** Whitty: Focus on smoking, obesity, and alcoholism has 'gone backwards' (#1)
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** Price of cigarettes and alcohol won't change as Sunak leaves them out of Spring Statement (#2)
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** Harrow East MP Bob Blackman calls for "polluter pays" levy on tobacco firms (#3)
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** Lack of help from Rishi Sunak for struggling UK families will push 1.3m into poverty (#4)
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** Massive crackdown on illegal cigarettes across Wales (#5)
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** International
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** Kenya, UN agencies launch initiative to end smallholder tobacco farming (#6)
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** UK
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Speaking at the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Public Health annual joint conference, England’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty warned of a “serious need” to address smoking, obesity, and alcoholism, which he says have “either trodden water or gone backwards” during the sharp focus on the COVID-19 pandemic over the past two years. Of these areas Whitty said that “we do need quite seriously to address them” and he noted that smoking rates had gone up in “some groups” over the course of the pandemic in the last two years.

On alcohol, Whitty said that “we should be doing more to empower local authorities and directors of public health to tackle issues of heavy drinking.” He also raised concerns about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, with its lockdowns, on mental health, saying that colleagues in psychiatry were “really very concerned” and that there were higher rates of eating disorders in young people.

Whitty also addressed the issue of public health funding, saying that the pandemic demonstrated the UK "has the capacity to be extraordinarily good at public health” but “it needs the resources to be able to do so. Whether that case has actually been heard politically, I think it's a more open question.” He said we sometimes "failed in public health” in that “we spend our time describing the problem and saying how terrible it is, which I think is clearly true, but rather less time saying, 'here are the following six things we can do”.

He said that some of the solutions would “require political capital” and were “not necessarily going to be immediately popular”. Whitty called for a “very long-term view” to be taken of prevention, with local leaders leading the way as “they'll be living in the region where they make decisions for the rest of their lives very often”. He said that long-term thinking “can be a little harder for people working in central government where the incentive structures are rather different."
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Source: LGC, 23 March 2022
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** The price of cigarettes and alcohol will not increase after duty was not increased on both products in was omitted from Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Wednesday (23 March) Spring Statement. Despite the freeze, from February 2023 new regulations mean that the stronger a drink is the more it will be taxed. There will be incremental duty rates with the minimum rate for drinks between 1.2 and 3.4%, the next for those between 3.5% and 8.4%, then those between 8.5% and 22%, and the final for those 22% and above.

Tobacco duty was last increased in the previous Budget, where it increased by the rate of RPI inflation plus 2% with the rate on hand-rolling-tobacco increasing by RPI inflation plus 6%. This meant that the price of the most expensive cigarettes in some shops increased to more than £14.

Source: The Mirror, 23 March 2022
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** Harrow East MP and chairman of the APPG on Smoking and Health Bob Blackman has called on the Government to introduce a new “polluter pays” levy on the tobacco industry to fund national and local tobacco control activities. Speaking at Prime Minister’s questions, the MP also called on Johnson’s government to raise the age of sale for tobacco products from 18 to 21. Responding, Johnson noted that an independent review of smoking led by Javed Khan is currently taking place.

Blackman told the Commons: “I strongly support the Government’s intention to make England smoke-free by 2030. But on the current trajectory we are going to miss that target. It is vital that we discourage young people from starting to smoke and encourage people that smoke already to give up. It’s now time to raise the age of legal sale of tobacco products from 18 to 21, and impose a levy on the profits of the big tobacco companies to raise £700 million that we can put to smoking cessation services on the basis that the polluter must pay.”

Source: Harrow Times, 23 March 2022
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** The Resolution Foundation says that a lack of financial support for low-income families in Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s budget will push 1.3 million people, including half a million children, below the poverty line in 2023. The Foundation said just one in eight workers would see their tax bills fall by the end of this parliament in May 2024 when the rate of income tax will drop by 1p to 19p.

Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, said the budget, delivered on Wednesday (23 March), would “leave low- and-middle income households painfully exposed.” It estimated that a typical family will see a £1,100 fall in income this year, around 4%, with poorest households facing a 6% fall. The Foundation said that it would be the first time that there will be such a large increase in the number of people being pushed into poverty outside of a recession.

The Chancellor’s spring statement offered some tax cuts, such as 5p-a-litre off fuel duty and a £3,000 increase in the threshold for national insurance contributions. However, the Resolution Foundation analysis found that only those earning between £49,100 and £50,300 will pay less income tax in 2024-25 and only those on earning between £11,000 and £13,500 will pay less tax and national insurance. Of the 31 million people in work, 27 million will pay more in tax and national insurance in 2024-25.
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Source: The Guardian, 24 March 2022
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** Figures have revealed that nearly 2.8 million illegal cigarettes and nearly half a ton of illegal hand-rolling tobacco, with an estimated combined street value of £750,000, was seized in Wales in 2021. The figures complement a recent survey by ASH Cymru which found that illegal tobacco makes up 19% of the tobacco market in Wales with one in four Welsh smokers buying illicit.

The ASH Cymru survey also found that almost half of all Welsh smokers have been offered to buy illicit tobacco. Speaking about the seizures, ASH Cymru said: “This united approach is exactly what we need to drive illegal sales out of our communities and keep our young people safe from the harms of tobacco. We know illegal tobacco harms health, communities and is a gateway for children to start smoking. The impact of this new multi-agency approach will be far reaching and will enable Wales to disrupt the market from all angles, and in turn protect public health.”

As part of the Welsh Government’s strengthened approach to illegal tobacco, a new reporting website (www.noifs-nobutts.co.uk) has been launched to identify illegal tobacco and teach people what to look out for.
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Source: South Wales Guardian, 23 March 2022
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** International
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** Kenya’s Ministry of Health has launched an initiative in partnership with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) aimed at hastening the end of tobacco farming in the African country. The Tobacco-Free Farms project will support local subsistence farmers to shift to the cultivation of tobacco alternatives like legumes.

Mutahi Kagwe, cabinet secretary in the Kenyan Ministry of Health, said that tobacco had worsened the burden of respiratory diseases in Kenya, harmed vital ecosystems like watersheds, and escalated gender inequality, rural poverty, deforestation, and social degradation in the country. He said this had prompted the need to shift to tobacco alternatives that guarantee better incomes, water, and soil quality, boost food security, and contribute to sustainable development goals.

Ministry of Health statistics indicate that Kenya loses more than 6,000 people annually to tobacco-related diseases and an estimated 2.7 million adults and 220,000 children consume tobacco products daily. Juliet Nabyonga, acting WHO representative in Kenya, said that Kenya was among the first countries to ratify the WHO framework convention on tobacco control (FCTC) in 2004.

Source: Xinhua, 23 March 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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