Tobacco Control Plan Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Lord Palmer
Main Page: Lord Palmer (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)Department Debates - View all Lord Palmer's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Tobacco Control Plan
Lord Palmer Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Markham (Con)
There are a number of ways we can tackle this, price, obviously, being one of the main ways, along with taxation. The noble Lord will be aware that we increase the tax by 2% every year, and cigarettes prices here are now the highest in Europe. We are still providing funding of £73 million per year to help 100,000 people stop smoking. But it is not always money that counts. Anti-smoking campaigns, branding restrictions and taxation are all other elements which are proving successful.
Lord Palmer (CB)
My Lords, have His Majesty’s Government estimated the loss to the Treasury if England became smoke-free?
Lord Markham (Con)
I am not aware of those figures, but the general feeling is that the savings to the health system would far outweigh them. I would always err in favour of doing everything we can to reduce smoking, whatever the impact on the tax we raise, because the savings on the health side are far, far greater.