Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of smokers who have switched to e-cigarettes; and what estimate he has made of the effect of that switch on the NHS budget.

Survey data suggests the use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) among adults in Great Britain has increased to 2.6 million in 2015, of whom 1.1 million have completely stopped smoking.

The Department recognises that e-cigarettes can help smokers to quit and the evidence indicates that they are less harmful to health than smoking tobacco. There is not yet enough evidence on which to make an estimate of the impact on National Health Service costs of smokers switching to e-cigarettes.