This is the second reading of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill
There are many victims of smoking beyond those who smoke who suffer from the consequences, including ill health, poverty and death. Families suffer and the country suffers. Today smoking is responsible for up to 75,000 GP appointments a year. It costs the country approximately £27.6 billion in lost economic productivity. It costs the NHS almost £2 billion a year and local authorities almost £4 billion a year in social care costs.
We should therefore be mindful of the fairness of increasing taxes on many smokers, some of whom are made poor by their habit, while not further increasing taxes on the very rich tobacco companies which have profited from their ill health. Why not make the tobacco industry pay from its vast profits towards the cost of helping its victims to quit? It would make us a healthier nation, with fewer of the costs of smoking passed on to the taxpayer, and help us provide a boost to economic growth as more people will be healthy enough to work.