Cllr Jim Dickson – Cabinet Member for Healthier Communities (Job Share)

On No Smoking Day this year (Wednesday 13th March) I was in the unfamiliar position of wanting to say thank you to ministers, for prioritising Stop Smoking, the most important of all the public health issues we face. And to add the voice of my community – in Lambeth and that of Local Government – in London to the calls for ministers to bring forward the Tobacco and Vapes Bill now. 

I’ve heard really moving testimony from people telling their own personal stories about the disease, disability and premature death taking place every day in our country due to smoking.

For Lambeth – our community of around 320,000 people – the cost of smoking when you total it all up is over £350m a year, with almost £100m in lost earnings and over £80m lost due to smoking-related unemployment. In addition, on average over £3000 is spent on tobacco per year by each smoker.

Smoking remains the biggest killer in Lambeth causing more than 500 deaths and over 1,300 hospital admissions in the borough each year. That’s around the same number of people dying every year that we lost in Lambeth during the entire Covid period. 

Around 13% of adults in Lambeth currently smoke but that balloons to 27.5% amongst those with long term mental health conditions and 34.2% amongst routine and manual workers. So whilst smoking rates amongst all groups have declined over the years, the gap in rates between the richest and poorest has widened and smoking accounts for half of the huge difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest in our borough.

We also know from our recent health equity audit that the groups with higher rates of smoking, such as our routine and manual workers and those with a mental health condition, find it harder to quit after engaging with local stop smoking services in comparison to other service users and therefore require further support to quit.

So make no mistake this remains a public health crisis. And never let it be thought that the public is not firmly on our side in tackling it.

In November, rather than simply have councillors and the Director of Public Health respond to the government proposals to make smoking illegal for everyone born after 2009, we asked our community to give their views via a 3-weeks public consultation. Amongst the highlights were more than two thirds supporting the ‘Stop the Start’ legislation and 74% supporting increased investment in our local stop smoking services. 83% supported or strongly supported more action to tackle youth vaping. 76% supported or strongly supported increased investment to tackle underage and illegal sales of tobacco. 

There was also strong support to for us to go further on measures such as more smoke-free public spaces (including outside hospitality venues), banning single use vapes and more investment in both education and enforcement.

I think what the last 20 plus years of reduction in smoking prevalence – in Lambeth it’s reduced from 35% in 2002 to 13% – have shown is a great model for how local and central government can work together to achieve brilliant outcomes.

Government leading the way – as in the 2007 indoor smoking ban (controversial at the time and now seen as a normal part of everyday life) – and setting the legal framework; councils working hard in our communities preventing uptake through education in schools and tackling illegal sales; extending smoke free environments to local parks and playgrounds; amplifying national campaigns and helping smokers to quit through our stop smoking services. For instance, in Lambeth we’ve been delighted to be part of the first wave of the national ‘swap to stop’ scheme giving long term smokers vapes instead of cigarettes.

So our message from Lambeth is: let’s see the bill introduced, passed by parliament and onto the statue book – and we in local government give you our guarantee we’ll help you deliver the objective we all share of a smokefree society.