Getting on track to achieve the UK's smokefree vision

Bob Blackman, MP for Harrow East and chairman of the APPG, said, “The APPG strongly supports the Government’s ambition to create a ‘smokefree generation’. In order, however, to maximise the benefits to health, wellbeing and to the economy, the smokefree ambition must be delivered for everyone, and current investment is not sufficient. The APPG’s tobacco manifesto calls on the government to put a ‘polluter pays’ levy on the tobacco manufacturers to provide the necessary funding for a Tobacco Control programme fit to deliver a Smokefree Future for us all.”

Smoking is the leading cause of premature death and preventable disease, costing public finances in England £21bn in 2023, nearly double the tobacco tax take of £11bn. The wider cost to society in the UK was estimated to be £89.3bn, equivalent to around 3.9 per cent of the UK’s GDP.

Howard Reed, director of Landman Economics, who carried out the economic modelling for the APPG, said, “Tobacco company lobbyists argue that the cost of smoking to the NHS is more than made up for by tobacco taxes. But detailed scrutiny of the data shows that the damage to public finances and wider society caused by smoking due to reduced productivity, ill health and early death far outweighs tobacco taxes.”

Modelling by UCL’s Cancer Research UK funded Tobacco Research Group for the APPG of the impact of recently announced additional funding for Stop Smoking Services, and anti-smoking campaigns in 2024, demonstrates it could reduce smoking prevalence significantly. Economic modelling shows that reductions in prevalence deliver immediate financial benefits to public finances.

Howard Reed, director of Landman Economics, commented, “Reductions in smoking provide immediate benefits to public finances by reducing pressure on the NHS and social care systems, increasing tax revenues and reducing social security costs. The £85m investment in stop smoking services and anti-smoking campaigns just announced for 2024 could pay for itself within the year. If all the APPG recommendations were implemented the cost of smoking to public finances could be cut by over £3bn by the end of the next parliament.”

If current government and NHS commitments are implemented in full, sustained and enhanced as recommended by the APPG in its report, smoking prevalence could be reduced by a third to 7.3 per cent during the next parliament. This would deliver immediate benefits to health, wellbeing and the economy, reducing public finance costs by on average £628m a year. The total reduction by 2029 would be £3.1bn made up of: