One in four adults still smoke in some parts of England, official figures show.
Rates have plummeted in recent decades thanks to government attempts to stamp out this deadly habit.
Only 12.9 per cent of British adults, or around 6.4 million, currently smoke. By comparison, almost half of people smoked in the 1970s.
The figure stands at 25.1 per cent in central Devon, the highest rate in the country.
The data shows the rate is almost nine times lower in Stafford, where only 2.9 per cent of adults still smoke.
Rishi Sunak used his first Conservative conference speech as Prime Minister yesterday to announce that he wants to raise the legal smoking age annually in a bid to try to stop teenagers taking up cigarettes. Under the bold proposal, the legal age for purchasing tobacco will rise each year from 2009, meaning a 14-year-old today will never be legally sold a cigarette under the proposed legislation for England.
Rishi Sunak wants to make the country “smoke-free” to save billions to the economy and the NHS and stop thousands of people dying young.
Yesterday he presented radical proposals at the Conservative conference to increase the legal age for purchasing tobacco each year. If approved, it will mean that 14-year-olds today will never be legally sold a cigarette.
Charities and health experts immediately welcomed Sunak’s plans, saying they will save tens of thousands of lives from preventable smoking-related causes such as cancer, heart attacks and strokes.
But some think tanks, smokers’ rights groups and a handful of Conservative MPs said the policy was “shockingly illiberal” and doomed to fail.
The bold policy was recommended in a government-commissioned report last year by former children’s charity director Javed Khan.
It was tasked with finding ways England could be smoke-free by 2030, defined as less than five per cent of people smoking.
As well as implementing the policy announced by Mr Sunak yesterday, he suggested banning supermarkets from selling tobacco products, banning smoking in public places such as pub gardens, and introducing an 18+ rating on all films and shows television that contain tobacco. images.
It warned that smoking costs the country £17bn each year, including £2.4bn for the NHS alone.
The report also highlighted how smoking rates differed greatly in England.
Mid-Devon had the highest smoking rates in 2022, according to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Hastings, in East Sussex, came second (23.7%).
It was followed by three neighboring boroughs: Lincoln (23.5 per cent), Boston (22.9 per cent) and North East Lincolnshire (21.8 per cent).
At the other end of the scale was Stafford and then Rushcliffe in Nottinghamshire (4 per cent).
Only seven of around 300 local areas currently meet the 2030 smoke-free target of less than five per cent.
ONS data also shows that the number of people smoking cigarettes in the UK has fallen to a record low.
In total, 6.4 million adults in the UK (or 12.9 percent) smoked in 2022.
This is the lowest figure since records began in 2011 and represents a drop from the 13.3 percent reported in 2021.
Almost £1.4bn was wiped from British tobacco companies yesterday following Mr Sunak’s announcement.
Dunhill and Lucky Strike owner British American Tobacco saw around £974m lose its value, while Imperial Brands faced a £404m drop.
An Imperial spokesperson said: “The proposal to ban the legal sale of cigarettes over time threatens significant unintended consequences.”
Smoking kills around 78,000 people in the UK each year, and many more suffer from illnesses due to their habit, half of which are due to cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and strokes.
Javed Khan, the former head of a children’s charity who was tasked with finding ways Britain could meet its smoke-free target, warned in August 2022 that England would miss the target by at least seven years. He suggested raising the age limit for buying cigarettes in England, currently set at 18, by 12 months each year until no one could legally buy a tobacco product.
But the ONS survey also found that the number of people smoking cigarettes in the UK has fallen to a record low. In total, 6.4 million adults in the UK, or 12.9 per cent, smoked in 2022. This is the lowest figure since records began in 2011 and represents a fall from 13.3 per cent. percent reported in 2021.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast today, Sir Chris Whitty said he supported the move.
England’s chief medical officer said: “A large number of people living in the UK today will suffer from illness, disability for many years and will die from smoking.
‘We know this will work. When the illegal purchasing age of cigarettes was raised from 16 to 18, there was a reduction.’
Responding to arguments from Simon Clark, director of smoking lobby group Forest, who previously appeared on the programme, he also said: “There are two things I think are worth saying.
‘The first is, and he is very open about this, that his organization is funded by the tobacco industry and if they weren’t concerned about this they wouldn’t be arguing against it.
‘The argument that this will not lead to a fall is false.
“The second thing I think you haven’t really taken into account is that those who argue against it need to think carefully about it is that smoking is an addiction-based problem.”
He added: “Most people who smoke wish they had never smoked.” They have tried to stop and they can’t.
And that’s the point: the choice has been taken away from them.
‘As a doctor, I have seen many people in hospital desperate to stop smoking because it is killing them and yet they can’t. Your choice has been eliminated.
It is estimated that around 500,000 hospital admissions each year in England are attributable to smoking and that smoking costs the economy £17 billion a year.
Of this, £2.4bn goes to the NHS, £1.19bn goes to the social care system and over £13bn is lost in productivity costs due to loss of income, unemployment and premature death related to the tobacco.
The 7,000 chemicals in tobacco (including tar and others that can narrow arteries and damage blood vessels) are believed to be behind some of the damage that tobacco inflicts on the heart.
Meanwhile, nicotine (a highly addictive toxin found in tobacco) is strongly linked to dangerous increases in heart rate and blood pressure.
Smoking also releases poisonous gases such as carbon monoxide, which replaces oxygen in the blood, reducing the availability of oxygen to the heart.
