Low smoking rate fuels further criticism of Sunak tobacco ban

BRITAIN is one of the top countries convincing smokers to quit with a lower lung cancer death than France and Germany, according to analysis by The Telegraph, prompting further criticism of Rishi Sunak’s tobacco ban.

The anaylsis has revealed that Britain was slowly winning the war on the habit when MPs agreed to the annual increase from 18 to the minimum legal age to buy tobacco.

The UK has one of the lowest smoking rates as well as some of the toughest laws and highest taxes on cigarettes in Europe.

The new rules will make it illegal for anyone born on or after Jan 1 2009 to buy cigarettes in England. Critics, including some Tory leadership rivals such as Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch, voted against the bill.

Sir John Hayes, the chairman of the Common Sense Group of backbench MPs, said the ban was “preposterous”, “unenforceable” and “bizarre”.

“There’s a ludicrous quality to it,” he said. “Can you really imagine someone of 49 being challenged for their birth certificate to make sure they are 49 and not 48?”

Sir John, who abstained in the vote, said it was “good news” that fewer people were smoking and dying from smoking-related illnesses.

He said the law should focus on the “explosion” of vaping in children and the sale of black market tobacco.

The UK was estimated to have the lowest smoking rates in Europe after Iceland, with 14.2 per cent of the population being smokers, according to the World Health Organisation.

In France and Germany, it is 34.6 and 21.6 per cent, while in Bulgaria and Serbia it is 39.5 per cent.

The figures are adjusted to ensure age profiles are similar across all countries to give a clearer sense of prevalence.

There had been a 23.4 per cent drop in the number of smokers from 37.6 to 14.2 per cent of the population from 2000 to 2022, which was the fourth highest decrease in Europe after Norway, Austria and Sweden.

French and German smokers are finding it harder to stub out the habit, with France decreasing tobacco usage by less than 1 per cent.

In 2022, Britain had 56.4 male lung cancer deaths per 100,000 people. That was the eighth lowest of 34 European countries recorded by the EU statistics agency, Eurostat.

But the figures were worse when it came to lung cancer deaths in women. Britain was 29th out of 34 countries.

No other western European country has seen the price of cigarettes rise so steeply as in Britain, which is one reason smoking levels have dropped, according to price inflation data.

Since 2009, prices have soared by 177 per cent, a near threefold increase. In France, they have risen almost as much by 151 per cent, while in Poland they rose by 126 per cent.

After Jeremy Hunt’s Budget in March, the price of a pack of 20 cigarettes will top £16.

A British smoker will now have to spend on average 11.2 per cent of their salary every year to support a pack a day habit – up from 5.8 per cent in 2008 and ahead of France on 10.9 per cent and Germany on 5.5 per cent.

Before Brexit, which was the last time the organisation looked at the UK’s figures, tax made up 91.6 per cent of the price of a pack of cigarettes, more than the average 81 per cent.

Anti-smoking rules in the UK are among Europe’s strictest, with only Sweden having tougher regulations according to data from Smoke Free Partnership, the anti-smoking charity.

For example, smoking is completely banned in indoor workplaces, restaurants and public transport in the UK, while Germany has partial bans with smoking permitted in enclosed rooms.