The Tobacco Control Plan

Healthy Lives, Healthy People: A Tobacco Control Plan for England sets out how tobacco control will be delivered in the context of the new public health system, focusing in particular on the action that the Government will take nationally over the next five years to drive down the prevalence of smoking and to support comprehensive tobacco control in local areas.  

The National Picture

The plan sets out the following targets for reduction in smoking prevalence rates over the next 5 years:

  • To reduce smoking prevalence among adults to 18.5% or less by the end of 2015
  • To reduce smoking prevalence among young people to 12 % or less by the end of 2015
  • To reduce smoking during pregnancy to 11% or less by 2015.

How this will be achieved

The plan supports evidence based measures and includes commitments to the following:

  • Implement legislation to end tobacco displays in shops;
  • Look at whether the plain packaging of tobacco products could be an effective way to reduce the number of young people who take up smoking and to support adult smokers who want to quit, and consult on options by the end of the year;
  • Continue to defend tobacco legislation against legal challenges by the tobacco industry, including legislation to stop tobacco sales from vending machines from October 2011;
  • Continue to follow a policy of using tax to maintain the high price of tobacco products at levels that impact on smoking prevalence;
  • Promote effective local enforcement of tobacco legislation, particularly on the age of sale of tobacco; 
  • Encourage more smokers to quit by using the most effective forms of support, through local stop smoking services; and
  • Publish a three-year marketing strategy for tobacco control.

Smokefree South West

The plan also contains an endorsement of the innovative collective commissioning approach work being undertaken by Smokefree South West and Smokefree offices in the North of England saying:

‘In the future, local areas may wish to commission and deliver tobacco control initiatives over larger geographical areas, in order to achieve greater levels of effectiveness and efficiency. Tobacco control offices in the North West, North East and South West of England have demonstrated the value of such models of working for many years, particularly around marketing communications and tackling illicit tobacco.’

It also underlines the effect that collective commissioning can have through partnership work with particular reference to illegal tobacco:

  • Groups of local authorities may wish to collaborate and co-operate around intelligence-gathering and analysis, enforcement, public education and engagement in the area of tackling illicit tobacco. Working across a wider geographical area is likely to be more cost effective and have a greater impact.
  • There is a role for marketing communications in reducing illicit tobacco in our communities. Marketing campaigns can be more cost-effective when commissioned across wider geographical areas.

Our comment

Gabriel Scally, Regional Director of Public Health and Smokefree South West spokesperson said:

‘We need significant breakthroughs in our war against the advertising of illness and death in an easily purchasable packet. These colourful branded packets and displays have been around for so many years that they seem burned into our minds, however the huge gantries are solely designed to entice our young to replace the smokers who are dying and therefore no longer a revenue stream for the tobacco industry.

‘Smokefree South West welcomes the implementation of legislation on display bans and the Government’s next logical step in launching a proposal for a consultation on the introduction of plain packaging. We were fighting with one hand tied behind our backs by not doing enough to stop people taking up smoking and beginning on the inevitable path to a premature death.’

‘We are working with partners throughout the area to combat tobacco harm which costs the South West taxpayers £31 per person to treat at a total cost of £91 million every year from our badly stretched resources. Smoking is the biggest cause of preventable death in the South West, killing over 8000 of our residents every year. Smokefree South West therefore strongly supports all measures aimed to reduce this such as plain packaging and moving tobacco products under the counter.’