Meagre spending on tobacco control is costing the economy billions

On the publication of Javed Khan’s Independent Review into smoking last year we wrote an open letter urging the UK government to heed Khan’s call for immediate investment of £125 million per year in tobacco control to deliver its Smokefree 2030 ambition.12 While £125 million a year may sound a large amount, it is only 0.6% of the direct cost of smoking to public finances in 2022.3Instead, nine months on from Khan’s review, cuts to the tobacco control budget have bitten even deeper. Last year it was estimated that real terms spending on tobacco control was a third lower than in 2015, this year it will be 45% down.45 On current trends we will be nearly a decade late in reaching a smokefree 2030.6An announcement by Neil O’Brien MP last week on achieving a smokefree 2030 are a step forward, but the announcement provided only around a quarter of the…
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