Good morning. Although smoking in the UK has been in decline for more than half a century, the harm it does remains staggering. About 76,000 people die, and more than half a million people are admitted to hospital, as a result of smoking in England each year. Two out of three smokers will die from a smoking-related disease. And the overall cost of smoking to the UK economy, factoring in healthcare costs, lost productivity and environmental harms, is estimated at up to £17bn a year.
In parliament yesterday, the government introduced its tobacco and vapes bill – which will raise the legal age of smoking every year by a year, a genuinely radical measure that experts say has the potential to effectively eliminate smoking within a generation. Today’s newsletter, with Dr Sharon Cox, a behavioural scientist at UCL’s Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group, is about how it will work – and what might get in the way. Here are the headlines.
