Labour Reveals Plans To Get People To Quit Smoking By 2030

The number of Bits who regularly smoke has declined over the last few years, but Labour wants to do more to encourage people to ditch their habit. 

If the Labour party is voted into government in the next election, it claims it will even go so far as to ban smoking entirely to achieve the ambitious target of the UK being smoke-free by 2030. 

Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting told BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg about the party’s intentions of phasing out sales of cigarettes over time until smoking is completely banned. 

A review in February 2022 found the government will fail to achieve its 2030 target of smoking prevalence falling below five per cent by at least seven years. 

The report added: “The poorest areas in society will not meet it until 2044.”

It recommended raising the legal age of sale, improving prevention strategies in the NHS, and encouraging people to swap smoking for vaping. 

The UK has a long way to go before it is ‘smoke-free’, as the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures showed 13.3 per cent of people over the age of 18 smoked cigarettes in 2021.

While this amounts to around 6.6 million people, it is a decline from previous year’s figures. In 2020, the proportion of smokers in the UK was 14 per cent, while it was as high as 20.2 per cent in 2011.  

The government, whether it is Labour or Conservative in the next election, will have its work cut out to reduce the number of smokers to below five per cent. 

Quit smoking products in the UK are one of the best ways to support people when they have decided to give up, while guidance from NHS staff and making it more difficult to buy cigarettes are likely to help too.