Rishi Sunak announces plan to phase out cigarettes and ban smoking

in our country smoking causes one in four cancer deaths it kills 64,000 people a year and leads to almost One hospital admission every minute it significantly increases the risks of Strokes heart disease dementia and still birth now we've made great progress in tackling smoking the number of people smoking is down by 2/3 since the 1970s but if we are to do the right thing for our kids we must try and stop teenagers taking up cigarettes in the first place because without a significant change thousands of children will start smoking in the coming years and have their lives cut short as a result people take up cigarettes when they're young four in five smokers have started by the time they're 20 later the vast majority try to quit but many fail because they're addicted and they wish they had never taken up the Habit in the first place now if we could break that cycle if we could stop the start then we would be on our way to ending the biggest cause of preventable death and disease in our country so I propose that in future we raise the smoking age by one year every year that means a [Applause] 14-year-old that means a 14-year-old today will never legally be sold a cigarette and that they and their generation can grow up smoke free now we know this works when we raised a smoking age to 18 smoking prevalence dropped by 30% in that age group when the United States raised the age to 21 the smoking rate dropped by 39% in that that age group smoking places huge pressures on the NHS and costs our country 17 billion pound a year we have a chance to cut cancer deaths by a quarter significantly ease those pressures and protect our children and we should take it this is not a values judgment on people who smoke I don't believe it would be fair to take away the rights of anyone to smoke Who currently does so and the vote on this in Parliament will be a free vote as the bar on smoking in public places was and raising the smoking age to 18 was there will be no government whip it is a matter of conscience and I want you all and the country to know where mine is for a conservative measures that restrict Choice are never easy I know not everyone in this Hall will agree with me on this but I've spent a long time weighing up this decision simply put unlike all other legal products there is no safe level of smoking and what has ultimately swayed me is that none of us not even those who smoke want our children to grow up to be smokers and this change can make that a reality it will save more lives than any other decision we could take

Channel: The Telegraph

Views: 78,434

Keywords: Telegraph, News, rishi sunak, conservatives, tory party conference, smoking, smoking ban

Id: jbxouOAmb_4

Length: 3min 33sec (213 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 04 2023