Written questions, answers and statements

Smoking

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Question for Department of Health and Social Care

UIN 92775, tabled on 21 September 2020

Question

Dan Jarvis
Labour
Barnsley Central
Commons

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of introducing a levy on tobacco industry profits to achieve the Government’s objective for a smokefree England in 2030.

This answer is the replacement for a previous holding answer.

Answer

Jo Churchill
Conservative
Bury St Edmunds
Commons

Answered on

9 October 2020

Smoking rates are the lowest on record at 13.9% for England and we are not complacent. We laid out our ambition to make England smokefree by 2030 in our Prevention Green Paper, ‘Advancing Our Health: Prevention in the 2020s’ consultation last year. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the response to this consultation has been put on hold. The response and plans for achieving our smokefree objectives will be published at a later date.

Decisions on the future funding of local government health improvement functions will be taken as part of the Spending Review.

The Department has not made an assessment of introducing a levy on tobacco industry profits. However, HM Treasury has previously carried out a consultation and published its response in September 2015. It is available at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/464795/PU1814_Tobacco_Levy_final_v3.pdf

Answered by

Department of Health and Social Care
Named day
Named day questions only occur in the House of Commons. The MP tabling the question specifies the date on which they should receive an answer. MPs may not table more than five named day questions on a single day.