Cigar-chomping Therese Coffey has reportedly ditched a plan to help the country go “smoke free” by 2030.
The Health Secretary, when questioned about the latest U-turn, said she is “not aware” whether the target to get the adult smoking rate down to 5% or under has been axed.
Since becoming an MP in 2010, the Deputy Prime Minister has voted against anti-smoking measures including the ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces, the outlawing of smoking in cars containing children and requiring cigarettes to be sold in plain packs.
The Government had committed several times to publishing a tobacco control plan by “later this year” but officials reportedly with knowledge of Ms Coffey’s intentions told the Guardian she does not plan to honour that promise.
Asked why she did not support the ban on smoking in cars with children, she told LBC: “Probably because I didn’t think it’s the right thing to be doing to be telling parents to be handling the situation.”
Smoking still causes almost a third of all cancer deaths in Britain with poorer communities worst affected.
It comes after the Mirror revealed Ms Coffey’s voting record on smoking and that she has accepted hospitality from Big Tobacco.
Ms Coffey supported a failed 10 minute rule bill in the House of Commons in 2010 to reverse the smoking ban in pubs and private members clubs.
When asked about her voting record yesterday(Tue), she said: “You’re asking me about something from a decade ago.. I’m not sure where all this stuff about tobacco has come from.”
Ms Coffey was unable to say whether the target to get the adult smoking rate down to 5% or under has been axed, instead saying her priority is on her “ABCD” - ambulances, backlog, care, doctors and dentists - ambitions.
“I’m not aware any target has been scrapped. My focus right now is the ABCD,” she told Sky News.
She added on LBC: “I’m a Government minister so if that’s Government policy today then that’s what I agree with. I don’t have personal views on these sorts of matters.”
Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: “The Health Secretary is ‘unaware’ of a major plank of her own Government’s health policy because she spends little time in her own department and most of her time firefighting in Number 10.
“Clueless and hopeless.”
Leading medics have said the Department of Health and Social Care will miss its target unless further action is taken.
Insiders now claim there is “no chance” that recommendations to reduce smoking which the ex-Barnardo’s chief executive Dr Javed Khan made in a government commissioned review will ever be acted on.
They included raising the legal age for buying tobacco by a year every year, banning smoking in beer gardens and imposing a new “polluter pays” levy on tobacco firms.
Liz Truss, best pal of Ms Coffey, is also a longstanding sceptic of tobacco control and has appointed former tobacco lobbyists as part of her team of Downing Street advisers.
The Government first committed in 2019 to make Britain “smoke free” by 2030, which is defined as getting the proportion of adults who smoke down from 14.1% to just 5%.
The Department of Health and Social Care said it was “inaccurate” to suggest that the tobacco control plan was being dropped.
“No decisions have been taken,” a spokesperson said.
"We are currently considering the wide range of recommendations set out in the Khan review and how best to take these forward. We will set out our next steps for the plan in due course.”
