A map reveals the UK’s smoking hotspots after prime minister Rishi Sunak promised to phase out the sale of tobacco in a speech at his party’s conference in Manchester.
Some 12.9 per cent (6.4 million) of people aged 18 years and over in the UK smoke cigarettes, official figures show. This was the lowest proportion of current smokers since records began in 2011.
The number of people who smoke has steadily declined over the past few decades. In 1974 half of men (51 per cent) and 41 per ent of women smoked. The corresponding figures for 2022 were 14.6 per cent and 11.2 per cent respectively.
In 2022, Stafford, (2.9 per cent) and Rushcliffe, Nottinghamshire (4 per cent) had the lowest levels of smoking prevalence in England, the Office for National Statistics said.
Use the interactive map below to check smoking levels in your area
Since 2012, Kingston upon Hull and Blackpool have been in the 10 local authorities with the highest proportion of current smokers eight times each.
In 2022, the proportion of current smokers decreased in Kingston upon Hull (18.9 per cent) and Blackpool (18.8 per cent), respectively.
Delivering a speech at his party’s conference in Manchester on Wednesday, Mr Sunak set out plans to raise the legal age of smoking every year by a year so that evetually no one can buy cigarettes.
The plan was criticised by some MPs who said the PM was restricting people’s freedom to choose, while others said the ban would create a “black market” for cigarettes and other tobacco products.
Mr Sunak has delayed measures from the government’s anti-obesity strategy by two years. The rules, which would have banned two-for-one junk food deals, had already been pushed back and would have come into force this month.
But he defended the policy - which the Labour Party said it would support - saying there was no safe level of smoking, comparing it to other products such as alcohol.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wants to crackdown on smoking (Danny Lawson/PA)— (PA Wire)
Speaking to the BBC, Mr Sunak said smoking was “unequivocally the single biggest preventable cause of death, disability and illness in our society”.
He said it was “chemically addictive”, praising his own plan to ban it as “the single biggest intervention in public health in a generation”.
But pressed on why he undid plans to tackle obesity, on the grounds of protecting people’s freedoms, Mr Sunak told the BBC smoking was “fundamentally different”.
“There’s no safe level of smoking that can be part of a balanced diet. It’s also obviously highly addictive, and it is responsible for one in four cancer deaths in our country,” the PM said.
The NHS says that men and women should not drink more than 14 units of alcohol per week - equivalent to seven pints of lower-strength beer or six glasses of wine.
Smoking is one of the biggest causes of death and illness in the UK.
Every year around 76,000 people in the UK die from smoking, with many more living with debilitating smoking-related illnesses.
Smoking increases your risk of developing more than 50 serious health conditions. Some may be fatal, and others can cause irreversible long-term damage to your health.
