Tobacco bill not considered important by most Brits

The Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which is progressing through Parliament, moves to the committee stage in the House of Lords on Monday October 27.

This will give peers an opportunity to scrutinise and discuss amendments to the Bill which currently includes one of the Government’s flagship policies, a ban on the sale of tobacco to future generations of adults.

Over the summer, in anticipation of this moment, Forest commissioned a series of polls. Conducted by Yonder Consulting, the results were the usual mixed bag. Nevertheless they tell a significantly different story to the one promoted by ASH. Namely the claim that '68% support the 'Smokefree Generation' policy'.

For example, respondents were asked how important they rated a list of ten government bills that are currently progressing through parliament. According to our survey, 71% said the most important are the Crime and Policing Bill, followed by the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (69%), and the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (68%).

The Crime and Policing Bill is especially important to older respondents, aged 55 and above (81%), as well as to women (73%).

The least important bills, according to the survey, are the Tobacco and Vapes Bill – only 42% considered it important – followed by the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill which was rated important by just 28% of respondents.

Yonder also asked respondents to think about government priorities and rate ten domestic issues according to importance. According to the poll, the government's top priorities should be improving the health service (88%), addressing the cost of living (87%), and care for the elderly (80%).

These issues were followed in order of importance by national security (79%), the housing crisis (75%), and tackling illegal immigration (74%). In contrast, only two in five respondents (39%) said tackling smoking was important.

See also Labour smoking ban under fire (Guido Fawkes) which features a quote by me:

“Contrary to what the stop smoking brigade would have us believe, further anti-smoking measures are not on most people’s wish list. It demonstrates just how out of touch this Labour government is. If ministers had any respect for ordinary people, they would put their ideological hatred of tobacco to one side and focus on the issues that really matter to voters.”

The full survey will be published later this month so watch this space.