The winners take it all (including the press coverage)
It was announced today that the Tobacco and Vapes Bill has received Royal Assent and become law.
The Press Association, with which Forest has ‘enjoyed’ an up-and-down relationship, reported the story by leading with a quote from Rishi Sunak, the former Conservative prime minister who introduced the idea of a generational ban in the UK in October 2023. This week he told the PA:
“I’m absolutely delighted that the smoke-free generation policy is now going to be on the statute books.
“It’s going to make an enormous difference to the health of our country and it means that we’re going to be on track to essentially end smoking within a generation.”
Asked if the law was the favourite policy introduced under his tenure, Mr Sunak replied: “Well, much like children you try not to have favourites, but I think in terms of the things that I was able to do, the thing that will have probably the furthest reaching, biggest impact… this is probably the one just because, ultimately, it’s something that’s going to save an enormous number of lives.
“What this is going to tackle is the single biggest preventable cause of ill health and death in our country.”
He said the law would mean that “we’re going to make sure many more, mums, dads, brothers, sisters, children are going to be around for years to come”.
The PA report, picked up by several publications including the Independent, also featured a series of quotes from Hazel Cheesman, director of ASH; Michelle Mitchell, chief executive at Cancer Research UK; health secretary Wes Streeting; Professor Sir Chris Whitty, chief medical officer for England; and Sarah Sleet, chief executive at Asthma + Lung UK, every one of whom support the new law. In contrast, there was not a single comment from anyone who opposes the policy.
The Mirror added a further supporter to the PA list (Charmaine Griffiths, chief executive of the British Heart Foundation), but the paper did at least acknowledge that ‘current Tory leader Kemi Badenoch strongly opposed the phased smoking ban, labelling it the "least conservative policy" of the then-government’.
This matters because, whatever the anti-smoking industry want us to believe, the generational ban is still a live issue and will continue to be so at least until the next election. Nigel Farage, leader of Reform, the party currently leading the polls, has vowed to repeal the “idiotic” ban, and it wouldn’t be the first time this has happened. An almost identical law was repealed in New Zealand after the Labour government lost the last election (in 2023) and was replaced by a centre-right coalition.
The same thing could conceivably happen in the UK (the difference being that the New Zealand law had not yet been enforced), so to ignore opposition to the policy is wilfully biased but no more than we have come to expect.
Significantly, there is also opposition on the centre left. Only this afternoon the New Statesman published an article by associate political editor Rachel Cunliffe, and it’s hard-hitting stuff. ‘The smoking ban is a threat to democracy', she writes, ‘We are creating two tiers of citizenry.’ And she’s absolutely right.
Anyway, here’s Forest’s response, issued earlier today – Campaigners vow to “fight on” after tobacco and vapes bill receives royal assent. Naturally, it’s fallen on deaf ears but this is not over, not by a long chalk.
