The Government has confirmed its commitment to ‘Smoke Free 2030,’ whereby the adult smoking prevalence in England would fall to 5% or lower;

This goal, whilst ambitious, was achievable. The UK already had an effective tobacco harm reduction policy;

Adoption of tobacco harm reduction (THR) products has already driven smoking rates down from 20% in 2012 to 14.7% in 2021, saving over 1 million years of life annually in the UK;

But the Tobacco and Vapes Bill 2024 is introducing a number of prohibitionist measures, including a generational smoking ban, punitive marketing restrictions, whilst other legislation will be banning disposable vapes;

These policies risk stalling harm reduction progress, significantly reducing the chance that a Smoke Free 2030 will be achieved, reinforcing misinformation that vapes and other tobacco harm reduction products are as harmful as smoking, and driving consumers towards the black market for cigarettes;

The Government should instead look to Sweden for inspiration. Only 4.5% of their population smokes cigarettes, due to its embrace of snus, nicotine pouches, and vaping, the affordability of harm reduction products, and clear government messaging on relative risk;

The path to a Smoke-Free Britain lies in embracing harm reduction, empowering consumers with a wide variety of safer alternatives, and rejecting prohibitionist policies;

In this paper, we have calculated that, if this was achieved, we could save 19 million years of life in the UK. This means that each smoker would enjoy longer lives, measured in years, which cumulatively adds up to 19 million years across the entire population.

Research by ASH (the Action on Smoking Health) suggests that smoking costs the UK taxpayer £21.8bn every year. Using their methodology, by achieving Smoke Free in the way that this paper suggests, the cost would be reduced by up to £12.6bn.

By achieving Smoke-Free (smoking prevalence of 5%) this cost would be reduced by between £12.6bn and £9.2bn.