On paper, it may sound like a bold public health initiative, but in reality, it’s poorly thought-out, discriminatory, expensive and will likely hurt our international standing.
The law would generate confusion, resentment, and most dangerously, opportunity for those already profiting from the island’s thriving illicit tobacco trade.
It’s pretty rich of a former health minister to argue against tobacco on the basis it is ‘a cause of enduring poverty’, because, about 80 per cent of the cost of buying cigarettes is taxation ministers like him have levied.
I am a Conservative because I cherish liberty and gradualism. But some fights require a clear decision. Seventy years after science proved its dangers, the tobacco industry’s time is up.
We have become so accustomed to nanny state legislation that we don’t realise how weird Britain has become. Most of supposedly dirigiste Europe is a haven of liberty by comparison.
As with the smoking bill, it’s the Conservatives that introduced the sugar tax. The same party that encouraged NHS lionisation, that infantilised people during the pandemic, that justified soft authoritarianism on the grounds of public health.
From a free market perspective, almost everything about the Tobacco and Vapes Bill is objectionable.
The Labour government is bolstering the nanny state with puritanical policies, and paying little heed to the harm caused to our nation’s finances.
Our deputy editor joins Sky News’ Press Preview to discuss Labour’s u-turns on borrowing and the mooted ban on smoking outside pubs and nightclubs.
Smoking is one area where sticks rather than carrots are favoured by policymakers. However an approach based on prohibition alone is unlikely to achieve the smoke-free future that we all aspire to.
Ridding the world of smoking is the public health opportunity of this century. But, if we fail to map out a sustainable path to a smoke-free future, then it will forever remain out of reach.
Starmer’s instincts stands in a Gladstonian tradition of the high-minded and hectoring British left.
In a crowded marketplace, simplicity and consistency of message are vital. Yet the manifesto commitment to a smoking ban denied us one of the last distinguishable arguments we could have used to turn out our core vote.
Even before these further laws are imposed, the illicit market is already booming.
If ministers keep making laws that only make sense in Westminster, the people on the front line will always keep fighting those two battles as I did.