Britain: Health Minister abandons fight against tobacco

According to The Guardian, Britain's health secretary Therese Coffey is set to abandon her anti-smoking action plan, despite the government's promise to publish it. The health secretary's longstanding closeness to the tobacco industry is likely the reason for the abandonment.

With Britain already seven years behind schedule in its goal of becoming smoke-free by 2030, former health secretary Sajid Javid in February urged the government to come up with a plan to tackle smoking. The Guardian reported that the plan had been abandoned since Therese Coffey took over as health minister. A department spokesperson said the claims were “inaccurate” but did not elaborate on what the action plan would be.[1].

Close links between the Minister of Health and the tobacco industry

Since the early 2010s, Thérèse Coffey, previously an MP, has distinguished herself with her multiple anti-smoking positions. The current Minister of Health was part of a group of twenty MPs who accepted gifts from the manufacturer Japan Tobacco International (JTI). As the Guardian recalls, Thérèse Coffey has successively opposed the ban on smoking in cars in the presence of children, the obligation to sell cigarettes in packets and not individually, the introduction of plain packaging, and the ban on smoking in bars and nightclubs. According to the newspaper, these pro-smoking positions are shared by Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has been singled out for having appointed former tobacco industry lobbyists as advisers at 10 Downing Street.

Health inequality, fight against obesity: the Minister of Health gives up

Wes Streeting, a member of the Labour opposition, sees this risk of abandonment as a symptom of a short-term strategy on the part of the government: "The Conservatives have an ideological mission to remove all common sense measures that benefit public health […]. The irony is that abandoning prevention will end up costing the taxpayer more in the long term."

Tobacco is not the only area abandoned by the new Health Minister. Indeed, despite a 19-year life expectancy gap between the richest and poorest in Great Britain, Therese Coffey has indicated that she is abandoning the project of a white paper on social inequalities in health in the country.[2]. Similarly, the Minister of Health has also abandoned the implementation of measures to combat obesity, even though the latter contributes to at least 64,000 deaths per year in the country, and represents a particularly high cost for the public authorities.[3].

FT

[1] The Guardian, Thérèse Coffey to drop smoking action plan, insiders say, 11/10/2022, (accessed 11/10/2022)

[2] The Guardian, Thérèse Coffey scraps promised paper on health inequality, 09/29/2022, (accessed 10/11/2022)

[3] The Guardian, Plans to scrap England's anti-obesity measures 'a national scandal', 09/14/2022, (accessed 10/11/2022)

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