SMOKING HABITS

INSIGHT: OFFICE OF NATIONAL STATISTICS

IN A REMARKABLE TURN OF EVENTS THAT HAS GONE LARGELY UNNOTICED, THE LATEST DATA FROMTHE OFFICE OF NATIONAL STATISTICS SHOWS THAT SCOTLAND HAS SHED ITS UNWANTED CROWN ASSMOKING CAPITAL OF THE UK.

It all happened without much fanfare, but Scotland has finally lost its unenviable crown of being the smoking capital of the UK, according to new data published by the Office of National Statistics (ONS).

An ONS study, Adult Smoking Habits in the UK 2019, found that the proportion of over-18s in Scotland who smoked stood at 15.4% last year. The number has fallen consistently since 2011, when it stood at 23.4%.

The dubious distinction of being the UK’s smoking capital now passes across the water to Northern Ireland – although, at 15.6% of the population, it’s barely possible to separate the two countries with a cigarette paper.

England has the lowest prevalence (13.9%) while the number in Wales sits only slightly behind Scotland at 15.5%. Taken as a whole, 14.1% of the UK’s adults are smokers – some 6.9 million people.

The survey also put the number of vapers at nearly three million, or 5.7% of the population.

However, the bad news for the Vaping category is that this is down from 6.3% in 2018, although ONS number crunchers said the difference was not “statistically significant”.

What is significant is that the category has effectively stalled. When the ONS started collecting data on the use of e-cigarettes in 2014, only 3.7% of the population vaped. After two subsequent years of increases, there has been no real rise since 2016, when the figure stood at 5.6%.

In response, the UK Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA) has called on the UK and Scottish Governments to ‘fast-track’ vaping to help the UK meet its smoke-free target years, which looks increasingly unrealistic.

According to UKVIA, “the Government still has a massive job to meet its smoke-free target by 2030 for England alone, with some 6.9m adults still smoking across the UK as a whole”.

UKIVIA Director John Dunne commented: “It’s now high time that Government and its relevant agencies fast track vaping take-up among existing smokers to realise its smoke-free vision for the UK.

“The Government has an opportunity to bring VAT on vaping (20%) in line with Nicotine Replacement Therapy products, which has a VAT rate of 5%. At the same time the Department for Health and Social Care and the NHS also have a pivotal role to play in supporting vaping on the healthcare estate and to enhancing the vaping knowledge of doctors so they are well informed to provide best advice on how their patients, who smoke and otherwise do not quit, can make the switch.

“The ONS figures show that a majority of smokers (52.7%) want to quit cigarettes and we believe they deserve the best tools to do it – and vaping needs to be very much part of the toolbox.”

Dunne also voiced his organisation’s satisfaction that, according to the ONS figures, of those who have never smoked just 0.4% vape.