The Prime Minister has confirmed he is considering plans to ban smoking in outdoor areas, as Labour pushes to make Britain smoke-free.
Sir Keir Starmer said the measure was being proposed to prevent unnecessary deaths and reduce the burden on the NHS.
On Thursday, he said more than 80,000 people die as a result of smoking every year.
“We can’t walk past that,” he told Channel 4, adding this number has a “huge impact” on the NHS and the cost is picked up by the taxpayer.
Simon Marks hears from LBC callers who react to the news:
00:00 Ray – ‘I tried to give up smoking goodness knows how many times.’
01:59 Heather – ‘I resent the litter that is produced by smokers.’
04:44 Winston – ‘Smokers are being singled out.’
06:17 retired GP David – ‘If you take 100 smokers, 50 of them will die as a direct result of their habit.’
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#simonmarks #keirstarmer #smoking #LBC
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30 Comments
The government need to invest more in helping people quit smoking. People keep going on about being a choice, but it’s an addiction that the government have allowed to continue and grow for a long time. If we are going to move towards a smokeless society, we need funding directed to helping people quit on a wider scale (free patches, gums, medication, therapy) that is easily accessible without needing a doctors appointment. If you move towards banning smoking without getting the addiction issue sorted, people will jus then to black market. Some people already do with the current price.
Put your dummy’s back in and smoke out the front away from people enjoying the garden.
If you don't smoke you won't be sitting in a freezing cold beer garden smokers will but it's their choice and provide ashtrays for them its a free country
why dont they legislate to the manufacturers that they can no longer add all these chemicals during manufacture?
If you wanna smoke, go ahead don’t smoke infront of others cause passive smoking is really bad.
1st guy spoke facts
What an absolutely ridiculous argument. The NHS would be better off by quite a few billion.
Ban alcohol first
They're doing this tactically and closing down pubs etc because public money was stolen in order to push higher rates on drinks in order to bring in private contractors. This would then allow them to own specific pubs, shops, and entire green belts including the companies they're owned by and close them at will in order to build houses and other privately run urban projects. It means if its true then we will know where the billions of tax payers money has really gone and why places like Beds, Bucks and Hearts have projects approved without public input.
They shouldnt sell it in the shops then and slchohol and junk food ect
I am scared of this authoritarian government.
700000 people coming here per year, paying nothing into the NHS yet taking from it, and outdoor smoking is the problem. Labour are insane.
They want everyone their house, only socialising by using devices and platforms. This allows monitoring and control. Pubs will be a thing of the past.
I stopped smoking 10 years ago but i would hate it to be banned outside pubs. When i go to a pub alone i find the more interesting funniest people with the best jokes etc out in the smoking area. I would rather ban kids from there. Im at Arsenal tomorrow and some of my mates smoke. Hope 2 tier Kier gets plenty of stick from them if he is spotted by them. But that is unlikely as he will probably spend pre-match in the club shop trying to get some freebies then off into the prawn sandwich section for the game.
I'm glad smoking 🚭 miraculously is being proposed . I'm sickened by how outdoor eating in the summer has been ruined by smokers that bother more than any car pollution.
What if you want to choose to smoke to shorten your life? It's just work and scrape by.
First caller is 💯 right
Here is an idea why not just ban smoking,instead of tinkering around the edges,then when the tax from cigarettes takes a nose down,watch Labour rush to put up Taxes to make up the short fall.
What’s with labour and its constant push for sharia laws? Attacking the pubs is just not a working class thing to do.
omg so all that tax on all goods is still not enough for the government to look after the country and us all? keir starmer still talks about how hard its going to be for us and how we need to work more.
if the goverment passed all the tobacco tax on to the nhs instead of keeping it surley that would help run the nhs
Meanwhile councils are giving fast food firms like Wendy's thousands of pounds in taxpayer money to open new locations.
If you want to smoke, smoke in your back yard and stop giving people second-hand smoke inhalation. Don't like it? Quit. Will save you money. And it with help the NHS – as there will be less people ending up in hospital as a direct result of smoking. Part of the way to help the NHS is to make sure people don't end up in hospital in the first place
Keep your smoke out of my face indoors and outside.
Alcohol is way worse for everyone, even those who don't drink. Only reason that isn't on the cards is the amount of MPs that like to get rat arsed in all those subsidised bars in parliament
The first caller is exactly right – the cost of smoking related illnesses to the NHS is £2.5billion per year, the tax the government received last year was £10 billion from the sales of cigarettes. Lets be real about this if they fully ban smoking, taxes will just be shifted elsewhere, most likely to all the people who want smoking banned. Then watch them moan.
Smokers will replace it with food so obesity will rise more tax on the food
A smoker is paying for the health freaks bed sitting beside him in a ward and the health dude is complaining about the smoker who paid more than him
If everybody stopped smoking tomorrow they would have to increase income tax to compensate
None smoker..they sit outside the door and u have to go through a smoke haven..u are choking or not trying to breathe..same in beer gardens..u get it all ways..needs banning or give them a area well away from people who dont want smoke second hand…why do they have areas so near to doors…