Localism and a disturbing lack of transparency
Tuesday, March 4, 2014 at 9:44 A report by the Director of Public Health to the Public Health Committee of Nottingham County Council makes a number of dubious claims.
Under the 'The Economic Cost of Smoking for Nottinghamshire' (page 3) we are told:
Smoking costs billions of pounds each year. Using national data it is estimated [my emphasis] that the annual cost of smoking for Nottinghamshire is approximately £203.5m. This includes:
- The total cost of treating smokers on the NHS: £39.9m
- The loss in productivity from smoking breaks: £42.9m
- The loss in productivity from smoking related sick days: £37m
- The cost of cleaning up smoking materials litter: £5.1m
- The cost of smoking related house fires: 37.5m
- The loss in economic output from the deaths of smokers and passive smokers: £60.6m
I won't waste time fisking these figures (the loss in productivity from smoking breaks, the loss in economic output from the deaths of passive smokers???) but it's worth noting that the report fails to mention the money that smokers put into the economy, nationally and locally.
Apart from tobacco taxation, which raises over £9b annually - fact not estimate - where would some local shops be without smokers? Significantly worse off, in many cases, or closed.
The report is less than honest in other ways too. For example, it fails to mention the figures were supplied by ASH who got them from a report by the think tank Policy Exchange.
The report, Cough Up: Balancing Tobacco Income and Costs in Society, was hugely controversial when it was published in March 2010. Here's what I wrote at the time:
Policy Exchange: words fail me, too
Damning indictment of that Policy Exchange report
We also sent this message to Forest supporters.
And it wasn't just Forest criticising the report. Dick Puddlecote had this to say: That Policy Exchange nonsense.
Mark Littlewood, just three months in to his tenure as Director General of the IEA, also weighed in: ('Tobacco tax proposals should go up in smoke').
Writing on Conservative Home Matthew Sinclair of the TaxPayers Alliance also commented.
And we mustn't forget James Delingpole who put into words what many of us were thinking: Is Policy Exchange the most loathsome think tank in Britain?.
Does any of this matter? Emphatically, yes.
Since the introduction of the Localism Act last year local authorities have been given substantial new powers to tackle public health.
Smokers are an easy target so it's no surprise to find documents like this in circulation. What is outrageous however is not just the dubious, one-sided nature of the statistics, it's the complete lack of transparency.
Councillors, media and the general public are clearly expected to accept these estimates and calculations without argument.
This morning on BBC Radio Nottingham a spokeswoman for the council (I didn't catch her name) described Policy Exchange an an "independent" think tank.
Perhaps she's unaware of the remarkably close relationship between ASH and Policy Exchange at the time the report came out. The author, Henry Featherstone, even attended the ASH AGM and sat alongside ASH CEO Deborah Arnott. How cosy.
See ASH and Policy Exchange - the plot thickens and Policy Exchange, ASH and YouGov.
Sadly there's another piece to this jigsaw I can't reveal. One day the full story must come out. And it won't make pretty reading.
Reader Comments (10)
They're testing the waters to see how deep the propaganda has sunk in before they call for 'smokefree workforces' methinks.
Sadly there's another piece to this jigsaw I can't reveal. One day the full story must come out. And it won't make pretty reading.
Simon its not fair to kiss us and then not tell!
I know, sorry. The comment was aimed at those in the know who have asked me not to go public with certain information. I never divulge information given to me in confidence (not knowingly, anyway!) but it is frustrating. I hope they read this and think again.
I hope it isn't another huge attack on smokers that you can't reveal yet. We need to be forewarned and therefore forearmed.
Adam - they're getting ready for criminalisation which will make smokerless workplaces, and smokerless homes in one foul swoop law. Workplaces are already non smoking so to make smoke-free workplaces can only mean discrimination against those who smoke in their own time - smokerless work places.
Quit or face jail. That's where this is heading.
I hope its as big as D-DAY! Lord knows weve been fighting long and hard for it.
The cost of smoking related house fires: 37.5m
What year(s) does this apply to?
Has the cost of house fires, smoking related, come down since the introduction of Reduced Ignition Propensity (Fire safe) cigarettes in Nov 2011, in non-inflated terms?
Have the number of fires associated with cigarettes declined since then?
Whisper. It's OK, we won't tell. ;)
You're reading far too much in to it. At ease.
Simon.....
There's a double 'an' in the 4th paragraph up from the bottom in your article. It should read 'as an'.
To be honest though, I find the article extremely cryptic. It can be read either way.
DP I want a miracle moment for a change...............weve earned it!