ASH hit by 25 per cent cut in public funding
Tuesday, December 22, 2015 at 9:42 The Department of Heath has cut its annual grant to ASH by 25 per cent.
The news was revealed yesterday in an answer to a parliamentary question by Conservative peer Lord Naseby:
Action on Smoking and Health
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Prior of Brampton on 8 December, how much grant the Department of Health will provide to Action on Smoking and Health in the current financial year, and whether they will place a copy of any grant application and award letter in the Library of the House.
Replying on behalf of the DH, Lord Prior of Brampton wrote:
The Department will provide a grant of £150,000 to Action on Smoking and Health in the 2015/16 financial year. This grant is awarded under Section 64 of the Health and Social Care Act 1968.
£150k represents a 25 per cent cut on ASH's previous grant of £200k a year so the Government is moving - albeit slowly - in the right direction.
Helpfully Lord Prior provided a copy of the signed award letter, including the "detailed deliverables" of the grant.
You can download and read it here.
Note: Lord Naseby asked – and received answers to – several more questions about ASH and the group's debatable use of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health to further its cause.
I'll post more on this subject later. In the meantime you can read the Q&As in full here.
Reader Comments (9)
You know what they say: £150k here, £150K there and very soon you are talking about real money. But what the hell, a 25% cut is still a big step in the right direction.
*expects headlines in the Daily Xenophobe, the cASHists mouth piece, tomorrow "Government wants CHILDREN TO SMOKE!" *
Ah - so that's ONE job lost in ASH while the healthist hate campaign still has enough cash to continue. That said, 25% is a move in the right direction. What a shame we the public have to keep throwing our hard earned cash at ASH through forced taxation though. I'd prefer to see a 75% cut.
"I'd prefer to see a further 75% cut."
There, that's fixed it for you, Pat.
Nothing less than a 100% cut will do.
A step in the right direction, yes, but I'd lay money on the fact that CRUK will take up the slack (using monies blagged from the
governmenttaxpayer). Can't have our Debs dropping below 80k pa (plus expenses), can we now?This is a good start. They should have all of their funding cut to compensate for their history of anti-tobacco lies, propaganda and promoting the persecution of smokers.
Are we able to find out exactly what the £200K from last year was spent on?
Brian - I don't mind and have never minded an honest health information service. Throwing that much money at them, however created an industry with funding that depended on dishonest scaremongering to keep the money flowing in their direction.
25% might mean we can go back to the honest and informative information service of health promotions rather than the puritanical, politically motivated, ideologically driven and phobic inspired spiteful, scheming and dishonest hate campaigning that the rest of that 75% pays for.
We can't find out much about ASH because, as a registered charity, it is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.
A total funding cut is needed Political parties must not be public funded hastening their demise.