Smoking and climate change low on public’s list of government priorities

Candidates standing for the leadership of the Conservative Party will be expected, I hope, to articulate very clearly what issues they intend to prioritise if they win and become prime minister.

Two weeks ago Forest commissioned two polls by Yonder, formerly Populus.

The first, which I wrote about here, found that 15 years after the introduction of the smoking ban in England, 36% of adults would still allow separate, well-ventilated smoking rooms in pubs and clubs, while just over half (52%) wouldn’t. (The rest said ‘Don’t know’.)

The second question, also put to 2,000 adults in Great Britain, asked:

Thinking about government priorities in the aftermath of the pandemic, how important or not important do you think it is that the Government:

• Tackles rising inflation
• Tackles the housing shortage
• Tackles climate change
• Tackles misuse of alcohol
• Tackles obesity
• Tackles smoking
• Helps businesses recover from the impact of the pandemic
• Addresses care for the elderly
• Tackles the rising cost of household utilities such as electricity and gas
• Improves the health service by providing more beds, frontline staff and cutting waiting lists  

0 = not important at all and 10 = very important

The topics that were considered most important were tackling the rising cost of household utilities, tackling rising inflation and improving the health service.
 
The topics deemed least important were tackling smoking, tackling misuse of alcohol, tackling obesity and tackling climate change.

It beggars belief then that any incoming prime minister (or health secretary) would prioritise a new tobacco control plan when it’s clear there are far more important issues the public wants the Government to focus on, even within the health service.

Anti-smoking campaigners who are busy lobbying ministers to implement the recommendations of the Khan review will no doubt argue that governments can multitask and just because an issue is low in the public’s list of priorities it doesn’t mean it should be neglected completely.

I get that but it’s also worth pointing out that we’ve been commissioning similar polls for years and ‘tackling smoking’ has always come at or near the bottom of the list of priorities we have offered respondents.

It doesn’t make any difference whether the ‘priority’ question relates to central government, local government or the NHS. ‘Tackling smoking’ is invariably considered ‘not important’ compared to almost every other issue those institutions are expected to address.

Nor are the lists exhaustive. We could, for example, have included in our latest list ‘tackling illegal immigration’ but we were restricted to ten options so we left it out.

Had we included it though I’m pretty sure it would have been in the top half in terms of importance, leaving smoking, misuse of alcohol, obesity and climate change in its wake.

We also left out ‘levelling up’ partly because I’ve yet to read a definition of levelling up that everyone can agree on, especially in relation to smoking. (See ‘Tobacco control - levelling up or dumbing down?’)

However the biggest problem when it comes to smoking is that doesn’t seem to matter what the public thinks because governments, with the ‘help’ of unelected mandarins and ‘advisors’, often think they know best and will press ahead regardless of public opinion.

‘Tackling climate change’ and the rush to achieve Net Zero is arguably the best example of ministers ignoring public opinion and prioritising it anyway, but tackling smoking, obesity and the misuse of alcohol are in the same category.

Ministers don’t seem to be listening to the public and this is exacerbated by lobbyists in both the environmental and public health sectors who work hard to convince them that by prioritising issues like smoking and climate change they’re working in our best interests and that’s all that matters.

Nor does it seem to bother them that measures that weren’t in their election manifesto can become policy almost by default, with little or no debate in Parliament or the media.

Meanwhile the public doesn’t even have the consolation of knowing that we can vote them out at the next general election because on all these issues - smoking, obesity, alcohol and climate change - the major parties are largely in agreement.