The scary logic of the generational tobacco ban

As the second reading of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill approaches today, MPs on both sides of the house will be looking for something to say in their speeches after the obligatory throat-clearing of “I believe in freedom but…”. When it comes to anti-smoking legislation, the welfare of children is the usual excuse, but since the Bill’s flagship policy is a ban on adults buying tobacco products, an appeal to vulnerable minors will not cut it this time. The costs of smoking-related diseases to the NHS have often been cited in the past, but it is easy to demonstrate that the £3.1 billion smoking supposedly costs the NHS is much less than the £11 billion the government raises in tobacco taxes.

What, then, can be used to put a liberal mask on prohibition? The Department of Health and Social Care has prompted MPs with a “factsheet” which claims that smoking “costs the economy and wider society £21.8 billion a year”. Most of this — a whopping £18.3 billion — is due to “lost productivity”. This claim is derived from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), a pressure group funded by the government, who commissioned Howard Reed of Landman Economics to do some modelling. I have a slight affection for Reed because he co-authored a report with Jonathan Portes that made some predictions about child poverty that were so wrong that I made £1,000 betting against them. 

Reed has been playing Numberwang for ASH for years and every estimate of the “cost of smoking” is higher than the last. In 2019, it was £17 billion. Now, despite smoking rates continuing to fall, it is £21.8 billion. Lost productivity due to unemployment, lower wages and early death are always the biggest component.

ASH have tapped into a rich seam of political concern about economic growth by focusing on these “costs”, but are they really costs? If they are really costs, who pays them? And can nonsmokers expect to benefit financially if smoking somehow disappears? 

Read the rest at The Critic.