Paddy Tipping advocates smoking education

At his first speech in the Commons this session, Paddy Tipping MP asked John Healey (Labour MP for Wentworth, and Economic Secretary)

"Are not health and education programmes the most appropriate way in which to help people—particularly people from low-income families—quit smoking, rather than simply pricing them out of the market?"

This followed a question for Anthony Steen MP, which implied that the Government had not banned smoking in public places because of the benefit to the Treasury from Tobacco Duty.

John Healey replied:

"Successive Governments, including this one, have used the high price of cigarettes to encourage people to reduce smoking. That policy has been successful after the past two decades, but it is not the only measure that we take. The education campaigns that my hon. Friend mentioned are, in part, responsible for the recent cut in young people's regular smoking. The Government are considering a wide range of measures as part of our public health consultation, and my hon. Friends in the Department of Health will take my hon. Friend's comments as a late representation to that process."

Personally, I don't know which is more effective - education or punitive taxation, although it's fairly obvious which is easier on the Treasury. Does anybody in the UK today really not know that smoking has serious health implications, which for me casts doubt on the potential effectiveness of education.