Speech: 6 March 2012, Andrew Lansley, Smoking and Health


When the NHS started in 1948, 82% of men smoked.Fourteen years later, in 1962, there was the RCP’s ‘Smoking and Health’ report. It set out an agenda for controlling tobacco that doctors and governments followed for decades to come.So in 1965, after calls from the RCP, all TV adverts for cigarettes were banned.In 1984, smoking was banned on tube trains, and banned on stations a year later.In 1995, Virgin and United Airlines banned smoking on transatlantic flights.Then of course, there was the smoke free legislation of 2007.Against the instincts of the Labour government, I worked hard to make that a free vote for MPs. By making sure it was a free vote in our Party, we pushed Labour to give a free vote to their MPs too – knowing that this would mean a full ban, not the partial one the Government had sought.
Via mediacentre.dh.gov.uk