Written question asked by Gerry Steinberg (Labour) on Tuesday, 28 October 2003, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 6 November 2003. It was answered by Melanie Johnson (Labour) on Thursday, 6 November 2003 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Dept of Health

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people have died from (a) smoking-related and (b) secondary smoking-related diseases in each of the last five years. - Inc figure and fact that information is not available in form requested and ref to 'The UK Smoking Epidemic: Deaths in 1995'. Copy of report in Library.

Answer: Mr. Steinberg: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people have died from (a) smoking- related and (b) secondary smoking-related diseases in each of the last five years. [135657] Miss Melanie Johnson: Information is not available in the form requested. The Health Education Authority 1998 report, "The UK Smoking Epidemic: Deaths in 1995", estimated that in the United Kingdom in 1995 smoking caused more than 120,000 deaths of people aged 35 years or more. A copy of this report is available in the Library. The independent Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health concluded in its 1998 report that, "exposure to environmental smoke is a cause of lung cancer and, in those with long-term exposure, the increased risk is in the order of 20 to 30 per cent.". The committee repeated the explanation of this risk set out earlier in its fourth report that "a 20 to 30 per cent. increased risk in exposed non-smokers would be a rate of 12 to 13 per 100,000 per year. Thus we would expect an additional 2 to 3 lung cancer cases a year per 100,000 non-smokers regularly exposed to environmental tobacco smoke. The numbers of people so exposed are not known precisely". A copy of this report is also available in the Library.

Secondary information