---

Dept of Health

Answer

Mrs. Calton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the proportion of children and teenagers who smoke. [121353] Miss Melanie Johnson: The 1998 White Paper "Smoking Kills" set a target to reduce smoking among 11 to 15-year-olds from 13 per cent. in 1996 to 9 per cent. by 2010 with a fall to 11 per cent. by 2005. Among 11 to 15-year-olds, smoking prevalence has remained unchanged since 2000 at ten per cent. and we are on course to meet our target for reducing smoking. The information requested is shown in the tables. Prevalence of regular cigarette smoking among secondary school pupils aged 11 to 15, by gender England, 1996 to 2002 Percentages _________________________________________________________________________________________________. 1996 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 Boys 11 9 8 9 8 9 Girls 15 12 10 12 11 11 All pupils 13 11 9 10 10 10 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Notes: 1. Regular smokers are those who smoke at least one cigarette a week, on average. Source: The Department of Health Statistical Press Notice "Smoking, drinking and drug use among young people in England in 2002: Provisional Results" http://www.doh.gov.uk/public/spnmar03- smoking.htm Prevalence of smoking cigarettes among adults, aged 16-19 and gender, England 1996-2001 Percentages _________________________________________________________________________________________________. 11996 11998 21998 22000 22001 Men 25 30 30 30 24 Women 32 33 33 28 31 All Persons 29 31 31 30 28 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. 1 Unweighted 2 Weighted Notes: 1. Up until 2000, data on the prevalence on smoking from the General Household Survey were only available every two years. 2. Data for 1998 onwards were weighted to compensate for under- representation of people in some groups: earlier figures were based on unweighted data, and are not therefore directly comparable. 3. Respondents who answered "yes" to the question "Do you smoke cigarettes at all nowadays?" Source: Office for National Statistics: General Household Survey 2001, published as `Living in Britain: Results from the 2001 General Household Survey'. Available from the internet at: http:// www.statistics.gov.uk/lib2001/index.html.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

121353; 409 c424W;409 c424-5W

Session

2002-03

Subjects

Children Young people Smoking

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk