Sir David Davis said Rishi Sunak’s smoking ban will help to stop the NHS “swallowing the entire economy” in the decades to come.
The former Brexit secretary voted in favour of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill earlier this week as the legislation cleared its first big hurdle in the House of Commons.
Sir David told the BBC’s The Today podcast: “If you brought tobacco into being today, a brand new product, what do you think the chances are it would get past any of the health barriers? None, and that’s the point. We’re talking about something that is ridiculously addictive. The simple truth is, is [it] worth tens of thousands of lives? Not in a month of Sundays.
“The strongest argument against it was the practicality argument, how on earth does a shopkeeper distinguish between 34 and 34 and one day old? And of course that won’t work that well. But if this policy only works 50 per cent effective, and an awful lot of government policies of all governments are only partially effective, it’s still tens of thousands of lives.
“You hear people say this is not conservative, I love being lectured by people who arrived at it after 40 years of doing something else. One of the things about conservatism is it’s survived for 200 years because it’s stayed up with the ages, it’s dealt with the issues of the day, whether it’s an argument about the Corn Laws or an argument of public health today.
“This is one of the biggest health issues there is… If you don’t do this, the National Health Service will swallow the entire economy in another 30 years.”
