COUNCIL health watchdogs have written to the region’s MPs asking for support on anti-smoking campaigns as new law is debated in Parliament.

Durham County Council’s cabinet member for health Councillor Paul Sexton said: “We’ve just agreed that we will draft a letter after this meeting to MPs asking for support.”

He later said he supported the Health and Social Bill which is being discussed in the House of Commons on Wednesday (March 29).

He added: “Part of that is around funding for anti-smoking campaigns, tougher levies on the manufacturers so that we can hopefully get more funding back into prevention.”

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Cllr Sexton, chair of the council's health and well-being board, also expressed support for raising the minimum age for tobacco sales to 21.

He told councillors: “I personally think increasing the age limit to 21 is a no-brainer.”

He added later: “The evidence suggests that a lot of people start smoking at an early age.

“A lot of people start smoking because it’s a trend without understanding the serious consequences.”

Ailsa Rutter OBE, director of tobacco control programme Fresh, asked councillors to contact MPs to reinforce support in the tobacco levy vote in the Commons.

“It’s needed, it’s wanted, it’s workable,” she said in a board meeting on Tuesday (March 29).

“We want to see a 'polluter pays' levy. They should be made to pay. It would help to fund campaigns. We want to improve the funding that goes to stop smoking support.”

She said there was a majority vote in support of this in the House of Lords last week: “It is there in the House of Commons tomorrow.

“I think it is the time to feel bold and ambitious.

“Why are we allowing an industry to basically hook our young people and kill off half of its customers? It pays very minimal corporation tax as well.

“This could be administered. The Government has commissioned an independent review looking at the evidence.

“I would like to think that there will be a positive discussion around this.”

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She also talked of "turning off the tap" to potential new smokers.

She said: “We do want to consider raising the age of sale from 18 to 21. We believe there’s significant evidence now to do that.

“That would really have quite a significant impact in terms of reducing the uptake of smoking.”

She said it would also help with maternal smoking, with Cllr Ted Henderson highlighting the “scary” statistic of 15.5% of mums still smoking at the time of delivery.

She gave a presentation posing the question: “Can smoking ever end?”

She said: “I honestly do believe it can have an end and that is within our reach, but that is only really if we remain very united.

“Smoking is still your biggest killer. If you want to level up, tackle disparities, reduce health inequalities, don’t lose sight of that impact smoking has.”

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Adult smoking in County Durham was at 17% compared to 15% in the North-east, but it had nearly halved since 2005.

Ms Rutter said: “This is still your key driver of health inequality. There is still plenty to be done.

“It’s not going down overall in the region as fast as we would like it to be, but I have to say people are really throwing everything at this.

“Having the support to quit has been really important.

“It is about sending that very clear message to give quitting a go.

“The public support for this is very high.”

She said Durham’s trading standards team were “trailblazers in the North-east” in reducing demand and supply of illicit tobacco.

She described smoking as an economic, regeneration, mental health and poverty issue as well as health, with an "enormous" economic impact to County Durham.

She welcomed the Government’s ambition to be smoke-free by 2030.