Philip Davies – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2015-10-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of smokers who have switched to e-cigarettes; and what estimate he has made of the effect of that switch on the NHS budget.

Jane Ellison

Survey data suggests the use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) among adults in Great Britain has increased to 2.6 million in 2015, of whom 1.1 million have completely stopped smoking.

The Department recognises that e-cigarettes can help smokers to quit and the evidence indicates that they are less harmful to health than smoking tobacco. There is not yet enough evidence on which to make an estimate of the impact on National Health Service costs of smokers switching to e-cigarettes.