The proportion of adults smoking in the UK has declined to its lowest level since recording started in the 1940s, with official figures suggesting that the habit’s prevalence among over-18s fell from 19.8% in 2012 to 18.7% in 2013.
Ministers promptly hailed the figures but statisticians were far more cautious, pointing to the different ways in which figures have been collected over the years.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggest that men are still more likely to smoke – 21.1% of them against 16.5% of women – while a third of the population claim to be ex-smokers. Nearly half claim to have not smoked at all.
Tobacco industry figures in the 1940s showed well over half the over-16s in the UK were smokers, with the proportion rising to nearly two-thirds of men. The proportion of women smokers did not peak until the late 1960s. When the ONS started collating figures in 1974, 45% of Britons smoked, 52% of men and 41% of women.
Statisticians remain cautious, especially since there have been differences in the way surveys have been done over the years. Tuesday’s ONS report contains “experimental” statistics based on more than 268,000 responses of over-18s to the ONS’s integrated household survey.
More detailed figures are expected from its general lifestyle survey covering Great Britain next month, when the statistics on smoking prevalence will also take in 16-18-year-olds.
The latter survey has previously indicated the decline in smoking might even have stalled with a stubborn 20% of over-16s still smoking, a percentage that was unchanged in three years from 2010-2012.
The figures were, however, welcomed by ministers and the charity Action on Smoking and Health (Ash), which said the data also suggested fears that the burgeoning use of electronic cigarettes would help turn people onto tobacco were unfounded.
The only statistically significant drop reported in Tuesday’s figures was in England, where the proportion of smokers fell from 19.5% to 18.4%, meaning the Department of Health may have already met the target it had set for 2015, based on a 2009-10 baseline of 20.2%. In Scotland, 21.1% of the populations smokes, with comparable figures for Wales (19.8% and Northern Ireland (18.7%).
Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, tweeted:”Those @ONS statistics out this morning show that the number of smokers is at its lowest level ever.” In another tweet, Hunt said: “It’s never too late to stop”, plugging the UK government’s Stoptober campaign.
Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Ash, said: “This statistically significant decline in adult smokers shows that the government’s tobacco control plan is working. However, over 80,000 people still die from smoking every year in England and every week hundreds of children take up smoking.
“Tough new measures to regulate tobacco, like plain standardised packaging, are needed if we are to drive down smoking still further. We urge the government to waste no time in allowing parliament to vote on the regulations which will finally get rid of glitzy, glamorous cigarette packs forever,” Arnott said.
“The drop in smoking also shows that concerns that the use of electronic cigarettes would lead to a renormalisation of tobacco use appear unfounded. The rapid increase in use of these products has coincided with a consistent steady decline in smoking.”
Ash estimates that 2.1 million people in the UK now use e-cigarettes, almost entirely current or ex-smokers. The ONS does not record e-cigarette use.
Tom Pruen, chief scientific officer at the e-cigarette trade body Ecita, tweeted in a personal capacity: “New data, and still none to support #ecigs renormalising smoking.”