Why we should support a smoking ban in London’s public spaces

Every week, two classrooms of London children take up smoking. Every year, 8,400 Londoners die from smoking – the number one cause of preventable deaths in our capital city. 1.2 million residents of London are smokers, higher than New York, Sydney, Sao Paulo and Hong Kong. As with so many health inequalities, the prevalence of smoking is highest in the poorest boroughs.

Today, Lord Darzi, the Chair appointed by Boris Johnson, publishes his London Health Commission plan to make London the healthiest world city within ten years. Among the many recommendations in his excellent report is a call for Trafalgar Square, Parliament Square and 20,000 acres of parks in the capital to go smoke free.

Parks and open spaces cover 40% of the city – more than any other capital city in the world. Our parks are the lungs of the city, so let’s keep our lungs clear as we use them for the things we love – the morning run in Hyde Park, kite-flying at the top of Parliament Hill or cycling through Blackheath.

Other cities are ahead of London already. Many people don’t know that smoking is banned in New York’s parks and in all public spaces in Hong Kong. In New York, life expectancy has extended by nearly three years over the time since Mayor Bloomberg took office which he puts down to the park ban. Since introducing the policy, Hong Kong has seen a 7% reduction in smoking among men between 2002 and 2012. Even Paris, which at 40% of the population has one of the highest world city smoking rates, has announced an experiment to make some public parks smoke free.

The Mayor will need to work closely with the London boroughs and The Royal Parks to achieve smoke free public spaces, but could use his powers immediately to prohibit smoking in Parliament Square and Trafalgar Square under the GLA Act as a first step. Appointments to the Board of the Royal Parks are made by the Mayor, so here is another area where he could use his powers of convening to suggest the Board implements smoke free policy.

Outside of the Mayor’s direct powers, pioneering London councils, many run by Labour leaderships, would snap at the opportunity to use the initiative to implement bylaws aimed at creating smoke free public spaces. Transport for London could designate bus stops ‘smoke free’ and use their ferocious advertising power to promote the idea of a smoke free city.

In Government, as the first Public Health Minister, I helped to ban advertising of tobacco products in sport and spearheaded the Labour’s strategy to tackle health inequalities in heart disease and cancer. We legislated to ban smoking in public places which has led to a 2.4% reduction in hospital admissions due to heart attacks. Seven years on from the ban, 78% of adults approve of the change, and according to polling by the London Health Commission, nearly three quarters of Londoners are either strongly supportive of or neutral on the idea of banning smoking in public parks. Expert analysis from the Commission suggests that such a ban could lead to a drop of 2% in smoking rates, saving the NHS between £210m and £590m in London.

We need to make the healthier choice the easier choice for Londoners. The Mayor has a proposal sitting at his feet which could mark the start of a serious public health crusade in the next decade in London. I hope he seizes the opportunity to build a coalition of support across London to achieve this change.

Dame Tessa Jowell is the MP for Dulwich and West Norwood