Therese Coffey should leave smokers alone

So Thérèse Coffey, the health secretary, is putting the tobacco control plan on ice. Or is she? As in many other areas of public policy these days, all we have are rumours. Someone may be flying a kite with this rumour, but it is not clear whether it is the health secretary or a disgruntled civil servant at the Department of Health holding the string. All Coffey has said officially is that she was not ‘aware’ of what’s going on with it.

You may not be aware of it at all and I can hardly blame you. In the dying days of Theresa May’s administration – two prime ministers ago – a green paper declared that England would be ‘smoke-free’ by 2030 (‘smoke-free’ is counter-intuitively defined as a smoking rate below five per cent). It was May’s attempt to leave some sort of legacy from her dismal premiership. As with Net Zero, she didn’t need to worry about how, or if, it would happen.