Rishi Sunak defends smoking ban as ‘biggest public health intervention in a decade’

Rishi Sunak rejected the suggestion that his HS2 decision would make foreign businesses more wary of investing in Britain. 

“You know, I couldn’t disagree more,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. 

“I speak to global investors all the time in this job… that is my background, it is a world I know well. When I travel around the world to Japan, to America, to Europe, to India, I come back with billions of pounds of investment for our country. 

“I know how to do that and that is what we are going to continue doing and you are seeing the benefits of it.”

Rishi Sunak rejected the suggestion that the HS2 project had been turned into nothing more than a “shuttle service” between London and Birmingham after he axed the northern leg of the high speed railway. 

Told that critics had characterised the new version of HS2 as a “shuttle service”, the Prime Minister told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “It is wrong to describe it as that. Actually if you look at all the previous business cases that the government of the day, what HS2 themselves said, everybody said, that phase one connecting Birmingham to Euston in and of itself as a standalone project had a very strong case and will bring substantial benefits. 

“For those people now to say that somehow that is a shuttle service is them not being truthful about what they said previously.”

Rishi Sunak said he will not apologise to people in the north of England over his decision to scrap the Birmingham to Manchester leg of HS2. 

Asked if he would like to apologise for his party’s “false promises” on high speed rail, the Prime Minister told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “No, what I want to say to everybody is that what we are doing is going to be better. It is going to be better for our country. 

“You keep using the word scrap but what we are doing is replacing HS2 with something that is going to benefit far more people in far more places and far quicker.”

Tracy Brabin, the Labour Mayor of West Yorkshire, said Rishi Sunak had not consulted northern leaders on his plans to spend the money saved by scrapping the northern leg of HS2 on other transport projects. 

She told BBC Breakfast: “It also feels quite frustrating that when the Prime Minister was on the platform, he was saying ‘I know what the North needs’.

“He hasn’t spoken to any northern leaders and we could have been helpful in trying to work out what was actually a priority for us and it is that capacity that HS2 was there to solve.”

Mark Harper defended the decision to scrap HS2 north of Birmingham as he shrugged off criticism from David Cameron and Boris Johnson.

The Transport Secretary told Sky News: “They’re absolutely entitled to their opinion. I worked closely with both of them in government and was very proud to serve with them. But that was a number of years ago.

“The facts have changed, the costs of the project have escalated, the patterns of travel have changed post-pandemic.

“So this Government’s taken a different decision. The Prime Minister’s taken a different decision that he thinks and I think is in the interest of the country.”

Mr Cameron’s tweet saying Rishi Sunak had made the “wrong” decision on HS2, a comment which Mr Johnson said he agreed with, is here: 

The Transport Secretary this morning brushed off questions on why Rishi Sunak insisted no decision had been made on scrapping part of HS2 when he had recorded a video outlining his decision several days earlier.

Challenged over the delay, Mark Harper told Sky News: “We’ve been working on this whole plan for a number of weeks, as you would expect.

“I have the legal responsibility to take the decision. And I took the decision formally on Tuesday this week, and it was approved by the Cabinet on Wednesday morning and then announced by the Prime Minister at our conference, so all very straightforward.

“And I don’t really know why people are getting so het up with this particular issue.”

The video in question, filmed in No10 but published yesterday when Mr Sunak was in Manchester, is here: 

Despite the fact the new Advanced British Standard qualification will take a while to come into effect (see the post below at 07.33), Rishi Sunak insisted his other education reforms “will start benefiting people very soon”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “A quarter of our school leavers at the moment leave without basic numeracy and literacy, I don’t think that is right, so we are going to increase the funding for those pupils, particularly in FE colleges so they get the extra support they need to do English and maths after GCSEs to get those grades. 

“But also we need to attract more teachers into the profession to deliver the reforms that I have announced so we are going to double the generosity of our bursaries and for the first time we are going to extend them to those teaching special subjects in FE colleges which have always been ignored which means a new teacher starting next academic year in these key subjects in FE colleges and schools will be able to get £30,000 tax-free over the first five years.”

Rishi Sunak has conceded that no child currently at secondary school in England will take the exams for his newly announced Advanced British Standard qualification. 

The Prime Minister announced yesterday that A-Levels and T-Levels will be scrapped and replaced with the ABS. 

However, the new qualification is expected to take a decade to deliver in full. 

Asked if anyone now at secondary school will take the new exams, Mr Sunak told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “No, this will take time to bring into force, of course it will, it is a long term reform and we want to work with the sector to make sure we get the design right.”

Rishi Sunak said increasing the legal smoking age annually will be the “single biggest intervention in public health in a generation”. 

In his first interview since delivering his Tory conference speech in Manchester yesterday, the Prime Minister said the effective ban on smoking for young people was necessary because there was “no safe level of smoking”.

Mr Sunak pledged in his speech that the legal age for buying tobacco will rise every year from 2009. That will mean “a 14-year-old today will never legally be sold a cigarette” in England. 

Mr Sunak told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “Smoking is unequivocally the single biggest preventable cause of death, disability and illness in our society. 

“Everyone recognises this measure will be the single biggest intervention in public health in a generation.”