MP welcomes new measures to help smokers quit
David Ward MP has welcomed a new Government blueprint to cut smoking rates as "a major boost for health in Bradford." 
The key strands of the Coalition's Tobacco Control Plan include:
- Setting strong goals for reducing smoking prevalence: reducing adult prevalence to no more than 18.5%, among 15 year olds to 12%, and smoking in pregnancy to 11% by 2015.
- Maintaining funding for local services to help smokers quit
- Running effective public education campaigns to motivate smokers to quit and signpost sources of help
- Closing off the remaining routes for tobacco advertising and promotion by putting tobacco out of sight in shops and looking at the evidence for plain packaging of tobacco products;
Commenting, David Ward said:
"At a time when hundreds of smokers in my constituency will be making some attempt to quit, I welcome the commitment to offer as much support as possible from local services to those smokers who wish to give up their dependence on nicotine.
"Reducing smoking rates is the single most effective means of improving public health. Smoking is the major cause of the differences in life expectancy between the richest and poorest in society. Smoking related diseases cause more deaths each year than alcohol, obesity, road accidents and illegal drugs combined.
"Stopping young people from ever starting to smoke will reap even greater long term rewards, and I support measures, such as putting tobacco out of sight in shops, so that today's children do not become the next generation to be hooked on nicotine."