The leader of Swindon Borough Council will write to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to commend the PM’s policy to eradicate smoking in the UK.

But Cllr Jim Robbins will also tell him that the best way to stop smoking is to better fund the public health departments of local authorities such as SBC - after both Labour and Conservative councillors voted unanimously to support a motion on the matter.

Labour’s Councillor Jim Grant proposed a motion, amended by the Conservatives Councillor Jake Chandler to include references to vaping with said: “Smoking causes 233 deaths in Swindon annually. There is a £69m cost to the community in smoking-related illnesses. On average an individual smoker spends £2000 on their addiction, plunging 4,000 households into poverty and impacting on 3,500 children.

“This council also recognises the addictive and harmful impacts of vaping and notes residents' particular concern with children and young adults taking up vaping in increasingly higher numbers.”

Cllr Grant told the councillors: “The declining rates of smoking and tobacco use in the general population mask the inequalities of persistently high rates within our most vulnerable communities, such as those with serious mental health conditions where the prevalence of smoking is three times that of the general population.

"Health and social care services in Swindon are already under pressure and smoking has a significant financial cost and impact on the demand for services across the Borough.

"Addressing smoking has been identified as a priority for Swindon and we have produced Swindon’s Tobacco Control Strategy 2023-2028, with the ambition to end smoking and tobacco use for good.

“I should like to thank our local public health department for all the work they have done.

“However, if we are to make a serious dent in reducing smoking in Swindon it will require more funding. Since 2015 government funding for Public Health has been cut by 29 per cent and funding for stop smoking-related services have been cut by 45 per cent.”

Cllr Chandler seconded the motion and said: “Parents are raising concerns about young people taking up vaping, and a perception it is spiralling out of control.

"He said more than 10 per cent of those aged 11 to 17 had said they had tried vaping despite it being illegal to sell or provide vapes to minors.

“Vaping has become an ‘epidemic’ among teenagers according to Dr Mike McKean the vice president for policy at the Royal College of Paediatricians and Child Health and has rapidly transformed into a pervasive and dangerous habit visible in all areas young people congregate, including schools.”

Cllr Chandler pointed out that cigarette advertising is now banned, but “vaping with sweet flavours and colourful designs is engineered to attract younger people and trap them into addiction”.

Cllr Chandler asked that public health efforts on smoking also looked at ways of discouraging young people from taking up vaping “and engendering a positive message to them that there never has to be a reason to start.”

Leader of the council Jim Robbins said he would be glad to write to the PM and happy to congratulate him on the policy announced recently of increasing the age, year by year, of the legal age to buy tobacco products.

The motion was passed unanimously.

As well as Cllr Robbins writing to the Primer Minister, Cllr Grant undertook to write to the Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting to call on him to commit any future Labour government to increase public health funding in its first year.