Streeting calls for national debate about smoking outside pubs

Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. We have got to do two things – reform the health service, but also reform public health, because we might be living longer, but we’re becoming sicker sooner and there is a heavy price being paid for that in our economy, our public finances and in our own health Wes Streeting “We want to make sure this generation of children are the healthiest generation that ever lived and therefore they will never be able to legally buy cigarettes. “We have got to do two things – reform the health service, but also reform public health, because we might be living longer, but we’re becoming sicker sooner and there is a heavy price being paid for that in our economy, our public finances and in our own health.” Last week Mr Streeting insisted that he would make changes “with people” and not “to people” when asked about nanny state concerns, saying he is not the “fun police”. He told Sky News: “By the next general election, waiting lists will be demonstrably lower because I know that’s how I will be judged, how the Prime Minister will be judged, how the Government will be judged – people will judge us by our actions, not just our words ultimately.” In his speech to the Labour Party conference on Wednesday, Mr Streeting set out plans to prioritise clearing NHS backlogs in the areas with the highest levels of people out of work due to ill health. “That’s why, as we deliver our 40,000 new appointments every week, as we promised in our manifesto, we will also be sending crack teams of top clinicians, who have showed us how reformed ways of working can get through the backlog faster, we’re sending those clinicians to the areas with the highest levels of people who are off work, off sick, so that way we get the double whammy of not just getting those waiting lists down, but also getting unemployment and economic inactivity down.