The smoking rate in England fell to 16.9 per cent in 2015, representing a record low and a decline of nearly 1 percentage point from the year before, according to Public Health England data cited by Cancer Research UK.

Alison Cox, Cancer Research UK director of prevention, called on the government to deliver on its promise of an “ambitious new tobacco strategy, and provide funding to deliver it.”
The smoking rate in “routine and manual occupations” declined to 26.5 per cent from 28 per cent in 2014, when the overall rate for England was 17.8 per cent. The most recent data show “large regional variations that reflect health inequalities between the richest and poorest in England,” Cancer Research UK said