Sir Keir Starmer should focus on helping pensioners keep warm not policing smokers - Yorkshire Post Letters

From: Sue Cuthbert, Newton on Rawcliffe.

I have just re-read the article by Jayne Dowle in The Yorkshire Post on September 2. ‘Sir Keir stamping on the rights of smokers’.

I am a non-smoker but agree with all she says in her article.

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The banning of smoking in outdoor venues like pub gardens will be difficult to police.

A person smoking a cigarette outdoors in a pub. PIC: Yui Mok/PA WireA person smoking a cigarette outdoors in a pub. PIC: Yui Mok/PA Wire
A person smoking a cigarette outdoors in a pub. PIC: Yui Mok/PA Wire

The idea of NHS staff going into pubs to carry out health spot checks on middle aged men is not only ludicrous but an invasion of their civil liberties. NHS staff are already overworked.

Sir Keir speaks of the health problems caused by smoking and how it affects the NHS.

There is some truth in this but the number of people smoking continues to decrease.

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I can remember going into cinemas when smoking there was allowed. The fug was so bad it affected the film.

Smokers make their own choice to smoke. Pensioners do not choose to have a cold house when they can't afford heating bills.

Every winter, elderly people are admitted to hospital with cold related illnesses.

With the loss of the winter fuel allowance by this Government, I can see an increase in these admissions. This also becomes a strain on our NHS. Then there are problems releasing patients into the struggling care system.

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As I have already written in my previous letter (The Yorkshire Post, August 24) concerning the loss of the winter fuel allowance, Rachael Reeves must rethink her decision to deny this help to the elderly folk who depend on it. I hope that she and Sir Keir realise this.

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