Suffolk MP Dan Poulter accuses Health Secretary Thérèse Coffey of putting people's lives at risk with her 'deeply alarming' smoking and obesity approach

Suffolk Conservative MP Dr Dan Poulter has accused the Deputy Prime Minister of putting people's lives at risk.

After Liz Truss was made Prime Minister last month, Dr Thérèse Coffey, MP for Suffolk Coastal, became Health and Social Care Secretary and also the PM's deputy.

Dr Coffey has now been called out for her 'deeply alarming' approach to smoking and obseity by Dr Poulter, who is also an NHS doctor in London.

In a column for The Guardian, the MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich highlighted that Dr Coffey, had a 'questionable' voting record on measures to curb smoking, including voting against plans to restrict smoking, such as a ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces.

Additionally, she opposed the ban of smoking in cars with children inside as well as supporting plain packaging for cigarettes.

He said she had also opposed anti-obesity campaigns which had targeted people whose lifestyle threatened their health and risked large financial commitments for the NHS.

"As both a former health minister and a practising NHS doctor who has seen close up the devastation that smoking wreaks, I find Coffey’s approach to be deeply alarming.

"More smoking and more obesity mean more illness, more pressure on the NHS and shorter lives – particularly among the poorest in society."

Dr Poulter further said it was the duty of every government for ethical as well as practical reasons, to take action against smoking, obesity and other key causes of early mortality and morbidity.

"I am acutely concerned that Coffey’s ideological hostility to what history shows, is government’s potentially very positive role in protecting us against these grave threats to our health will exacerbate the problems they already pose.

"At its worst, such a radically different approach to public health could cost lives, as it will inevitably lead to more people smoking and becoming dangerously overweight.

"The health secretary claims to make decisions based on evidence. If that is true then it is time she put ideology aside, followed the evidence and started implementing policies that will help, not imperil, the nation’s health."