To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the current annual number of deaths attributed to smoking.

It is not possible to be precise. Most deaths associated with smoking arise from three diseases: lung cancer, chronic bronchitis and "heart attacks" due to obstruction of the arteries of the heart. However, the proportion of deaths attributable to smoking from each of these diseases varies. Furthermore, smoking is also implicated in certain other conditions where no estimate of the numbers of the deaths caused by smoking is available—for example, obstruction of the arteries of the lower limbs. It is estimated that at least 90 per cent. of deaths from cancers of the lung, lip, oesophagus and larynx, and 90 per cent. of deaths from chronic bronchitis, obstructive lung disease, chronic pulmonary heart disease and aortic aneurysm are attributable to smoking. The total number of deaths from these conditions is given in the table.

England and Wales—1988
ICD1 code	Cause	Deaths
162	Malignant neoplasm of trachea, bronchus and lung	35,302
140–149	Malignant neoplasm of lip, oral cavity and pharynx	1,687
150	Malignant neoplasm of oesophagos	4,884
161	Malignant neoplasm of larynx	844
416	Chronic pulmonary heart disease	695
441	Aortic aneurysm	7,914
490–492, 496	Bronchitis and emphysema, chronic airways obstruction, not elsewhere classified	25,993
1 International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 9th revision.

In 1983, the Royal College of Physicians in its report "Health or Smoking" estimated that perhaps 20 per cent. of deaths due to obstruction of the arteries of the heart were related to smoking. The medical term for this condition is "ischaemic heart disease", but it is commonly referred to as "coronary heart disease". The total number of deaths from this condition for England and Wales is as follows, but the proportion directly attributable to