Streeting celebrated the split in the Conservative Party on the smoking ban, and Labour’s “dominance in the battle of ideas”.
Atkins adds that continually raising the legal age of buying cigarettes will “reduce the demand on the NHS.”
The Health Secretary adds: “We are having to take this a step at a time. Because it’s a live a operation.”
The Health Secretary is pressed by Trevor Phillips over whether freezing tax thresholds means that the Government is really raising the tax burden, not lowering it.
Voters can lean towards a lower limit and favour decriminalisation for the same reason they can favour higher spending and lower taxes. It is the duty of politicians to do better.
There is no easy way out of the toxic combination of already-high taxes, corrosive inflation, low productivity, and a Health Service funded exclusively by the taxpayer.
Victoria Atkins tells Laura Kuenssberg that “we want our doctors and nurses to be able to work in the NHS”, but stresses the impact of strikes on services.
The Health Secretary tells Sky News her aim is to move people out of hospital more quickly to free up capacity.
The Government may be looking ahead to another winter of mild disruption, lengthening waiting lists, and protracted negotiations. Nonetheless, the prognosis is not half as gloomy as this time last year.
The joint One Nation Caucus and Tory Reform Group conference last weekend, following the recent National Conservative Conference, are pointers to the shape of a possible future.
Simple commitments and pouring more money into a failing model will only compound the Health Service’s woes, and voters will punish such failure at the ballot box.