Brent is working with the Government to call for an urgent ban on the sale of paan products containing tobacco or betel nut. Councils have reached the limit of what they can achieve through local enforcement alone.
In a letter sent on Monday, 8 December, the council set out the scale of harm caused by paan chewing and spitting, from rising cancer rates to significant damage to town centres and the growth of illegal tobacco supply chains.
Its use in Brent has become increasingly visible, with blood-red staining routinely appearing across pavements and shopfronts in areas such as Wembley and Ealing Road, costing the council tens of thousands of pounds a year to clean up and leaving lasting damage to roads in the borough.
The council’s letter which was sent to the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health and Prevention and the Minister for Employment Rights and Consumer Protection, highlighted the severe public health impact. While England sees around 16 cases of head and neck cancer per 100,000 people, Brent experiences over 90 cases per 100,000, making the borough one of the worst affected areas in the country.
In the letter, the council urged, “After a decade of efforts to discourage the use of paan, the council has hit the limit of what it can do without national policy change. We’d be delighted for you or your officials to visit Brent and witness firsthand the scale and impact of this issue and to discuss how we can work in partnership to protect public health, restore pride in our high streets and disrupt organised criminal activity in local supply chains.”
Cllr Krupa Sheth, Cabinet Member for Public Realm and Enforcement, said, “This is not about targeting communities, it is about dealing with individual actions that let us all down. When our streets are spat on and our pavements are stained, public health is put at risk and when criminal supply chains are allowed to thrive, it is our residents who pay the price.
“We have expanded enforcement, stepped up street cleaning and used every legal tool we have, but the reality is that councils cannot close national loopholes on their own. That is why the law needs to change - simply put, a product that causes such serious harm simply should not be legally sold on our high streets.”
