Draft Tobacco and Related Products (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023
(10 months, 1 week ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O’Brien)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Tobacco and Related Products (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Harris. The purpose of this statutory instrument is to implement the EU Commission delegated directive (EU) 2022/2100 of 29 June 2022, which amends directive 2014/40/EU —the tobacco products directive—to withdraw certain exemptions in respect of heated tobacco products placed on the Northern Ireland market. The regulations amend the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016 in relation to Northern Ireland. Subject to their approval by Parliament, they are due to come into force on 23 October this year.
The regulations apply to Northern Ireland only and are made for the purposes of dealing with matters arising out of, or related to, the Windsor framework. Regulation 3(3) amends TRPR—the 2016 regulations—to prohibit the production or supply of Northern Ireland heated tobacco products that contain a characterising flavour. Unlike cigarettes, heated tobacco can currently contain characterising flavours such as menthol, vanilla and so on. Under the changes the SI implements, that will no longer be the case for heated tobacco products sold in Northern Ireland from 23 October 2023.
We do not need to make changes in the light of the Commission delegated directive that requires heated tobacco products to contain health warnings and information messages if they combust. If heated tobacco products that involved a combustion process were placed on the UK market, they would be regulated as tobacco products for smoking and would be subject to existing regulations in TRPR that require such products to contain a combined health warning and information message. However, there are currently no heated tobacco products on the Great Britain or Northern Ireland markets that involve a combustion process and, as such, products are subject to the labelling requirements applicable to smokeless tobacco products.
A full assessment of the impact on Northern Ireland business has not been prepared for this instrument because the amounts involved on business fall below the threshold for producing one. The regulations will apply to producers, suppliers, retailers and wholesalers that produce or supply heated tobacco products for consumption in Northern Ireland. The Department of Health and Social Care communicated with the tobacco industry, NI retail representatives and enforcement agencies regarding the proposed changes in February and again when the draft SI was laid in June.
Heated tobacco products on the UK market are produced and manufactured by the tobacco industry outside the UK. The characterising flavour ban will limit the products the industry can produce and supply to the Northern Ireland market and may impact on its profits in what is a relatively small market for the industry in Northern Ireland. There is no significant impact on the public sector, and each district council in Northern Ireland will, when required, enforce the new requirements, which are not expected to be a significant burden on councils given the very low use of heated tobacco products in Northern Ireland.
I am content to introduce the regulations, which allow us to honour our current commitments under the Windsor framework and will have limited impact on Northern Ireland business. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
The Chair
Before I call the Opposition spokesperson, I should say that I have no problem if people wish to remove their jackets, given how warm the room is.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Harris, and to speak on the behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition.
As set out in the explanatory note, the statutory instrument means that from October this year it will be illegal in Northern Ireland to produce or sell heated tobacco products that have a characterising flavour. As the Minister set out, the change is happening because of the requirements of the Windsor framework and is being made in response to a policy change implemented by the European Union. Of course, we would prefer the Northern Ireland Assembly to be sitting, so that the Windsor framework democratic scrutiny committee could involve local representatives in the process, but we are where we are.
It is important to reiterate that heated tobacco products are very different from e-cigarettes: while e-cigarettes heat liquids or salts that typically contain nicotine, HTPs heat tobacco leaf directly, producing a nicotine aerosol that is then inhaled. Unsurprisingly, some in the tobacco industry have made the claim that HTPs are less harmful than conventional smoking, and point to a number of studies that purport to demonstrate this. However, as recent analysis by the University of Bath has shown, a majority of those studies were either affiliated with or funded by—you’ve guessed it—the tobacco industry. Conversely, the European Respiratory Society has pointed to independent research that shows that HTPs emit substantial levels of carcinogens, as well as toxic and irritant substances. Although use of these harmful products is very low in Northern Ireland, as the Minister says, they are increasingly being marketed without the requisite evidence base as a healthier alternative to smoking.
Obviously health is a devolved matter and the Minister represents public health in England, but I wish to press him on whether he plans to adopt similar legislation here so that there is parity between England and Northern Ireland. If not, why not? Have the Government made any assessment of the prevalence of heated tobacco use across the rest of the United Kingdom, and principally in England, along with the wider health implications of such use? Similarly, can the Minister outline what action his Department is taking to combat the increased marketing of such products—marketing that is often underpinned by spurious tobacco industry-backed research?
Finally, can the Minister set out how the Government will assist Northern Ireland in the implementation of the ban, especially given the possibility of illegal importation from England? It does seem odd that following the implementation of the draft regulations there will be more stringent legislation in place to clamp down on heated tobacco in Northern Ireland than in the rest of the United Kingdom. Perhaps the Government considered implementing such a ban in their tobacco control plan or in their health disparities White Paper—but we will never know, because they have both been unceremoniously binned, leaving England lagging behind on tobacco cessation, where we should be leading the way.
The next Labour Government will build on our smoking cessation legacy by taking bold, decisive action to improve public health and empower those addicted to tobacco to quit, but until then we need to see the Government drastically improving their own efforts. However, His Majesty’s Opposition fully support the draft regulations.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Harris. I, too, welcome the draft regulations and wish to highlight the inequality that has arisen between Northern Ireland and England. I have to say that the sluggish response from the Government, knowing the harm that tobacco causes, is quite astounding. I very much hope that we will shortly see regulation on heated tobacco products here in England.
I want to home in on the harm that is being done by putting flavourings into tobacco products. The Health and Social Care Committee recently took evidence not only from health experts, but from the industry. It became incredibly evident to us that this is yet another marketing ploy by the tobacco industry to sell its harmful and life-threatening products. We heard evidence from the head of a school, who said that the topic of conversation for young people in the playground was about the different flavours that they were trying. That is clearly where legislation like this will protect young people. For instance, we were told about different flavours of vape, such as gummy bear, slushy, unicorn milk and unicorn frappé. The introduction of those flavours is clearly not aimed at an adult audience. We are talking about vanilla and other flavours in heated tobacco products, but it will not be long before we see them being extended to products that are attractive to children, to get them to take up smoking.
What through in our inquiry, which applies to the draft regulations, is that the industry is driven to recruit a new generation of addicts, whether they are addicted to tobacco products or to nicotine products, to drive up their profits from another generation, having killed off the last. It is therefore absolutely essential that we get the draft regulations on the statute book not just in Northern Ireland but across England and the rest of the UK. It is evident what the industry is about, and I urge the Minister to go far further and far more quickly, so that we stop producing another generation of addicts to these products and ensure that we safeguard people from the real public health concerns that we all have.
Neil O'Brien
We have driven down smoking rates in England to a record low—from about 40% in the 1970s to about 20% in 2010 and down to a record low of 13% today. We have done that partly by doubling excise duties and partly by introducing a minimum excise on the cheapest cigarettes.
We continue to move forward in our efforts to cut smoking. I recently set out plans to give all women who smoke during pregnancy new incentives to quit smoking, and plans to give 1 million smokers help to “swap to stop” with free vaping kits. The Government are taking determined action to drive down rates of smoking, and we will keep all measures about comparability between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK under review.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
The Minister has not responded to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central.
Debbie Abrahams
The point about the inequalities that there will be between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, and whether there has been an assessment of them. I gently remind the Minister that it was a Labour Government that introduced smoke-free zones and ensured that people were protected from second-hand smoking. The Government need to recognise that.
Neil O'Brien
We keep all those things under review. Flavourings in heated tobacco are a relatively niche issue, but of course we will look at the regulation of those things. The mainstay of our policy is raising tax on cigarettes, which has driven down smoking rates, and using vapes, but not heated tobacco, as a potential substitute to get people off smoking.
I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.