Tuesday 11th November 2025
(1 day, 11 hours ago)
Grand CommitteeTobacco and Vapes Bill 2024-26 View all Tobacco and Vapes Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 89-IV(b) Amendment for Grand Committee (Supplementary to the Fourth Marshalled List) - (11 Nov 2025)
Lord Udny-Lister
(4A) If the fixed penalty notice is not the first notice issued to the person in respect of such an offence, the fine is—(a) £2,500, if it is the second fixed penalty notice so issued;(b) £5,000, if it is the third fixed penalty notice so issued;(c) £10,000, if it is the fourth or any subsequent fixed penalty notice so issued.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to create a stepped approach to fixed penalty notices based on how many times a person has been issued a notice.
Lord Udny-Lister (Con)
My Lords, I have tabled two amendments in this group, both with the intention of creating a stepped and more proportionate approach to fixed penalty notices, which I feel to be a very draconian measure in the first instance. Under the unamended drafting, the Bill would allow immediate penalties regardless of the scale or context of the offence committed. This is bad practice, contrary to the societal change that is needed if this legislation is to succeed.
Through these amendments, I want to enable enforcement authorities to apply sanctions gradually starting—this is important—with education and warnings for minor or first-time breaches. These would escalate only when non-compliance persists. This is a well-established approach of enforcement that is rooted in fairness. The goal of the Bill should be not to trap small retailers or inadvertent offenders in red tape but to encourage dialogue and corrective measures to be the mantra of our enforcement agencies. This is how you get change and compliance.
The tiered approach that I have outlined through Amendment 74 will build some much-needed credibility into the enforcement clauses of the Bill in a way that keeps the law tough when needed but ensures—this is important—that it is proportionate and, above all, fair. I beg to move the amendment.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to the four amendments in this group that are in my name—Amendments 78, 86, 88 and 89. Particularly perceptive Members of our Grand Committee will remember that, when they looked at the third Marshalled List, the Minister had signed my Amendment 89. I understood at the time that she had signed it not for the same reason that I tabled it—as we discovered at the last sitting of the Committee, the Minister did not move a whole set of government amendments. We will doubtless return to those issues later.
My amendments are all of a piece. The object is to dive into Clause 38 and remove those parts that relate to money that is received through fines for licensing offences from the hands of the Consolidated Fund to put it into the hands of the local weights and measures authorities or—as we might get to, in due course—the relevant authority, which is the trading standards enforcement authority. My proposition is a terribly simple one: we should prioritise the receipt of resources not only from fixed penalty notices but from the fines imposed for licensing offences and they should be made available to local authorities with trading standards responsible for enforcement.
The background is probably well known to Members of the Grand Committee. Trading standards is operating with substantially fewer members of staff than it did a decade ago. The Local Government Association has warned that trading standards may be unable to fulfil its statutory duties and the Association of Chief Trading Standards Officers has warned of a growing gap between its statutory duties and the available resources.
Happily, today we meet with a realisation that this has not inhibited trading standards departments across the country from taking effective action together with the leadership of the National Crime Agency, which reported 2,700 premises—barber shops, vape shops and other trading establishments—operating illegally. Where vaping is concerned, which is our interest here, these are being used as a route for the sale of illegal vapes—without paying the appropriate duty or doing so in due course—including to minors, which is of particular concern for many noble Lords. There is also the employment of staff who are not properly able to work in this country.
A wide range of these issues requires enforcement. My purpose is to try to ensure that the resources that are clearly coming into the system are devoted to trading standards. We know, or at least it is estimated, that trading standards enforcement costs over the next five years will total something like £140 million. We know that the Government have provided a grant of £10 million to support trading standards. There clearly will be an income to local authorities from the fines relating to licensing to the extent that they will be able to recover their direct costs, as well as from the fixed penalty notices. We do not have an authoritative estimate of what that sum will be. If the Minister has a clear estimate of what the sums accruing to local authorities will be, it will give an opportunity to see how much of that £140 million cost over five years is likely to be met from penalties and fines.
This issue was debated in the other place and the Government, as is their wont, resisted the idea that money should be paid to local authorities from these fines, instead of being paid into the Consolidated Fund, because, as the Government put it, they did not want to create a perceived conflict of interest such that the enforcement authorities seemed to have an interest in pursuing fines. We should think of it the other way round. We want enforcement authorities to do their job properly. With these amendments, I am testing the proposition that the Government should increase the support for trading standards officers. If they find a provision that makes the revenue from fines to local authorities too much to bear, I should be supportive of a commitment by the Government—if not at this stage, then later—to assess the gap between the revenue that results from the fines and penalty notices and the costs to local authorities and to meet that gap by Exchequer grant, once they know what the Consolidated Fund revenues from these fines may be.
In addition to that request in principle to the Government, I have been looking at the impact assessment, which says in paragraph 1401:
“A new burdens assessment will be completed to assess costs to local authorities ahead of the Bill being introduced”,
particularly in relation to the enforcement of the new powers relating to vapes. I cannot find the burdens assessment—my research may be inadequate—but what does it say are the costs that need to be met by local government? That too should be something that we assess: to what extent is local government going to receive fixed penalty notices or fines that enable it to meet those costs? We do not want to be constantly adding statutory duties to local authorities without the corresponding resources.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I have attached my name to Amendment 81 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, from whom we have not yet heard—but that is the way the order works. I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
I am slightly torn because the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has just put forward a strong case. There are indeed huge problems with the funding of trading standards. I go to a recent report in the Financial Times in which the chief executive of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute said that the underfunding of trading standards has left consumers open to rogue traders and fake goods. There is a huge problem there and, as the noble Lord said, the Government’s own impact assessment says this measure is going to increase the burden and they are already hopelessly overburdened.
However, Amendment 81 goes in a different direction, towards public health initiatives to be determined by local authorities. Either of these has a strong case. I prefer the public health case, because public health is something that I am gravely concerned about. There is a real logic to the money going from where damage is being done to public health towards dealing with damage done by illegal activity.
I talked about how much trading standards is suffering. We all know that public health in the UK is in a terribly parlous state; when we compare ourselves with other countries that we might consider similar to ourselves, we are doing much worse in public health. I suspect that the Minister will get up and say, “Yes, but in February this year we gave £200 million to public health”, but that is to go towards smoking cessation programmes —which are very relevant to the Bill—along with addiction recovery, family and school nurses, sexual health clinics, local health protection services and public health support for local NHS services, and £200 million does not sound like quite so much when I read that list out.
There is a real logic to making sure that this is not just a small drop of money going into the ocean—the Treasury—and that the money goes to where the damage has been done, to public health. Trading standards would still be better than the money going straight into the Treasury. These are simple, logical ways to make sure that we stick some plasters on to some of the crises that are affecting our communities.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)
My Lords, in relation to this group, it is essential that trading standards have the resources they need. Although the government pledge of an additional £10 million is welcome, I feel it is probably not going to be enough. It is worth bearing in mind that trading standards are supportive of the Bill, and that is good news.
I understand the desire of my noble friend Lord Lansley to push the idea of the money being ring-fenced, as it were, for trading standards. As he acknowledged, there are dangers in that approach; we can think of overzealous traffic wardens and the criticisms that they have in relation to raising money that is ring-fenced for specific purposes, and there may be a danger of that happening here too. Still, I quite understand the desire to press for additional finance for trading standards, and I hope the Minister will say something on that in response because I think that is needed.
On Amendment 74, it seems eminently sensible to have a stepped approach to fines for offenders so that it is a proportionate response and first offenders do not have such a high fine as others. I am wholly supportive of that, and I hope the Minister is listening in that regard too.
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
My Lords, I support the amendments from my noble friends Lord Udny-Lister and Lord Lansley. I do not know whether any noble Lords in this Committee saw the news item, a few weeks ago, when the BBC went around looking not for under-the-counter illegal cigarette sales but for shops, well advertised with bright neon lights on the front, selling illegal vapes and illegal cigarettes. The stories of people of old going to the pub and having cigarettes passed under the table are now simply not the case; they are freely available. I have heard of people who have never bought a packet of legal cigarettes.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 81 and 83, but as this is Committee I also note the virtues of Amendment 89 from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. We will soon find out which one the Minister prefers, if either of them.
My amendments would ensure that the money from the fixed penalty notices goes to the local authority to pay for public health initiatives determined by the authority. As the Committee knows, local authorities are very hard up. Indeed, some are going into administration. I know from my work on food and health that the public health grant is stretched to breaking point for obesity services, let alone all the other services that we are talking about, such as smoking quitting services. All that makes the burden assessment, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, very important, so I too would be interested to hear where it is.
Although I hope that the level of compliance with the new laws will be high, so that there is no need for too many fixed penalty notices, I believe there is virtue in the idea that such fines should support smoking cessation services. I am afraid that at the moment there is limited access to these services. As I have said before, young people who wish to stop vaping also complain of a lack of services to help them to do so. One would hope that what I should perhaps call the traffic warden syndrome, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, would not happen—but, of course, if people are breaking the law, they will need to pay the penalty. One would not want small businesses to be overburdened by constant vigilance on that score.
However, if the Minister were minded to accept one of my noble friend Lord Russell’s amendments in another group, on a levy on the profits of tobacco companies to support the NHS and smoking cessation services, that might be even better because it would raise a lot more money, which could be spent on cessation and prevention. That is the subject of a different discussion.
Why is the additional government funding for trading standards not enough? Is it enough or not? Perhaps the proceeds of fixed penalties should go to enforcement, rather than helping people to quit smoking and vaping. Prevention is always better and cheaper than cure and enforcement.
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, taken together, this group of amendments focuses on the question of how the new fixed penalty notice regime will operate in practice, how enforcement will be resourced and how local authorities will be supported in carrying out their duties under the Bill. Those are all important themes.
Amendment 74 in the name of my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister proposes a stepped approach to fixed penalty notices reflecting the number of times a person has been issued with a notice. That makes a lot of sense to me. The first time somebody commits an offence should surely be treated differently from the fourth or fifth time. I hope that enforcement officials will want to do this anyway, but such an approach would help strike a balance between giving people the benefit of the doubt—particularly as this will be, at the beginning, a complex new framework of rules—and ensuring that repeated non-compliance is dealt with properly.
That spirit of proportion and fairness also underpins Amendment 77, which would give local enforcement authorities the discretion to issue a formal warning notice to first-time offenders in lieu of a fixed penalty. I hope that the Minister will recognise the constructive intent behind both proposals.
I turn to the series of amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Lansley, which seek to ensure that the proceeds of fixed penalty notices arising from offences under Clauses 17 and 20 are used to support trading standards teams directly, rather than being absorbed into the Consolidated Fund. Like my noble friend, I can see no real reason why the proceeds of fixed penalty notices arising from those breaches should not be treated in exactly the same way as the proceeds of other fixed penalty notices or fines. Trading standards officers are at the forefront of enforcing the Bill’s provisions.
There is, perhaps, a debate to be had about whether hypothecation along those lines creates an incentive for enforcement officers not to exercise the kind of discretion favoured by my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister. However—I admit that this is entirely guesswork on my part; I hope the Minister can illuminate us further— I do not think we should expect the yield from fixed penalty notices to be all that great in the scheme of things. This means that the incentive for overzealousness is likely to be more theoretical than real, so on balance I can identify with my noble friend’s argument that the resources generated by enforcement officers through their activity should be reinvested to strengthen their own capacity.
Amendments 81 and 83 from the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, would instead direct the revenue from fixed penalty notices towards local public health projects. This idea has considerable merit. There are some practical considerations because such a funding stream would, by definition, be inherently unreliable—and, in the context of a local authority budget, it would probably be very small beer—but, in any case, as the noble Baroness said, we hope that the number of penalty notices issued under this part of the Bill will start at a low level then decline even further as we go along.
Nevertheless, the noble Baroness asked an important question about how enforcement and public health objectives can be more closely aligned. I would be grateful if the Minister could set out how the Government see the relationship between enforcement activity and public health outcomes—specifically, how enforcement might be used not only to punish but to deter and to prevent the behaviours that lead to such offences in the first place. If the Minister can convincingly join the dots, as it were, I will have a better basis for assessing the merits of the noble Baroness’s amendment.
Finally, I turn to Amendment 204 tabled by my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister. This is a welcome and sensible amendment. It highlights the central role of local authorities in delivering and enforcing the provisions of the Bill. It is no secret that local authorities are already under significant financial strain, as has been said, and yet this Bill leans heavily on them for its success. I think it is fair that they are given certainty that the additional duties and regulations imposed on them will not leave them further out of pocket. With that, I look forward to what the Minister has to say.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful for the debate we have had on this group of amendments, which address the issues relating to penalties and enforcement of the Bill. Let me start with Amendments 74 and 77 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, which relate to penalties. I understand the noble Lord’s interest in providing tougher deterrents for repeat offenders and in taking a proportionate approach to first-time offenders in relation to certain measures in the Bill. However, I feel that the Bill already strikes the balance in this regard and has taken this into account.
The noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, made some good points about fixed penalty notices and their literal value. I can agree with the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, that we have focused, as we did on an early group, on supporting those who carry out their business legally and correctly, which is most people. We want to make that possible and streamlined, and we want to crack down on the illegal. This brings us to the point about how in an ideal world we would not be seeing fixed penalty notices because everyone would be playing by the rules. That is an ambition, but what I am trying to say is that it will not be a good measure if we are issuing so many fixed penalty notices without a decline. I think that is what noble Lords are saying, and I certainly share that view. I think that is a very helpful and practical point about how we see the proceeds from fixed penalty notices.
When enforcing tobacco and vape legislation, local trading standards already take a proportionate approach. They choose appropriate action to achieve compliance, and in many cases this already involves the issuing of warning notices, which can be effective in achieving compliance without the need to escalate to harsher penalties. Enforcement authorities will continue to use warning notices where appropriate.
Amendment 74 would increase the values of fixed penalty notices introduced by the Bill, with the highest penalties for repeat offenders. I understand why the noble Lord is putting that forward. The Bill is introducing fixed penalty notices in England and Wales to complement our existing sanctions and to strengthen what is already available to trading standards officers. I know noble Lords are aware—I hope it is obvious, but it is worth restating—that we have been in close conversation and will continue to be so to ensure that any concerns or points that trading standards officers wish to raise in respect of the Bill are heard.
On the point about complementing existing sanctions and strengthening the toolkit that is already available, that is something that trading standards has called for, because it wants to be able to take swift action, as we all want it to, to fine rogue retailers that breach certain regulations. Setting the fine at £200 is believed to be proportionate and the most popular level for the penalty that came through in the 2023 consultation on creating a smoke-free generation. It is also in line with the current fixed penalty notices in Scotland and is similar to the situation in Northern Ireland.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his almost intervention on that very point. I shall try to get the tense right here. As is standard government practice, a new burdens assessment will be conducted and shared with the Local Government Association. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, that the additional net cost to local authorities in England will be considered in line with the new burdens doctrine. In summary, I hope that, for the reasons I have given—
Lord Lansley (Con)
None the less, the impact assessment, which I quoted, says:
“A new burdens assessment will be completed … ahead of the Bill being introduced”.
The Bill has been introduced so, clearly, the impact assessment was incorrect in that respect. I also reiterate to the Minister the request for her to say that the Government will be willing to look not only at the costs —there is an estimate of those—but at what the revenues from fixed penalty notices turn out to be, in case there is a gap between the cost of enforcement and the revenue from fixed penalty notices. Even if they continued to receive money into the Consolidated Fund, would the Government be willing to consider making additional Exchequer grants beyond the £10 million to meet any such gap?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
The noble Lord makes an interesting point. We will of course keep these matters under review. I will certainly look again at the impact assessment and at the point made by the noble Lord; I would be happy to write to him further, if needed, once I have had a look at all of that. On his specific point, we will keep an eye on the revenue, but, again— I am not sure that this is exactly the point that the noble Lord made; perhaps I can provide that bit of cover—in our earlier discussion, the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, both acknowledged, as I did, that we are not seeking to get enough from fixed penalty notices to fund this. That is not our intention; in fact, we all hope that the revenue will decline as this Bill becomes increasingly successful in its impact. Let us also remember why we have this Bill: to introduce a smoke-free generation and drive down the demand for consumption. That changes the whole landscape. This is literally a generational change. So I hope that noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.
The Earl of Lindsay
The Earl of Lindsay (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as president of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, which is relevant to the last group of amendments but not to those I will speak to in this group—namely, Amendments 102, 104 to 106, 108, 109, 112, 156 to 159 and 201. These 12 amendments stand in my name and the names of the noble Lords, Lord Mendelsohn and Lord Fox, who sadly is involved right now in the International Agreements Committee. These amendments are also variously co-sponsored by the noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, and my noble friend Lord Moylan.
Eight of our 12 amendments propose exempting handmade cigars, pipe tobacco and nasal tobacco, more commonly known as snuff, from the generational sales ban outlined in this Bill, as well as from the broad regulatory powers it grants the Secretary of State concerning plain packaging, other retail packaging and product related requirements. Our remaining four amendments focus on the need for impact assessments. At the outset, I reiterate my support for the Bill’s overarching objective: to prevent the youth uptake of smoking and nicotine products, thereby to protect future generations from the health risks that stem from tobacco addiction.
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
My Lords, I will speak in favour of this group of amendments, especially my noble friend Lord’s Lindsay’s excellent amendments— I commend him on his first-class speech to the Committee—and those amendments in my name, relating to the need for an impact assessment relating to hand-rolled cigars and handmade artisanal cigars, and the need to differentiate the occasionally smoked cigar and its concomitant industry from cigarettes and vapes and the issues that cigarettes and vapes clearly present. Please do not be under any illusion that I am trying to stop the control of cigarettes and vapes—I have been particularly vociferous in the importance of regulating their sale—but it is important to try to differentiate between cigars and the rest of the tobacco industry.
Noble Lords may think it slightly bizarre that we should make special reference to a certain type of product that is undoubtedly smoked. I am sure many noble Lords will simply close their ears and let their gaze drift off, as if they were smoking a delicious cigar, assuming that everything should be lumped together: ban smoking, ban all tobacco, end of. I declare that I once owned a cigar fan site—if anyone ever visited, I hope they enjoyed it—and I have smoked an occasional cigar. I think I am a better man for it. It is called freedom, and I enjoy every one.
There is a strong argument to be made to give additional consideration to the world of handmade, hand-rolled cigars as well. I strongly believe that the Bill is a direct contradiction to the freedom of choice by consenting adults. Worse, it is looking to destroy a community that benefits this country both financially and socially. For all the evidence about the iniquities of vapes and cigarettes, which I do not deny, I have seen nothing—my noble friend just raised this point—about the risks to health and society of occasional fine cigar consumption; apologies if I have missed it.
In fact, in a fractious age of division, it is around cigar clubs—people coming together of their own free will to enjoy an occasional cigar—that we see a reversal, not an accumulation, of social problems. I declare a further interest in that in my village, we gather every Friday to enjoy a cigar, to meet and to commune. In an age when we need to be brought together as a community and a nation, it is through cigars—bizarrely, but importantly—that we achieve this. How can we support measures that drive us apart when we need the exact opposite? All I ask is that we assess the facts, if noble Lords can allow for that.
This amendment asks that we ask who is smoking cigars. The demographic is almost totally advanced, as we have heard; in fact, I am probably a relatively youthful smoker of cigars at 51 years of age. The audience is 1% of the total. There is literally no risk to new smokers or children. The average price is between £20 and £30, putting them totally out of reach of minors and into the hands only of aficionados. A proper report will bear this out.
We should also assess the important contrast between cigarettes and cigars; they are totally different, and I find it personally offensive to be grouped into the simple category of “smoker”, huddled outside glass office blocks or furtively vaping into one’s sleeve. You have to actually take your time with a cigar. Those Members of the Committee who have not enjoyed one should understand that it takes at least an hour to enjoy a proper cigar; you have to toast the foot, turning it slowly—ideally using a splint or a match—and then you puff at it gently, relishing, savouring and enjoying it while reflecting that it is an act of a free and happy person.
They are artisanally crafted, derived from a specific place—where, by the way, we wish to trade. Honduras, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and, of course, Cuba are all countries with which this Government have made it a priority to increase trade. It is an all-natural product, not filled with chemicals. It is vegan compliant and fully biodegradable, which should please the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, who wishes to reduce pollution—I cannot see her in her usual place, so that joke is lost on her.
We should carefully consider the loss to our domestic economy too. It is an industry made up almost entirely of small and micro-businesses, as we have heard. They are mostly family owned. From Hunters & Frankau, the main Cuban importer, to the incredible Sahakian-owned Davidoff, via Fox’s and Cigars.com, all contribute to a legal and important industry, employing nearly 800 people and generating nearly £100 million in taxes. We should be aware that these specialist retailer characteristics are well established as exceptions and are protected under the 2002 Act and the tobacco and promotion regulations. I am not asking noble Lords or the Minister to do anything out of the ordinary; I am simply asking for consistency in establishing the basic facts.
I did some research over the past few days on their importance to our economy—not by smoking copious cigars to see how delicious they were, I assure you, but by visiting the shops down St James’s Street. It turns out that hundreds of people a week come to London, including non-smokers who have never smoked a cigar their lives, simply to visit these stores. They go into Davidoff’s to meet Mr Sahakian, or Fox’s, because they want to see our heritage. These icons of our culture, beacons of our heritage, are vital to tourism in London. Dismember these totems at your peril.
Lord Strathcarron (Non-Afl)
My Lords, on the first day of this Committee, there was agreement among all noble Lords that the Bill was about public health. The purpose of these amendments, to which I have added my name, is to show that handmade cigars, pipe tobacco and nasal tobacco pose undetectable threats to public health and that they, through no fault of their own, have been caught up in the net meant for a very different type of tobacco product—mass-produced inhaled cigarettes.
Amendment 106 defines what a handmade cigar is. It is an individual, artisanal product, made entirely of specially grown and cured tobacco leaves, and almost exclusively in friendly Caribbean countries, in what could be thought of as cottage industries—in our terms. By contrast, mass-produced cigarettes contain tobacco that has been treated by a moisture controller such as glycerol or sorbitol, a sugar such as sucrose or an invert sugar, preservatives such as sodium benzoate or potassium sorbate, and reconstituted tobacco binders such as guar gum or carboxymethyl cellulose. All these are then wrapped in paper that has been bleached white with hydrogen peroxide and had added to it potassium or sodium nitrate to make the cigarette burn evenly. All these are inhaled through a filter usually made from cellulose acetate fibres. None of these ingredients can be found in a handmade cigar.
As with the difference in content between a handmade cigar and a mass-produced cigarette, the same extreme differences can be found in the manufacturing process. Whereas modern cigarette-making machines can make up to 100,000 cigarettes a minute, a torcedor or artisan cigar roller can make only between 25 and 100 cigars a day, depending on the length and gauge of the cigars that he or she is rolling that day.
Just as mass-produced cigarettes and handmade cigars are different products made in different ways, so is how they are smoked. The most obvious and significant difference is that mass-produced cigarettes are inhaled, whereas handmade cigars are not inhaled. In fact, the reason cigarettes are so heavily treated with additives and chemicals is to make them inhalable and therefore addictive. That is where and how the damage is done. Again, none of this public health damage applies to handmade cigars.
Lord Strathcarron (Non-Afl)
My Lords, another major difference between mass-produced cigarettes and handmade cigars is the quantities consumed. Desktop research shows that the average cigarette smoker smokes 11 cigarettes a day, whereas figures for cigar smokers are impossible to come by because they are such an infinitesimally small group of people. Retail evidence from repeat customers suggests once a month—a bit more in summer and a bit less in winter, as it is largely an outdoor pursuit. Tellingly, cigar smokers feel no need ever to smoke a cigar again because they are not addictive, but they hope they will smoke a cigar again because they are often smoked in celebration of happy events such as weddings or anniversaries.
If the primary purpose of the Bill is to stop young people from starting to smoke, I am pleased to tell the Committee that cigar smokers are comparatively a much more elderly cohort and that there is no evidence at all that someone who has smoked their first cigar at any age then goes on to smoke any type of mass-produced cigarette; in fact, I am sure that the chemicals and additives would make them feel quite sick if they tried to do so. If the purpose of the Bill is to stop young people smoking, handmade cigars should certainly not be one of its targets, as it simply does not apply.
Like many of the amendments in this group, this one calls for an impact assessment on the effect of including handmade cigars in the Bill, as they were totally ignored in the Government’s initial impact assessment, having not been mentioned once in 294 pages. The Bill’s packaging proposals in particular would collapse affected businesses in three to five years, because they would be caught in the cross-fire of a Bill that is aimed at a very different type of tobacco product.
A further objection to the inclusion of cigars is a diplomatic one. The Minister has no doubt seen the letter to the Prime Minister jointly signed by the UK ambassadors of Cuba, Honduras and the Dominican Republic expressing their concerns regarding the Bill, which
“could disproportionately impact cigar-producing countries through measures that are not justified by evidence”.
The letter compares evidence that supports its case, most recently from the US Food and Drug Administration and conducted for it by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, and it compares that with the evidence provided by the Government to support the Bill, which, as the authors say,
“uses a single UCL study, which has been widely criticised for methodological limitations that undermine its reliability as the foundation for sound and solid evidence-based policymaking”.
That is the much-derided study that claims a fivefold increase in the use of non-cigarette tobacco in the last decade but conveniently forgets to mention that it includes sheesha and heated tobacco, makes no mention at all of handmade cigars, pipe or nasal tobacco and has everything to do with the changing demographics of the country.
The letter highlights the socioeconomic and cultural damage that would be done to the sector in their economies:
“Cigars are produced predominantly in small and medium size companies, sustaining the livelihoods of more than 400,000 people, many of them women and smallholder farmers in rural communities. For our countries the industry represents not only a source of dignified employment and economic stability but also a vital element of cultural heritage”.
I am sure the Committee will agree that it seems bizarre that those three countries are recipients of our foreign aid on the one hand, yet what we are proposing with the Bill is to cause them serious economic and socioeconomic damage on the other for, as the letter says, no proper evidence-based reason. The ambassadors’ letter to the Prime Minister finishes with the crux of the matter:
“There is a clear precedent for this approach”—
that is, an exemption—
“in previous tobacco related legislation in the United Kingdom, where the unique characteristics of cigars have been recognised and proportionate exemptions granted. The rationale for these exemptions remains just as relevant today”.
The precedents they refer to relate to packaging and display allowances in specialist tobacconists, where any change to the current regime would be particularly damaging to these small, independent businesses which rely on handmade cigars for the bulk of their income. It would be impossible operationally, and suicidal commercially, for these Caribbean cottage industries to comply with the UK-only proposed plain packaging requirements, designed for multinational, mass-produced cigarette manufacturers. It also shoots the fox which says that the proposed legislation will make no difference to current cigar smokers. Of course, it will, because it means they will have nowhere legal from which to buy them if there are no cigar retailers because the cigar producers cannot comply with this unique UK legislation.
The only similarity between a mass-produced cigarette and a handmade cigar is the word “tobacco”—not the content called tobacco, which is radically different between them. No, we are talking here about a word, not a reality. But Bills are made of words, and, occasionally, reality gets caught in the crossfire—hence the need for defined exemptions for these handmade, artisanal products made in friendly countries and sold by small businesses across the country.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I was going to give way to the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, but I will go ahead. I was not intending to speak on this. I also wanted to sign the amendments, but such was the popularity of them that there were too many signatures. I support completely what the noble Earl and the two noble Lords who have spoken have said. I think they have covered practically everything that could be said about this issue. If the Minister is listening—and particularly if her officials in the Department of Health and Social Care, where I expect this has been pushed, are listening—I really cannot see why she would not consider, even at this stage, just dropping the whole thing about cigars.
I am particularly concerned about the issue of cigars and handmade cigars. I really do not understand why this is happening now, after all the years when there has been other legislation about tobacco—cigars have been left out and not included. Parliament has always recognised the unique aspect of this. I would hope that, after this debate in Committee has finished, the Minister will go back and recognise that taking this out now would solve a lot of problems with timing and getting things through quickly, given this whole debate. I would certainly support that.
The Government’s own impact assessment has been mentioned. It does not mention handmade cigars at all, and it mentions cigars very little, so I do not think any of us can really feel that a proper impact assessment has been done on the effects of cigars. I share the concern that has been expressed. I have also seen the letter from the three ambassadors—from the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Cuba—to the Prime Minister. Up until last week, there had not been a response. It was sent on 20 October, and I know that the Prime Minister has been quite busy recently, but I hope that they will get a full response to it, because it is very much going to have an effect. We always say that we care about what is happening to poorer communities across the world, and here we are going to have a situation that, without doubt, will lead to a real effect on smallholder farmers in rural communities. It is also very much a cultural thing in those countries. We should be taking that into account, apart from just the effects.
I have yet to see a 16 year-old, a 14 year-old or a 12 year-old standing around smoking a cigar. Now, maybe I have missed out, and maybe the Minister has seen that. I do not think that this is an issue about age—well, it is, in the sense that it is older people. There is absolutely no doubt about that. Apart from the cost of it, young people do not think of cigars as something that they would want to smoke. So it will make no impact whatever, in my view, on the health situation.
Years ago, in 1968, during my radical student days, I visited Cuba to plant coffee. I never went back to see whether the coffee that we planted actually grew—but we came back from Cuba, and of course in those days I brought lots of Che Guevara T-shirts and Cuban cigars. Sadly, people were more interested in having a present of the Cuban cigars than the Che Guevara T-shirts. So my interest in cigars goes back quite a long way.
But seriously, this proposal is really not sensible. It is not necessary and is not going to affect the health of one single person, but it will really affect those lovely, niche, small tobacco shops. There is one in Belfast, in Church Lane, called Miss Morans, which is visited by tourists because it is tiny and historic—I think it was started in 1870. Those are the kinds of shops that are going to be affected. People will be put out of jobs, not just in the handmade cigar places but in those kinds of shops. It is just not necessary. Although I recognise that the Minister perhaps cannot withdraw the whole clause today and take cigars right out of this, I hope that she will reflect on what has been said today, which is a very strong case for why cigars should not be part of this Bill.
The Earl of Liverpool (Con)
My Lords, as this is the first time that I have risen to speak on this Bill, I should immediately declare an interest, as shown in the register: I am a member of the Commons and Lords Pipe and Cigar Club. It may be no surprise to the Grand Committee that I strongly support the amendments that have so far been spoken to.
This is an industry that goes back 6,000 years—some people would say 6,000 but maybe 1,000 years will do. It is a very specialised business and, as my noble friend Lord Johnson said, cigar consumption and the purchase of cigars in this country is of great benefit to our tourist industry. People really do come to look at what we have to offer in St James’s Street and elsewhere. It is a wonderful thing, and I offer my full support to these amendments.
Lord Moylan (Con)
I put my name to some of these amendments, but so much has been said, and so eloquently, that I will speak only briefly in their support. I have no personal interest in this. I used to smoke, but I stopped three years ago. I have never smoked cigars or pipes, and I never took snuff. I probably experimented with all of them at some stage, but they were not for me. So I have no personal interest in this—but I was moved to take an interest in it because of being approached by a neighbour, recently retired from the family business of Hunters & Frankau, which specialises almost exclusively in cigars and is a successful British business that has been around for a long time, bringing pleasure with very little harm to its customers and giving jobs to people in the economy. He and his colleagues pointed out to me that the way in which this Bill operates will be absolutely destructive to their business; they will no longer be able to continue in business as a result of this Bill, for reasons that have been explained by my noble friend Lord Lindsay and other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I really do not think that that is what the Government intend.
This measure does not mean that the business will be destroyed. The businesses will be destroyed but not the commerce, because it will still be perfectly legal to buy these things in foreign countries and import them into this country. One can never imagine the French to be so idiotic as to clamp down on a luxury trade that brings custom to their capital—nor the Germans, for that matter. These products will always be available, but the businesses in this country that have operated for such a long time will be reduced to cinders and ashes if the Government do not step back at this stage—I hope the Minister will say that she is willing to do this—and say that they will reconsider this whole question before coming back to the Bill at a later stage.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I feel I might lower the tone, especially after the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Johnson of Lainston. This is absolutely not my world; I am much more on the grubby vaping/smoking side of the fence, to be honest. However, the world of cigars and other tobacco products is also not the world of the nation’s youth. There just is not an epidemic of teenage pipe-smoking—not that I am aware of, at least.
These amendments are incredibly important to the Bill because they are all about evidence and the Bill’s attitude to it. I am concerned not to have a situation whereby “tobacco” is used as a scare word that blinds us to facts, medical science and what is actually happening in terms of real harms and risks. The speech from the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, helped explain the distinction between cigarettes and vapes in terms of the consumer-based demographics, usage patterns and risk profiles for these other tobacco products. If you just lump them all into a one-size-fits-all, we shall behave in a disproportionate, unevidenced way, based, to a certain degree, on prejudice.
Can the Minister also explain whether there is new evidence to explain this new approach? As the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, explained, previous legislation has successfully been used to differentiate in the regulation of these particular tobacco products. What is new that means that the Government now want to treat them all as though they are indistinct? I appeal to the Minister to add some nuance to the Bill, because we really must stop conflating things that are not comparable. We should stop conflating tobacco with nicotine, as I have argued, and we must stop conflating cigarettes with all the various tobacco products without differentiation.
I added my name to Amendment 103 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, but, as he does not appear to be here to speak to it, I shall speak to it briefly instead. This amendment asks for evidence of the potential harms posed by heated tobacco compared to cigarettes. Again, this is important to me. Heated tobacco devices are being used by cigarette smokers to quit smoking cigarettes. It is perfectly proportionate and reasonable to ask for evidence of whether they carry the risk of any kind of significant harm. So far, the Government have not come up with any arguments for why they should be treated as though they are indistinguishable from cigarettes.
It speaks to a certain carelessness, if you like, around evidence—and, indeed, around liberty—if specific activities carried out by adults are all treated the same on the basis that a one-size-fits-all approach to public health means that we can all forget the details. However, as scrutineers and legislators, we should never forget the details and always think about the unintended consequences, regardless of our attitude to smoking fine cigars; that is irrelevant to why we should support these amendments.
Lord Harlech (Con)
Briefly, my noble friend Lord Lindsay spoke to his group of amendments far more eloquently than I can, and other noble Lords spoke about the evidential and ethical case behind them. But I want to make one point and give one example, at this time of remembrance and with society’s understanding of mental health developing—and, indeed, given the Minister’s role for mental health. A great number of veterans and serving personnel come together to talk about their mental health and their experiences through the medium of cigar clubs. It would be a great tragedy if those communities were lost due to the unintended consequences of the Bill, and I hope that the Government and the Department of Health and Social Care are listening to the arguments that have been made this afternoon.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, I will briefly respond to these amendments on cigars. It is clear that the parliamentary cigar club is out in force today, and the noble Lords have made their case very well. I will speak on snuff, because every argument made for cigars is undermined by including snuff within the amendments. The arguments around snuff are extremely different. Snuff use among our 16 to 24 year-olds has seen a fourfold increase over recent years. Snuff is easily available; it is flavoured and easy to hide for young people. Frankly, including snuff undermines the group of amendments.
Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)
My Lords, I support the amendments, which I have signed, and I will speak on the separation of cigarettes and vapes from other tobacco products, making the case, I hope, for a much stronger impact assessment. Certainly, the previous contribution made a strong case for trying to review these things in a proper impact assessment, which I think would be welcomed by everybody.
The noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, made an incredibly forensic case about the separation, and his was an excellent contribution. Of course, I enjoyed the poetry, prose and passion expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Johnson of Lainston, but the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, made a brilliant case for this. He reminded me of one thing in particular: the issue that we have in making sure that regulation is effective. I remember sitting on the other side of this Room on many occasions, making the case for better regulation, making the case that this had to be based on proportionality and evidence, and usually making the case that an impact assessment was wanting in a particular area. Very often, we were supported by the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, in that case. The present Ministers will be dealing with many of the consequences of things that did not have proper impact assessments and were not assessed correctly, because these things frequently lead to very poor legislation that has terrible consequences and requires a huge amount of government action beyond them.
In this case, there are some issues around justice, whether the actions are proportionate and whether they do away with people’s livelihoods, which is probably unjust on the basis of the evidence. The Minister’s reported comments on the current market conditions for cigars bear no relation to commercially available market assessments, so there is a case for ensuring that we have the right evidence. The current impact assessments are not even a tick-box exercise—there is almost nothing in them apart from the tick in the box. I cannot think of anything we have done that has put on the table any cost-benefit analysis.
The case for the separation is strong. It does not obviate or undermine the core public policy objective or any movements around the central issues of health benefits, protecting children and the like in the other parts of the Bill. There is, of course, a vast difference, as has been said, between the mortality of handmade cigar smokers and cigarette smokers, not least given that cigars are not inhaled and are made from natural tobacco, as opposed to habitually inhaled cigarettes made with many additives and chemicals, as was expressed. I would love to say that I could remember or recite even one example cited—it was a magnificent piece of research—but a considerable number have terrible health consequences.
The impact assessment and Explanatory Notes make clear that the whole Bill is intended to target products that are deliberately branded for, promoted to and advertised to children. It is unclear that OTPs, especially cigars, fall into this category. They are not promoted with cartoons and are not part of an illicit trade on which trading standards are focused; they are specialist, niche and not present on convenience stores’ footprints. Again, all the Bill’s impacts are based on multiple chains and businesses for which these are marginal products.
The point was made that we lack the evidence to make this piece of legislation because DHSC, HMRC and the other relevant public bodies stopped collecting data on OTPs around 2012 because of their low usage, the age profile of the users and the fact that there is no evidence that they are a gateway product for the young. No assessment was required because the significance to public health was negligible. That is important as we balance things here because these products have a distinctive consumption pattern in the volume of people using them; in the mechanisms and types of usage, daily or occasional; and in their negligible youth appeal.
There is already market regulation. The price marketing and regulation are very different for those sorts of products. There is a cultural and economic consequence to this measure in skilled jobs, specialist retailers, hospitality and other areas. I am not so august to know the practices of the investment community when deciding issues with Governments—and whether a Romeo y Julieta seals the deal—but it is certainly clear that important luxury-end hotels, which are a big area for our economy and for the growth of our tourist economy, will be significantly affected by the availability of these sorts of products.
This is not to say that everyone uses them, but it is certainly true that the breadth of appeal in what Britain represents is very much that it caters for that sort of stuff. We need a proper assessment of the impact. There are many precedents for treating cigars differently, including in EU countries that are trying to do the same sort of thing in tourism under the tobacco products directive. It would be foolish of us not to have proper evidence before we put ourselves at a disadvantage.
This all speaks to making sure that enforcement is proportionate, practical and effective. I hope that, in responding to the debate we have had, the Minister will take away the fact not just that there is a very strong case, for those of us who have spent some time looking at this matter, but that the Government’s case probably has more costs than benefits currently. A proper impact assessment should be done in order to make sure that, as they move forward with this legislation, the Government can make proper provision for how we deal with OTPs.
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I remind the Committee of my previous declarations of interest: my wife is a non-executive director of both Tesco and Diageo; and I am an alumni member of the Lockeridge Cigar Smoking Society, to which the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, referred.
I am a huge and passionate supporter of this Bill. My motivations are largely because of the devastating costs to society and to our economy of cigarette smoking: the tens of thousands of deaths; the pressure on the NHS and our welfare system; and the devastating effect on families and communities. But, like the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, I think that these amendments are very important, because if we are going to deploy the clunking fist of the nanny state to smoking roll-up cigarettes in our society, we should recognise that our legislation sometimes has unintended consequences, and we should do what we can, when we can, to mitigate the effects on those who are not the targets of our legislation.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, we have had a great debate. Those noble Lords who know me know that, like the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, I am a great supporter of this Bill, and I would not want to do anything to weaken it. Noble Lords who know me also know that I am a great supporter of evidence-based policy. I therefore looked very carefully and thoughtfully at this group of amendments, and asked myself a number of questions.
First, would this group of amendments interfere with the principal core objective of the Bill, which is to deter young people from smoking highly addictive tobacco products and achieve a smoke-free generation? This is a desirable objective both for the physical, mental and financial health of the individual and for the cost to the NHS and overall economy, which affects all of us as taxpayers. I concluded that, in one case, these amendments would affect the core objective of the Bill, and that is the case of snuff. I am very sorry that the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, has included snuff along with handmade tobacco. My noble friend Lord Russell has already outlined the evidence that snuff is a problem for young people, and it can be very dangerous.
I also concluded that, on the basis of the evidence currently available to me, these amendments are unlikely to affect that objective, because of the very high cost of cigars compared with other tobacco products. But we need to be careful, as the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, just outlined, about the unintended consequences of any exemption because the tobacco industry is very clever and driven by high profits. There is some evidence that, albeit not harmless, cigars have less effect on health than other tobacco products, as they are not inhaled, have no additives and therefore are probably less addictive and certainly smoked less frequently than cigarettes.
I am a fan of evidence-based policy, but I am also a fan of fairness, so I asked myself: is the legislation fair in this respect? I thought initially about small retailers that sell cigarettes, vapes and many other products. Under the terms of the Bill, they will have to adjust their business plans gradually, over many years, to account for the loss of one potential year’s cohort of young smokers to whom they will no longer be legally able to sell cigarettes. That adjustment and time period are not unreasonable and that is what the Bill does.
However, there is one group of small retailers that claim they would lose their business entirely with no gradual adjustment if the Bill is not amended. They are the sellers of exclusive handmade cigars. I have never smoked a cigar in my life, but I am concerned about all small retailers and about fairness. This is because we are told that the nature of the global market, of which the UK is only 2%, is such that they would not be able to comply with packaging regulations.
I then asked myself if it is fair to existing smokers. The Bill is considerate to existing smokers of cigarettes, currently over 18, who are addicted to cigarettes and who will be able to continue smoking them until they die if they really need to. Of course, we need to help more of them to quit, as so many want to do. But is it fair to smokers of cigars? If the sector briefing is correct, they will not be able to buy compliant cigars in this country once the Bill is passed. I asked myself if that is fair to them.
I then asked myself whether exempting cigars from the legislation would create a loophole and encourage young people to switch from cigarettes, vapes and all the other much cheaper forms of nicotine-delivering mechanisms to cigars, which cost over £20 per unit. I think this is very unlikely. There is also the potential of people moving to cigarillos, as has just been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, so any exemption would have to be carefully drafted. Actually, Amendment 104 is quite carefully drafted, apart from my criticism about the inclusion of snuff. Something very similar would need to be drafted to avoid the industry using it to lure young people into smoking.
Lastly, I asked myself what the evidence is to include handmade cigars in the scope of the Bill. As I understand it, the evidence is based on a single study that lumped together a large group of non-cigarette tobacco products, all of which are very different from each other. This has been mentioned in the debate. Lumping them together like that, without the desirable granularity of getting evidence about each individual type of product, resulted in evidence of increased usage. We know that there is a rise in use of tobacco pouches and heated tobacco among young people, but what about cigars? Is there any evidence that young people are increasingly smoking them? I have not seen any up to this point, so perhaps the Minister can point us to the evidence that young people start smoking by using cigars and that the incidence of them doing so is rising or that they report an intention of turning to cigars if they cannot legally get hold of cigarettes.
In the light of all that, I think the Government need to show that they have taken evidence from specialist cigar retailers and their customers about all the issues that I have just mentioned. The Minister has frequently told us that her team has talked a lot to small retailers and their industry representatives, and I know she has done so when it comes to small corner shops that sell a variety of different nicotine-delivery mechanisms. So could she give us chapter and verse on when and how frequently her team have spoken to this particular and rather different group of small retailers? If she and her team do so, they may be open to the suggestion that further consultation and evidence on this issue is required, possibly followed by a careful and watertight exemption from parts of the Bill—if the evidence is there.
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, the amendments in this group speak to a set of principles that my noble friend Lord Kamall and I have emphasised throughout our scrutiny of the Bill: namely, that the policies set out in legislation should reflect its core purpose, but that unintended consequences that do disproportionate damage should be avoided. We can avoid those consequences by adopting policies that take account of the facts not just in one policy dimension but in all other relevant dimensions—in other words, as my noble friend Lord Lindsay put it, policies that are truly evidence based.
My many noble friends, together with the noble Baronesses, Lady Hoey, Lady Fox and Lady Walmsley, and the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, have made the case—in my view, a convincing one—that, when it comes to those tobacco products that occupy what is, by any measure, a niche position in the marketplace, most especially handmade Havana cigars, a much wider set of considerations should be factored into policy-making than those that apply to the vast generality of tobacco products, such as cigarettes, which are both mass produced and mass consumed.
Handmade cigars are a world away from what we typically refer to as the tobacco industry. As someone who was a Health Minister for a full five-year Parliament, I know how difficult a proposition that is for Health Ministers to accept. The Department of Health and Social Care rightly sees it as its function to preach the ills of tobacco in all its forms and to take every possible step to constrain the demand for tobacco products for the good of patients and the public. I completely understand that.
As a Minister, I was proud to take through Parliament the measures proposed by my noble friend Lord Lansley that mandated plain packaging for cigarettes, and as an opposition spokesman I supported the policy of the last Labour Government to ban smoking in the workplace. I need no persuading about the damage to health caused by both active and passive smoking. However, I have also been consistent in acknowledging that there are one or two narrow areas of tobacco regulation—
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
My Lords, there is a Division in the Chamber, in which case we would normally adjourn for 10 minutes. If it seems that there are back-to-back Divisions, I think it would be more suitable to come back when it appears that they are over.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
My Lords, we are debating Amendment 102 to Clause 45, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, was in full flow.
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, I need no persuading about the damage to health caused by both active and passive smoking. However, throughout my years in dealing with health matters, I have also been consistent in acknowledging that there are one or two narrow areas of tobacco regulation in which the health gain to be derived from such regulation is outweighed by considerations of personal choice, commercial freedoms and—not to sound too high-flown—the national interest.
Handmade cigars are one such instance; I would venture to say that they are the most important one. There is, therefore, a necessary challenge that must be made to the Government—a challenge issued by my noble friend Lord Lindsay in his excellent speech. The challenge is to demonstrate evidence that the strictures that apply to cigarettes apply equally to every single type of tobacco product when consumed. These include heated tobacco, which is a relatively novel product but could have a role in smoking cessation—we do not know that yet, but it might—snuff, pipe tobacco and, in particular, hand-rolled cigars.
Noble Lords have articulated why this challenge must be made. I want to distil those arguments by focusing, as others have done, on handmade cigars. For official statistical purposes, sales of handmade cigars are lumped in with the sale of a whole range of other tobacco products—a fact that precludes any detailed analysis of the market relating to handmade cigars on their own. In the UK, that market is tiny by comparison to the market in cigarettes, but it is a market of very high value. Depending on its age and provenance, one box of Havana cigars can sell for many thousands of pounds. Retail outlets for such cigars are very few in number, but their combined activity is enough to make the UK one of the leading centres in the world for high-quality cigars imported from Caribbean countries. The historical links between British importers and retailers and small producers in those countries go back many years, making it a trade that is the polar opposite of that associated with cigarettes. I should add that highly specialised retailers of handmade cigars in this country are one of the many reasons why very rich people from around the world see London as a destination of choice.
However, relevant as they are, these arguments around the market tell only half the story when it comes to considering this legislation. We need to be clear about the facts relating to health. Hand-rolled cigars, costing hundreds of pounds apiece, are decidedly not a cause of young people taking up smoking, nor is doing so a route to addiction for those who choose to smoke such cigars. Very few people would think of smoking them with anywhere near the same frequency as smoking cigarettes; that just does not happen.
In general, cigars of this kind are bought as luxury items for occasional enjoyment, the main attraction being their unique tobacco flavour. I am not for a minute suggesting that handmade cigars are without any health risk whatever—that would be absurd—but there is a distinct difference between the dangers posed by cigarettes, which have all sorts of carcinogenic chemicals added to them during the course of their manufacture, and the dangers of a hand-rolled cigar, which consists of pure tobacco and whose smoke is not inhaled.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for the contributions that have been made today. This has obviously brought a lot of interest to this group of amendments. Let me start by turning to Amendments 106, 108, 109, 112 and 156 to 159, which have been tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay. The effect of this would be to remove handmade cigars, pipe tobacco and nasal tobacco from the definition of tobacco products in Parts 1, 5 and 6 of the Bill.
One of the things that the noble Earl asked about was distinguishing between products that pose, as he described them, negative health risks and those which do not. It is probably helpful, in view of the comments made by the noble Earl, Lord Howe—I am glad to hear his acceptance of the health arguments—that I am very clear, because this has come up throughout today: all tobacco products are harmful. Tobacco smoke from cigars and pipes leads to the same types of diseases as cigarette smoke. Like other forms of tobacco, nasal tobacco contains chemicals that can cause cancer. I will develop this further as we continue. It is right that these products can be subject to the same restrictions as other tobacco products.
I have listened to the arguments about the scale of consumption and a number of other comments. However, I want to refer to the core of the Bill. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, spoke to this and it is important we remind ourselves, although I do not wish to stray into Second Reading territory, that the core of this is about the protection of young people. It is not about stopping existing smokers, whether of cigars or any other products. It is also about creating not just a culture but a practice of a smoke-free generation so that those who born on or after 1 January 2009 will not be able to legally purchase tobacco products, whatever they may be.
I want to emphasise the broad point about creating a culture in this country whereby young people, as the years go on, do not want to smoke, and those who currently smoke want to give it up. That is the important point to which I refer a lot of noble Lords. Again, the Bill does not prevent current tobacco users buying these products. I know a number of noble Lords have spoken about their own interest and consumption. The Bill does not affect that.
However, as has been referred to, exempting some tobacco products would create loopholes; the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, spoke to this point. I should add that, while we are talking about culture and about the protection of children and young people, this is also about the message that one sends—and not creating confusion. Many noble Lords are rightly pushing me on many issues to say, “Please do not cause confusion”. I absolutely agree with that; for me, legislation should be clear and should not create confusion.
Creating loopholes could permit the tobacco industry to continue to addict future generations to harmful and addictive products. There is evidence that young people are using these products: the most recent data shows that, in 2022, 2.4% of 16 to 19 year-olds in England used cigars and 4.4% used cigarillos, or little cigars. That was in the past 30 days.
A number of key points coalesce around these issues. The noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, and the noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, queried the claims that I made at Second Reading about cigar use among young people; I referred to the University College London study. On the statistic that I used, which concerned cigar usage increasing, we are confident that there is an observed upward trend in non-cigarette product use among younger adults. That is supported by the UCL study alongside other findings, such as from the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project, which provides comparative data on tobacco use.
My noble friend Lord Mendelsohn asked about HMRC’s publication of statistics on cigars. The HMRC sales data shows that sales of other tobacco products have risen in recent years, with the latest official statistics indicating an increase in tobacco duty receipts for non-cigarette products between 2023 and 2025—even as overall cigarette sales have declined.
Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)
Forgive me, but this is exactly why we need a proper impact study. In 2023, a different deal was done to supply cigars, and the prices have gone up significantly. Numbers and actual overall sales volumes are totally different, so it is misleading to introduce the idea that, just because the sales have gone up, the numbers have gone up. It is a directly inverse correlation because all of the prices have gone up. The UCL study shows that the big products that are moving are not tobacco products. Snus is a nicotine-based product, and shisha has gone up hugely, but that is not the same. It is important to be clear about these things. I urge the Minister to be very clear about the granularity of these figures because, otherwise, we end up in the wrong place.
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
It is a very interesting statistic that 2.4% of 14 to 16 year-olds have tried cigars in the last 30 days. That does not sound quite right; maybe it did not come out right. I would be grateful if we could have clarification on that piece of data.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
We can bandy all sorts of statistics around, but my noble friend is right that it is important to be absolutely accurate. I say to him that my reference was to sales of other tobacco products, which is a broader reference than to just cigars; I am happy to clarify that. I will also be pleased to write to the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, to be crystal-clear and to add anything else that I can in respect of the statistics.
The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, talked about the tobacco industry being incredibly—this is not a direct quote—innovative. He said that the industry is likely to adjust its business model as it has done before—for example, when the menthol flavour ban was introduced. That legislation did not cover cigars so, in response, as the noble Lord said, the industry produced cigarettes in a tobacco wrap, which are available in branded menthol packs of 10. Now, in the United States, a whole new category of small cigars has emerged to exploit the tax advantages over cigarettes, so I listen to the point that the noble Lord makes about the creativity and determination of the industry. I just ask noble Lords to hold that point in their head when we are talking about loopholes.
Lord Moylan (Con)
May I just say to the Minister that the tobacco industry, as normally understood and which is suspected of such nefarious innovation, is not involved in the business of hand-rolled cigars at all? The industry consists, on one end, of artisans working with their hands in Caribbean countries, and, on the other end, of small specialist shops and other distributors in the UK supplying these products to a very narrow customer base. They never go through the hands of BAT or any of the other big tobacco companies, so I think that the Minister needs to be a little more aware that the main topic of our discussion today is not one in which the tobacco industry, understood in its normal sense, has any interest.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
I should clarify that I was picking up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bethell. I was saying that, when cigars were not included, this is what happened, as an example. I also refer noble Lords back to the point that I made some minutes ago about looking at the core of the Bill and loopholes; that was one such example.
I apologise to my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn: I will come on to the matter of impact assessments, and I should have mentioned that earlier.
The noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, has also tabled Amendments 102, 104, 105 and 201, all of which seek to require an impact assessment be published before any provisions in the Bill relating to cigars, pipe tobacco and nasal tobacco come into force. The impact assessment would look specifically at the impact on small businesses and specialist retailers, which a number of noble Lords mentioned. An impact assessment for the Tobacco and Vapes Bill was published on 5 November 2024, and it included assessment of small and micro-businesses. The Regulatory Policy Committee published an opinion on the impact assessment and provided a rating of “fit for purpose”; this included a green rating for amendments relating to small and micro-businesses.
Going back to the point about the tobacco industry, the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, asked whether the Government would engage with the industry to avoid such loopholes. In line with Article 5.3 of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the Government will not accept, support or endorse partnerships and non-binding or non-enforceable agreements. There will not be any voluntary arrangement with the tobacco industry, nor with any entity or person working to further its interests. To summarise, then, the answer is no, but I am grateful that the noble Lord raised this issue.
The noble Lord, Lord Johnson, and other noble Lords raised the fact that the impact assessment notes that the Government are aware of a limited number of small and micro tobacco product manufacturers, based in the UK, which mainly produce tobacconist products and which may be affected by the policy, including through lost profits. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, observed in her comments, any impact on retailers will be gradual over time as the number of people captured by the smoke-free generation policy increases.
I accept exactly what the impact assessment says. I know that noble Lords do not welcome that, but we have been honest and transparent.
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
I thank the Minister for giving way. One point that was made was that the immediacy of the impact on retailers of cigars would come not from the generational nature of the ban but from the risk that there may be regulations requiring the packaging of handmade cigars to be altered, which would be impossible to achieve. That would have the effect of terminating their business immediately.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
I am glad to say to the noble Lord that I will come to the issue of packaging shortly.
The impact assessment showed that, as was raised in the debate, the policy has an estimated net benefit to society of over £30 billion over some 30 years, if we use 2024 prices. In addition, it is estimated that the policy will avoid over 30,000 deaths in England by 2075. I confirm that further impact assessments will be prepared in advance of secondary legislation.
Amendments 140A and 140B, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, seek to require the Secretary of State to commission and publish an independent report into the harms of hand-rolled cigars before any further packaging restrictions can be brought forward. I venture to say to noble Lords that, in my view, the health harms of cigars are well known and well established through independent research. Independent research on the effects of cigar smoking has found that, compared with non-smokers, cigar smokers have a greater risk of cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cardiovascular disease. Even without inhalation, taking tobacco smoke into the mouth exposes the mouth, pharynx and oesophagus to toxic compounds.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
Just to clarify, the aim of the Bill, as far as I understand it, is not to go through every single thing that any adult does in society and assess its harm. There may be some harm in smoking cigars, and there may well be some harm in, say, staying in this House until two in the morning voting. There might well be some harm in all sorts of things we do, but the aim of the Bill and what we are concerned about is, according to the Government, to stop young people smoking cigarettes. I am therefore confused about why any harm associated with these particular products would have any merit whatever in relation to the issues raised by noble Lords.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
The Bill is very focused on the smoke-free generation, but we also know that existing legislation and practice in this country are about not only encouraging people not to take up smoking but helping them to quit. That is the focus of the Bill, not every potential health harm.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Fox and Lady Hoey, the noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, and other noble Lords referenced what is included, particularly for cigars. I had to remind myself—so I am happy to remind noble Lords—that most of the current legislation on tobacco control, such as the existing age of sale, health warnings and advertising restrictions, is already in place. So the regulation of cigars is not new.
Noble Lords asked about packaging restrictions for cigars. Again, this is not a new concept. Indeed, many countries already go further than the UK and require all tobacco products to be sold in plain packaging. That includes Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland. I say to the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, and the noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, that any new restrictions will be subject to a consultation process and an accompanying impact assessment.
I move on to heated tobacco and will respond to amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe. There is evidence of toxicity from heated tobacco, and the aerosol generated by heated tobacco also contains carcinogens. There will be a risk to the health of anyone using this product.
Clause 45 gives Ministers the ability to extend the restrictions under Part 1 to cover devices that allow the tobacco products to be consumed. That allows us to adapt to any new products that enter the market and prevent loopholes. I assure noble Lords that there is a duty to consult before making any regulations under this power. As I have mentioned many times before, those regulations will be subject to the affirmative procedure, ensuring an appropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny. Any additional requirements would be overly bureaucratic. Given the known harms of tobacco and the need to protect from any loopholes, I ask noble Lords not to press their amendments in this group.
The Earl of Lindsay (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who contributed to this group of amendments. I am especially grateful to those who managed to pick up the issues that I had to drop in order to keep to time—such as hospitality and the letter from Caribbean ambassadors to the Prime Minister.
I will respond quickly on one or two issues. The first is definitions, which are really important. That is why this group of amendments seeks to define precisely what a handmade cigar is, for instance; we recognise that loopholes could be exploited. If, when we have reflected further on what has been said today, this comes back on Report, we will look again at just how tightly the definitions can be drawn, as we accept that there is scope for mischief otherwise.
I thank the Minister for the consideration she gave in the various points that she made. I continue to be concerned about the extent to which the UCL study has some use. Even the authors of that report have acknowledged the weaknesses in the methodology that they used. This lies behind the amendments about additional impact assessments. I think I heard the Minister say that, prior to secondary legislation being brought forward, there would be additional or further impact assessments. I welcome that in principle, but one of the amendments tabled said that there should be further impact assessments before the provisions of the Bill—not the secondary legislation but the provisions of the Bill—are applied to the three nominated categories. There is still considerable uncertainty about the exact risks and impacts of these three products.
It is easy to say that all tobacco products are potentially harmful. It is equally easy to say that for all alcohol, sugar et cetera. Those types of products are potentially harmful, but the one word that I used repeatedly in speaking to these amendments, which did not come up at all in the Minister’s response, was “proportionality”. We propose a proportionate approach to the availability of certain OTPs in future.
I am grateful for all the contributions and to the Minister for her response. I beg to withdraw my amendment.
“Consultation and review of the generational sales ban for tobacco products(1) Before making regulations under this Part the Secretary of State must consult—(a) the retailers of a relevant product or representatives of the manufacturers of a relevant product;(b) the manufacturers of a relevant product or representatives of the manufacturers of a relevant product;(c) consumers of a relevant product or representatives of consumers of a relevant product;(d) any other persons that the Secretary of State considers appropriate to consult.(2) Consultation under this section must include a call for evidence.(3) The Secretary of State must have due regard to all views received as part of any consultation under this section.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to consult retailers, manufacturers and consumers on the practicality, enforceability and efficacy of the products in scope of the generational sales ban on tobacco products before implementing these regulations.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, this amendment is essentially about the product scope of the consultation. I will say at the outset that I am not a smoker, and I have no fiduciary or pecuniary interest in the sector, but I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, will be delighted to know that I am speaking on the basis of empirical evidence which informs my remarks. The focus is specifically on heated tobacco products. I hope noble Lords will not groan about that because, given that the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, was not here to move his amendment, we have not really had a debate about the efficacy of the ban as it affects heated tobacco products.
The broad thrust of this amendment is about consultation. It would require the Secretary of State to undertake the most basic task of any Government, which is to consult those impacted—retailers, manufacturers and consumers—on the practicality, enforceability and efficacy of the products in scope of the generational sales ban on tobacco products. I will take those points in turn, with the caveat that I will be focusing on heated tobacco products.
Heated tobacco is not smoking. In fact, it is an effective aid, as my noble friend Lord Howe said, in stopping smoking. The generational ban is a misguided step, but if the Government insist on proceeding with it, they should follow the evidence and remove heated tobacco from the scope. I shall speak to that more later. I want to talk about the practicality of the generational ban. Leaving aside the philosophical debate, there are practical public health considerations that may have been reflected in the Bill if a proper consultation had taken place. The first is that, for those who already smoke, heated tobacco products are an effective smoking cessation tool. They have helped Members of this House and the other place to quit smoking. It is illogical to include them in the ban and the Government should commit today to consulting with consumers of heated tobacco products so that they may understand their utility more clearly.
The second public health point is that simply the number of people, especially young people, starting to smoke is now very low. It was 1% of 11 to 15 year-olds in 2021 according to Action on Smoking and Health. An even lower number, just 0.3% according to the same survey, are using heated tobacco products. All of this suggests there is no need for heated tobacco products to be included in the scope of banned products. There will always be outliers and the Government’s own impact assessment
“assumes some people continue to smoke despite it being illegal for effectively all ages to be sold tobacco by 2100”.
For these adults, it makes sense for all cessation products to be available so that the road that has worked for decades can be taken—smoking reduction policies that inform, nudge and dissuade rather than remove the rights of adults to make their own choices.
I want to talk about enforceability and the illicit trade and retailers, and all within the context of proper consultation or otherwise. We do not have to look into a crystal ball to imagine the consequences of this legislation, particularly the generational ban. The policy has already backfired in Australia where there is now a booming illicit trade fuelled by criminal gangs. We would be naive to assume the same situation could not happen here in the United Kingdom. A consultation with retailers would reveal the issues they already face with rising crime and illicit trade. This would undoubtedly worsen with confusing arbitrary rules for different legal products.
We should make these measures as simple as possible for retailers by categorising all smoking cessation products in the same way. That would be a useful start. We know that young people will still be able to get their hands on illegal cigarettes, just as we know that they are able to procure all manner of products that they should not be able to. Teenagers have always been resourceful; that is why it is important that we continue to make all possible smoking cessation tools available to all adults because, whatever the law says, there will be adult smokers born after 1 January 2009.
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I shall speak to my Amendments 135A and 136A, as noble Lords would imagine. I will be brief. I hope these will meet a sympathetic ear from the Minister, who has oozed reasonableness from every pore during this debate. The specific amendment relates to Northern Ireland but—I am afraid my timings were off in terms of tabling the amendments—I hope it would actually cover all specialist tobacco stores, which naturally, because of their nature, are often concentrated in one single street.
It is absolutely right and sensible that there should be a density measure for tobacco-supplying shops in the UK regarding where they are located and so on, but we have some historic shops down St James’s Street that, if the council had to follow the letter of the law, might have to close—or some stipulation might result in that. That would be totally contrary to the Minister’s ambitions, particularly when she has rightly stated that the whole principle around the Bill is not to affect the status quo for people who are already smoking cigars, or whatever it may be.
Specifically in Northern Ireland, there is a famous tobacconist called Miss Morans, which has already been mentioned. I read a delightful and heartwarming story that her portrait was given by the Northern Ireland Executive to the peoples of America and hangs in the White House, or certainly did until quite recently. That must be a good sign that they are encouraging our trade. But this is a very serious point.
I would like there to be not exceptionalism but some guidance that makes clear that these existing speciality shops, which are naturally in a cluster, should have some elasticity around how the density regulations are interpreted.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I support Amendment 114A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, and shall speak to my Amendment 114C on the socioeconomic impact of the generational ban on the retail sector.
I consider the noble Lord’s amendment to be an important one, calling for consultation and a review of the impact of a generational sales ban for tobacco products on retailers, manufacturers and consumers. The noble Lord has concentrated on heated tobacco, but there is a broader question here about what kind of evidence is being used and what kind of consultation there has been on the practicality, enforceability and efficacy of this policy, which is the core of the Bill.
We need that evidence, because my dread about the Bill is that at the moment it is evidence free, or it makes too many evidence-free assumptions. My fear is that the Government—and in fact the previous Government, so I am not sectarian in my criticism—have failed to ask whether a tobacco control policy that adopts an aggressive prohibitionist approach towards consumers is the most effective means of achieving its stated aims. That is not me using the phrase “aggressive prohibitionist approach”, by the way; I am quoting a document produced by trading standards of Wales that went on to advise the Welsh Government to
“examine closely the reasons why this health measure was unsuccessful in New Zealand and repealed in February 2024”.
In fact, the New Zealand Government revoked their planned generational smoking ban, first because, once they had scrutinised their own plans and done their own cost-benefit analysis, they were concerned about the impact of similar legislation to this on the cost of living crisis—and secondly, they were worried that it would trigger the emergence of a booming black market.
The lack of evidence for the efficacy of the policy in this Bill is admitted in its own impact assessment, which recognises the “uncertainty” over the impact of the policy and that there are no international case studies to follow. If there are no international case studies to follow, that means there is a danger that we will make mistakes. In fact, international experiments should give us pause, because a similar ban was rejected by the Attorney-General in Malaysia, which ruled it unconstitutional on the basis that it would have denied Malaysians equal treatment before the law and would lead to age discrimination.
All of the evidence that we have on what the Welsh trading standards memo labelled an “aggressive prohibitionist approach” is alarming. South Africa, which temporarily banned tobacco products during Covid-19, found that criminals filled the void and supplied the demands of 93% of South African smokers, who switched to purchasing illegal tobacco through criminal channels. I mention this because I know that it has become a bit of a mantra for the Minister and supporters of this Bill to dismiss concerns about the black market as a big tobacco talking point. In the briefings that we have been sent, I have noticed that the glib dismissal of genuine concerns about a black market is actually a talking point being put forward by ASH and anti-smoking lobbyists. I appreciate that everyone is planning the future, but give me a break. After all, it was only last year that HMRC and Border Force’s new strategy on illegal tobacco admitted that,
“no matter how much we strengthen our current strategy, supply will always find a way to enter the market where a demand for it exists”.
That brings me on to what is happening with retail and my amendment. There is obviously a clear link between the regulation of tobacco and the serious organised crime groups that are exploiting difficulties in accessing tobacco for certain groups. A recent BBC investigation that has already been referred to—I commend it as good journalism, by the way; I wish that there were more of it—exposed an already well-established network of pop-up high street shops, including barber shops but also retail shops. They are often run in plain sight by human trafficking gangs, using illegal asylum seekers to man them; they are all trading in illegal unregulated cigarettes and vapes; and they are openly targeting the young. We need to be sure that this Bill does not supercharge the growth of an alternative black market retail arena, because that is already a huge social problem in many of our towns around the country.
One thing that was made obvious by the BBC documentary was that this was happening in front of police and local council officials. People just go in and buy from these shops. We do not want to make that any worse. The trend could be—this is what we have to worry about—that law-abiding and compliant retailers will have to compete with increasing numbers of openly flagrant black market purveyors of tobacco products of one sort or another.
My concern here is that, at the moment, we are absolutely clear that we want the UK to empower the private sector to drive economic growth and recovery. I know that this Government care passionately about the retail sector, especially small shopkeepers and retailers—in part of another Bill, they are passing a special law to protect them from assault—but the reason why I have asked for an impact assessment and a cost-benefit analysis for the retail sector is because I fear that there will be unintended consequences with the introduction of this generational smoking ban.
I want to emphasise why I have used the word “prohibition” so much and to contrast it slightly with the way in which the emphasis in most of our discussions has been on prohibiting the young from accessing cigarettes, in particular, and even vapes. The problem with the generational smoking ban is that the people who are banned or prohibited from purchasing it grow up and, for the rest of their lives, when they are adults, they are victims of a prohibition that will affect them. The people who will have to enforce that prohibition are often shopkeepers, at the heart of their communities, who will be asked to police adults and say to them, “No, you can’t buy this legal product because it would be illegal for me to sell it to you”.
Not enough attention has been given to the amount of money that these shopkeepers will lose, which is projected to be in excess of £26 million for retailers. This is at a time when retail profitability is already suffering significant headwinds for a wide range of different reasons. So I would like the Minister to consider a special consideration for the retail sector—particularly small independent shopkeepers, given what will happen if they become mired in difficulties because of the unintended consequences of this Bill. I ask her to consider what impact that will have not just on their socioeconomic livelihoods but on the communities that they serve so admirably.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, these amendments seek to mandate further consultations on measures in the Bill. Such things always sound very reasonable. However, it seems to us that the Government either have already consulted or intend to consult where needed. I would be more sympathetic if the consultation here was with public health experts, but the focus is particularly on those who would be selling tobacco. It is clearly very welcome—and it is something of a change from previous debates on tobacco—to hear from so many speakers in other groups that there is now wide- spread acceptance of the terrible damage tobacco does. I certainly welcome that.
One thing the industry is expert at is spreading alarm through the retail sector; they have done it at every stage of tobacco control. It is usually, “This measure will kill pubs or small shops”, and when that does not happen, they say, “Of course the last lot of regulation did not kill these areas, but this lot will”. However, I have no doubt that the alarm they create would feed back into such consultation.
There is a risk of overestimating the importance of tobacco to the retail sector and underestimating its impact on the wider economy. Tobacco is bad for the UK economy. Referring back to the points made by the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, about evidence, there is plenty of evidence showing the impact of smoking. People who get ill from smoking do not need only healthcare, tobacco-induced illness means time off work, less productivity and suffering smoke-related lost earnings and unemployment. Smokers are more likely to die while still of working age. Smoking costs society in England at least £43 billion a year, which is far more than the £6.8 billion raised through tobacco taxes. Hopefully, that addresses some of the cost-benefit analysis that has just been referred to.
Even for retailers that sell tobacco products, tobacco is not a good deal and is certainly not essential for business vitality. Footfall from tobacco sales has decreased, I am pleased to say, by nearly 40% in the small retail outlets compared with less than a decade ago. We also know that the illicit trade, which needs to be tackled, has declined dramatically by almost 90% since 2000. Tobacco is very profitable for manufacturers, but less so for retailers. The Government need to work closely with the retail sector to ensure clear communication, engage with the public and support enforcement agencies to address any breaches in the law.
If there is to be more consultation, for my part, it needs to focus on those organisations which have to cope with those who have been damaged by tobacco: those in public health. As I say, however, we feel that we do not need to add this selective group of consultees.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I will speak very briefly to my noble friend’s Amendment 114A. First, I apologise profusely for not being here in time to speak to my amendments in the last group. I feel doubly guilty about that because I am going to pick up on something the Minister said in answer to the fact I was not here.
With regard to heated tobacco products, I believe the Minister said that they are harmful. However, there is no conclusive evidence of this; as my noble friend Lord Jackson pointed out, they are a cessation product and therefore ought to be materially less harmful. The fact is that the WHO also acknowledges—or rather assumes—that they will be harmful, but it does not have any conclusive evidence to that point. Can the Minister elaborate a little on where that evidence comes from?
As regards Amendment 114C, I think we should continue to conduct impact assessments. I reject the Liberal argument, which seems, as far as I can ascertain, to be that you should not have a consultation with people you do not like because you might not like their answers. That does not strike me as much of a consultation.
I have little else to say, but I apologise again, particularly for picking up on the Minister, who did not have to answer my amendments—that is a bit of a cheap shot, and I apologise.
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, in Amendment 114A, my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough rightly highlighted the need for any regulations in this part of the Bill to be underpinned by evidence drawn from the real-world experience of retailers, manufacturers and consumers. It is a point very well made, and I hope that, even if the Minister has an issue about consulting tobacco manufacturers, which I expect she will say she does, she will see the good sense of consulting others in the supply chain to make sure that the regulations stand the best chance of being fit for purpose and avoid unintended adverse consequences.
My noble friend Lord Jackson focused much of his speech on heated tobacco, as did my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom just now. One of the other main concerns about regulation, which we have already touched on in an earlier debate, is the cost of the licence fee for a small business alongside the administrative burden for existing businesses to transition across to the new system. It is important that local authorities allow enough time for applications to be considered and processed and for the operational challenges faced by retailers implementing the system to be addressed. Both retailers and consumers need to be made aware of the new regulatory regime well before it goes live.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, amplified that proposal in her Amendment 114C by focusing specifically on the socioeconomic impact of the generational ban on retailers. She is absolutely right to be concerned about that, but I would like to talk about a different strand of the argument from that which she focused on.
In the consultation exercise conducted two years ago by the last Government, the Association of Convenience Stores, which represents more than 50,000 retail outlets across the UK, did not object to the generational ban as a policy. However, when the current Government published this Bill, shop owners expressed immediate concern about the powers contained in it around the licensing system. The biggest worry for them is the power given to a local authority to take a decision to refuse the granting of a licence to sell tobacco and vapes based on the density of other businesses operating in a specific area, or because of that business’s proximity to a school.
We debated this issue briefly last week, but the worry persists on what the effect of these provisions will be. First and foremost, how will this affect existing businesses? Might a well-established retailer selling tobacco and vapes suddenly find that it can no longer do so? Might a new business wishing to set up in a particular area be denied that ability? The ACS has rightly asked what the evidential framework will be for deciding that the density of outlets is too high. How will the threshold be set, and how can fairness be achieved between businesses in an urban area compared to those located in rural areas? Will small shops be treated in the same way as large shops? We simply do not have answers to those questions—and they are questions that are particularly pertinent to small, family-run businesses operating on sometimes tight margins. When will guidance be published to provide the answers? If the Minister cannot reply in detail today, I shall be very grateful if she would do so in writing between now and Report.
Finally, my noble friend Lord Johnson of Lainston has raised an important issue around the need for transitional provisions covering specialist tobacconists located in Northern Ireland. We will be debating specialist tobacconists more broadly in a later group of amendments, and I do not propose to anticipate that debate now. However, in the light of what my noble friend has said, it would be helpful to hear from the Minister whether she agrees that there is a strong case for what are commonly called grandfather rights for these particular specialist outlets.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
I am most grateful to noble Lords for this group of amendments and the contributions to the debate. I am grateful for the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and thank her for that.
The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, who has tabled the amendment, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, who has tabled Amendment 114C, I hope will be pleased to hear that I absolutely agree with the premise of their amendments. I have been consistent on this. It is crucial that the Government carefully consider the impact of any legislation and carry out appropriate consultation. That is why in 2023, a UK-wide consultation, which the noble Earl, Lord Howe, referred to, was published on creating a smoke-free generation. It is also why this Government, as I mentioned in the earlier group, completed and published an impact assessment for the Bill, which was deemed fit for purpose by the Regulatory Policy Committee, and this included the impact that this policy will have on retailers. Indeed, that is important.
However, I can also confirm that we will consult, in compliance with our statutory obligations under this Bill, before making regulations under Part 1 implementing significant policy changes. For example, Clauses 13 and 14, relating to the in-store displays of relevant products, already contain a duty to consult, and impact assessments will be conducted for future regulations, as required. I also want to reassure noble Lords, as I have done previously, that we regularly engage with retailers and enforcement agencies, and remain committed to supporting retailers in the implementation of new requirements. We will, as requested, provide appropriate guidance to aid this transition.
The noble Lords, Lord Jackson and Lord Sharpe, raised questions about heated tobacco being in scope. To that I say that laboratory studies show evidence of toxicity from heated tobacco. As I mentioned in the previous group, like other forms of tobacco, the aerosol generated by heated tobacco devices contains carcinogenic compounds. There is very limited evidence that this is effective for smoking cessation. I am glad to hear of the interest in smoking cessation but, clearly, we have other products that are evidenced as working rather more definitely.
The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, raised points about the illicit market. Let me say to that point that history shows that when we have introduced targeted tobacco control measures, they have had a positive impact on tackling the problems of illicit tobacco. For example, when the age of sale was raised from 16 to 18 in 2007, the number of illicit cigarettes consumed fell by 25% from 10 billion in 2005-6 to 7.5 billion in 2007-8. Most of the evidence that suggests that heated tobacco products are somehow less harmful than smoke tobacco is not independent and often comes from the manufacturers themselves.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
We have already had a group on illicit trade so I do not want to rehearse all of that. I simply wanted to say that what is happening in local communities is very different to the statistical evidence that keeps being put here. That is why I referred to the BBC investigation. In certain towns—working-class areas, basically—there is a huge problem with these products being sold openly without any authorities even intervening, which is what the BBC exposed. I am suggesting that one of the things that shopkeepers are worried about is that the generational ban is going to lead to even more of that. I know that they agree with the generational ban, but maybe the Government and the Minister might look at some of the new lived-experience evidence that is coming through at the moment in particular areas, rather than this just being a paper exercise.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
I assure the noble Baroness that there is nothing paper about the exercise that we are undertaking, but I accept her point and I have on previous groups. This is not one size fits all; the issue manifests itself in different ways. I wanted to present an overall national position, but I of course understand. That is why we are looking at regulations and why we have a call for evidence, consultations and an impact assessment, so that we do not uniformly treat all areas the same. It is important that we remind ourselves, as I have done repeatedly, that tobacco is a deadly addiction. Stopping children from starting to smoke is the easiest way to reduce smoking rates, and that is at the core of the Bill.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
Will the Minister give way? I am trying to be helpful. As the Minister has made some quite fair and emphatic comments about the toxicity of heated tobacco and its lack of efficacy in smoking cessation, would she be so kind as to put that in writing to me in order for members of the Committee to consider that as we go forward in the Bill?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
I will be happy to.
On Amendments 135A and 136A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, health is a devolved matter, as noble Lords are aware, so the implementation of retail licensing in Northern Ireland is ultimately a matter for the Department of Health in Northern Ireland. However, it is a shared view that it is important that details of our respective retail licensing schemes are informed by adequate consultation with all relevant stakeholders. That is why, in collaboration with the devolved Governments, we have launched a call for evidence that asks detailed questions about a number of matters that noble Lords have rightly raised. It is open until 3 December and asks detailed questions about the implementation of retail licensing, among other topics. I can say to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, that it asks how a retail licensing scheme can be implemented effectively. We encourage feedback on how existing businesses should be treated specifically, and I hope that responses will come forward.
I remind noble Lords that following the call for evidence there will be a consultation, so there is plenty of opportunity to consider all the important points that have been raised today. For example, we will ask whether there should be any exemptions from needing a licence and whether factors such as restrictions on the location and density of retailers should be features of the scheme. We believe it is important that such decisions are informed by expert views, and it would not be right to prejudge the evidence that we receive by putting in place different rules for one particular type of business, as the amendment suggests.
The absence of a retail licensing scheme, as I have spoken to on previous groups, represents a major gap in the enforcement of tobacco and vape legislation. All tobacco products are harmful, and it is right that we ensure that those selling the products are following the rules and acting responsibly. A retail licensing scheme will help to deter those who fail to do so, and I know all noble Lords are concerned to do that. With that, I hope noble Lords will be good enough not to press their amendments.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
I thank all noble Lords who took part in this debate on my amendment. I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley—it goes without saying that of course I support her Amendment 114C—and my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom. This debate and the previous group have shown that it is quite difficult to properly launch a generational ban in a monolithic way without disaggregating the different products, which are discrete products.
I fear that the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, did not actually read the amendment, because it specifically says it is not just for the benefit of retailers and manufacturers. Subsection (1)(d) specifically mentions
“any other persons that the Secretary of State considers appropriate to consult”,
which would include health bodies and charities. Subsection (2) says:
“Consultation under this section must include a call for evidence”,
which, presumably, the latter would also avail themselves of. These are wide ranging and permissive powers of consultation, and I hope she might reconsider when we come back on Report.
We have had a good debate on this issue, given that we did not have a specific heated tobacco product amendment per se. With the proviso that the Minister has given me an undertaking to provide the data on the efficacy of heated tobacco products, and a very straightforward undertaking to do more consultation on these key areas, I am happy to withdraw this amendment.