Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Baroness Fookes Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th November 2025 Grand Committee

[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.