Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 17th November 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 160 in the name of my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister, I also speak to Amendment 173A in my name. I spoke at Second Reading about the infringement of personal liberty and not allowing individuals to take their own decision; I stand by that. My amendment would make it less difficult to vape than to smoke, but without increasing the risk to children.

The National Health Service website says that although vaping is not completely harmless,

“Nicotine vaping is less harmful than smoking. It’s also one of the most effective tools for quitting smoking … The routines and rituals of smoking can be hard to stop, so vaping can help you gradually let go of these while immediately reducing the health risks of smoking cigarettes”.


I also quote Professor Sir Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer for England:

“If you smoke, vaping is much safer”.


Again, I suggest that, by making the purchase of vapes more difficult and reducing the number of shops that they can be brought from, the Government are not helping. Vaping does away with the danger of passive smoking. My amendment would require the Secretary of State to undertake research into the potential effect of fewer smokers switching to vapes and nicotine products, or fewer consumers continuing to use these products instead of cigarettes as a result of these regulations, and of extending the provisions in Part 6 to such products.

The essential point here is that the Government should not proceed with their plans unless they have properly investigated the expected impacts of the Bill on those who are smoking and vaping. As I have already commented, vaping is safer than smoking and the Government’s policy should reflect that fact. Ministers should be required to consult the sector properly when assessing these impacts. We must not allow a situation where well-intentioned, if overbearing, government policy has the effect of worsening health outcomes for individuals.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I put my name to Amendment 161 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, and I am interested in the themes in Amendment 173A, about which we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, because I think that an assessment of and research into the impact of any kinds of advertising and sponsorship restrictions is very important moving forward. The reason why I am concerned about any advertising restrictions is that people who currently smoke and are looking to switch to vape can do so only if they know what vapes are and understand the facts around relative harms, where these products can be purchased and so on. Imposing these restrictions as written in the Bill without consultation would have grave unintended consequences. At the very least, there must be clearly defined exemptions.

In this House there is constantly talk about the problem of misinformation. I agree that we do not want people to be making judgments about anything based on misinformation or factual inaccuracy. Yet the difference between vaping and smoking is not well understood. Public Health England and, indeed, Doctor Khan’s independent review concluded that vapes are 95% less harmful than tobacco, yet misperceptions about the harm of vaping have risen at the same time. In 2025, 56% of adults believe that vaping is more harmful than or equally harmful as cigarettes, compared with 33% in 2022. In other words, misinformation is creating ever more misperceptions every year. Opinium research from July 2025 found that 51% of all respondents believe that vapes are equally harmful as or more harmful than smoking, with 48% of current smokers believing that. Certainly, they do not know that vapes and other nicotine products have 99% less toxicants than cigarettes. Curtailing the opportunity to provide public information on the relative benefits of vaping, as this Bill threatens to do, would further exacerbate this lack of understanding.

My concern is that a lot of the discussion is driven by a small but very loud portion of lobbyists who are very concerned about youth vaping rates. Lobbying groups particularly push that issue, as has the public health industry. Actually, the percentage of young people who vape is dwarfed by adult vapers, many of whom, as we have heard, have switched to vaping from smoking for health reasons. That safer alternative could now be in jeopardy unless we allow advertising to make it clear that vaping is in fact a desirable, healthy option. By putting forward the argument that vaping is not desirable and just as dangerous as smoking, we risk doing public health a real disservice.

Even now, vaping products are allowed only very restricted advertising since the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations came into force in May 2016. Additional to these restrictions, I fear that clauses in the Bill go so far as to treat vaping products as though they are the same as tobacco products. That sends an implicit message that nicotine, tobacco, smoking cigarettes and vaping are all much of a muchness. That is one of the themes that I have been pursuing: we need to have a much more granular, nuanced approach. Prohibiting any form of marketing for vape or nicotine product manufacturers directly undermines the important role that marketing has to play in encouraging smokers to switch to vaping or other nicotine products.

Just to finish off, there seems to be a complete contradiction. On the NHS Better Health webpage, it says in big letters, “Vaping to quit smoking”. I want to know: is that not advertising? It contains a range of information and advice for people who smoke and are looking to quit—in fact, I read it when I was smoking and looking to quit. It includes the message that you are roughly twice as likely to quit smoking if you use a nicotine vape compared with other nicotine replacement products, like patches or gum.

I want to ensure that adult smokers like me have access to information. When I read that, I then had to go out and find out about vapes. I went to the local vape shop and had a bit of a seminar. I then went to talk to the local convenience store and looked at the range of vapes. Then, as a consequence, I took up vaping and eventually gave up smoking—which I would have thought the Government want. If I had not been able to see where those vapes were on sale and to see and read the advertising and the marketing, then I might have stayed a smoker. This is not about me but about all the other smokers who as yet do not understand that vaping is a safer option than smoking. They might as well find out about it. I would have hoped that the Government would be encouraging, not discouraging, them.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak against all the amendments in this group. They all, in various ways, could restrict or delay action by the Government—action that is urgently needed.

On vaping, I know that the Advertising Standards Authority has expressed concern about product placement on websites such as TikTok. There are concerns and, given the new technology and new media around, further action may well need to be taken on vaping. But I will focus on nicotine pouches; I hope that the Minister will be able to provide me with some information on them.

I note that today, for example, Convenience Store magazine reports that Imperial Tobacco has launched new nicotine pouches

“with five flavour options—Sweet Mint, Cool Mint, Watermelon Ice, Juicy Peach and Berry Blast”.

They apparently have a “better mouthfeel” than previous versions and smaller, slimmer tins that will fit conveniently in your pocket. That does not really sound like a stop smoking aid, does it? You will see these nicotine pouches in convenience stores, as the site of that announcement suggests—colourful tins with colourful labels stacked conveniently right beside the chewing gum. But this is not just about the nature of the product or where it is stored. I invite noble Lords to have a look next time they catch the Tube, where they will almost certainly see adverts for nicotine pouches.

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[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I am glad that the noble Lord regards it as a laudable ambition. We will come to exemptions in the next group, and I look forward to doing so.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I, too, am slightly confused by this. I was reading something the other day from the DCMS, boasting about the creative industries, and one of the big and most profitable parts of the creative industries in this country is advertising and marketing. It is considered to be something we are proud of. Lots of products have age issues. If you are a cider producer, you have to advertise, but you do not want a six year-old drinking it. We have discussed things such as fizzy drinks, so I appreciate this. This appears to be a blanket catch-all. It does not seem to take up the ways we have learned, in the advertising and marketing world, how, in a society that has children in it at the same time as adults, you can have a sensible restriction on advertising sometimes without depriving everybody of the gain of the advert. NHS information, while useful, is not the same as marketing choice, giving people ideas of the options they might have with vapes, which are not all the same product.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness. This kind of question also comes up in respect of other products: for example, the 9 pm watershed, in terms of the advertisement of high-fat, high-sugar, high-salt foods in order that that advertising is not affecting children and young people. So, this is a constant discussion: that is not a criticism but an observation, of course. What is interesting to me in respect of tobacco is that the evidence found that partial bans are not as effective as a comprehensive ban when it comes to the aim, ambition and intent to reduce tobacco consumption. Similar assumptions can clearly be drawn on vapes. I hope that helps in terms of clarifying the point I am making, even if it may not satisfy the noble Baroness, which I understand.

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[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendments 167 and 171 in the names of my noble friend Lord Kamall and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover. They seek a carve-out from the ban on advertising for smoking cessation purposes.

In Part 6, which is about advertising, I cannot see any exemption for those services. It may be tucked away somewhere else in the Bill. My enquiries about this led me to believe that the qualification that you have to act in the course of business before the ban applies is an exemption for the health service, local government and any other public health agencies. I wonder whether that is good enough. Pharmacies are businesses, and many GP practices are limited companies. If I went into a pharmacy or to my medical centre and asked for help to give up smoking, it seems that they might commit an offence because they are a business. I think there is some merit in those two amendments, unless there is something somewhere else in the Bill that provides a specific exemption for smoking cessation services.

I have looked at the defence in Clause 199, “Advertising: defences”, and there is a defence, but it can be exercised only by somebody “in a relevant trade”—in other words, selling tobacco products, herbal smoking and the rest. If the only exemption is for business purposes, it seems to me that there are some grey areas. Surely there is a case for making it clear that we want these products to be promoted as smoking cessation services and people should not run the risk of getting caught by what I think is rather vague drafting of the Bill as it stands.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, much has been said on this. It might be worth noting—I appreciate this is the wrong place to note it—that the ultimate virtue in life and the bottom line of every single decision we make does not have to be public health. If you think that other things are important, it does not make you beyond the pale, evil or somebody who can be cast out of society. Public health is one of the balancing things we have to consider in society, but there is a range of things we need to discuss.

I say that because when we are talking about these exemptions, which I think are very sensible, moderate and proportionate, one of the things that is interesting is that the plethora of specialist vape shops—I appreciate that people in this Room might not be familiar with them—are full of geeky people who understand the wide variety of vapes that are available legally on the market in this country. They are not somewhere that young people hang out; I mean young in the sense of being under 18. They are often frequented by people who are interested in the different types of vaping you can choose to indulge in. I do not think there is anything wrong with that. The point that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has made is that they are not places for children.

It is interesting that many of the people who work in those establishments see themselves as being in the smoking-cessation business; they actively see themselves that way. Many go on training courses in smoking cessation and are therefore almost zealots. So, in some ways, I would much rather buy my vapes from a convenience store than go into a vape shop, because they give you a lecture in all things related to vaping, very often to do with public health.

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That is a terrible thing to do. As well as being complex to achieve and having no health benefit, it would be a serious travesty to put people out of work, reduce investment and reduce someone’s well-being by closing down something well established for no reason whatever. I ask noble Lords to come alongside me in making sure that the facts are known and that we are dealing only with facts-based legislation, rather than any other sort. If the Minister were to look at this as a possibility, which I hope she will not, clearly, we would have to agree now that a full impact assessment would be brought to bear to understand the real cost to the economy and to people’s lives and livelihoods. The premise would have to be based on there being a significant risk to health and that this would fit within the overall legislation to bring in a smoke-free generation of those born after 2009.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for raising the issue of theatres. This is one of those peculiar issues where “Why on earth would you do this?” is a good question. What is the problem with the present circumstances? It reminds me of the previous group. This could compromise artistic freedom for no good reason. In the previous group, I suddenly envisaged advertising and product designers being rounded up and facing two years in prison at some point. It speaks to the dangers of the state being drunk on power. It is state overreach, where it gets carried away with itself, saying, “We are righteous, on a good cause, on a mission. We are very zealous”, and suddenly all sorts of important norms get thrown out of the window.

I know that the Minister personally is very reasonable, but sometimes legislation gets carried away with itself. I suggest that this legislation needs a fine-toothed comb run through it to get rid of these disproportionate, perhaps unintended, consequences. Once that happens, it encourages others to table amendments that make a virtue of such state overreach. I completely support the previous speech, and I am opposed to Amendment 180, which is a huge hammer to deal with a very small issue that is not even a problem but somehow gets lumped in with everything else.

I am also opposed to Amendment 186, which would introduce the notion that:

“Pavement licences may only be granted by a local authority subject to the condition that smoking is prohibited”.


I remind the Committee that hospitality is absolutely under the cosh. We spend a lot of time worrying about the fate of the high street. I am involved in lots of discussions at the moment about fragmenting communities: people not going out and about and socialising. We worked hard as a society—we had to—to get people back socialising with each other after the terrible lockdown period, and even now, hospitality is finding it hard to recover.

There are all sorts of economic reasons for that, so it seems ludicrous to say that pavement licences—for sitting out, enjoying yourself, meeting your friends and so on—will be granted by local authorities only if smoking is prohibited. Individual establishments might decide to prohibit smoking; that is up to them. They are entirely free to do so, and people who smoke will not go to them. Or, if there is seating outside, a pavement licence can be granted so that in some of the space you are allowed to smoke or vape. In other words, grown-ups negotiate their way round this. I, for one, enjoy that we have found café society in coming out on to pavements, and it is really misanthropic and mean-spirited to try to stamp on that in any way. I therefore completely oppose Amendment 186. It is in the spirit of the relentless, never-ending attempt at banning, regulating and stopping.

I also think that it is a terrible insult to local authorities’ autonomy to tell them what to do in this way. It seems both ridiculously petty-minded and authoritarian at the same time. The evidence is there, and there is a notion around the dangers of smoking outside; this point relates to the previous group. I remind the Committee that Cancer Research UK says, in relation to passive smoking and smoking outside, that

“it will be important to consider how to avoid stigma or accidentally risk pushing people into smoking in their homes, which would increase second-hand smoke exposure to those living with them”.

If you take an approach where the state decides that the public square is its own, and the state imagines that it can sanitise it of all kinds of things it does not want the public to do—that is not a free society, by the way—then, ironically, there can be unintended consequences. You push people into the anti-social home, in some ways, where, if you are a smoker, you will smoke. You might as well let them outside—but, of course, some people here do not want that either.

As I have said, unless you have the courage to make smoking a criminal offence, you have to have a certain sense of proportion and allow smoking outside in some instances. In my case, that is outside cafés if the establishment allows you to.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I obviously support my noble friend Lord Howe’s amendment. However, I would like to make some remarks in opposition to Amendment 180; the principal points have already been covered by my noble friends Lord Strathcarron and Lord Johnson, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley.

A proposer of this amendment—the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey—outlined an experience of hers, based in a hotel. It suggested that she has perhaps confused an outdoor smoking area with a sampling room; as we have heard, there are only 25 sampling rooms. It behoves the Committee to look at the regulation this amendment seeks to revoke. It is carefully drafted and was signed in 2007 by the then Health Minister, who had brought in the Health Act 2006. The way in which the regulation works—it certainly repays careful attention—is that its first phrase reads:

“The shop of a specialist tobacconist that is being used by persons who are sampling cigars and pipe tobacco is not smoke-free for the duration of that sampling if”—


I will pause there to unpack the various conditions that have to be met in order to smoke in a sampling room. First, it has to be in a specialist tobacconist. Secondly, it has to be used by a person who is sampling cigars or pipe tobacco. Cigars, I might add, are specified in the regulation to have “the same meaning” as that in the Tobacco Products (Descriptions of Products) Order 2003, the same regulation which specifically defines specialist tobacconist.

It is not an option for any old tobacconist—or, indeed, any old public house—to set up a sampling room. That cannot be done in accordance with the regulations. The effect of the exemption is to disapply the smoke-free ban in the 2006 Act from those premises for the duration of the sampling. For the rest of the time, the ban still applies; it is not a general smoking room as existed in, perhaps, working men’s clubs prior to the ban.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 14th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

I will deal first with the central issue in this debate, which is the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. The wording currently mentions:

“A terminally ill person in England or Wales who … has the capacity to make a decision”.


The noble Baroness proposes that “capacity” should be changed to “ability”. From what the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, says, I understand that we should read that with Amendment 115, although there is another amendment that the noble Baroness proposes in relation to Clause 3. But I accept what the noble Lord says in relation to Amendment 2.

With the greatest respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, she is suggesting that we remove “capacity” and replace it with “ability”. The noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, put his finger on it when he said that “capacity” is well known to the law. You could not possibly have a Bill that did not refer to capacity because what it means, in the eyes of the law and of people in practice, is the ability to make the decision. As the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, said, if you do not have capacity, you cannot make the decision. That applies right across the doings of human beings, and the law recognises that. If, therefore, you replace “capacity”—

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

On a point of clarification, I thought that the idea of adding both words was very helpful, but when the noble and learned Lord says that you cannot make the decision without capacity, it is not any decision but this particular decision in this Bill. Can he reflect on a point that was made very well by one of his noble friends on something that happened in my family as well? Somebody with dementia was said to have capacity for a particular decision, but I would not have wanted my mother to have been trusted as having the capacity to decide whether to ask for assisted death.

The Mental Capacity Act is fantastically important, but is it appropriate for this decision—not any old decision but this decision—which is a bit more challenging than some of the decisions that the Mental Capacity Act is used to decide on?

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

That is very well put and is exactly the question. Is it appropriate to bring the Mental Capacity Act into this Bill? I understand that whether you have an assisted death is an incredibly important decision. You cannot remove the word “capacity”, so you have to reject the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay.

Her Amendment 115 effectively draws on how the Mental Capacity Act 2005 is currently drafted, except it adds two things. It removes the presumption of capacity and, separately, it requires the person making the decision to be aware of a variety of things that are connected with their illness. To summarise, the way the Mental Capacity Act operates at the moment is that if you are unable to understand information relevant to the decision, to retain that information, to use and weigh that information or to communicate your decision, you do not have capacity under the current Mental Capacity Act. The extent to which the things that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has referred to in her amendment would be relevant would have to be weighed in the context of the decision that has to be made.

I am more than happy to debate whether we need to make the changes to the Mental Capacity Act that she is suggesting. For my part, I do not think we do. One thing that is absolutely clear is that the amendment proposed, as the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, identified, is completely ridiculous. You cannot remove the question of capacity from this choice. Putting aside some detail hurdles, there are two hurdles that need to be overcome in how this Bill is constructed. You have to be capable of making the decision, as the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, said, and—completely separately—you have to make that decision completely voluntarily. It has to be your own decision, not the product of pressure.

We have had—and I say this with warmth and respect—a rambling debate going over a whole range of issues, miles away from the question of whether one should remove the word “capacity” and put in the word “ability”. If this House wants to make the law completely confused in this area, either put in the word “ability” or put in “capacity and ability”. I echo the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, when she says we have to approach this in a grown-up manner, and to remove the word “capacity” is not a sensible way to deal with this.

I also echo those who have said that the idea of running two systems at the same time—the Mental Capacity Act system and the separate system proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay—is wrong and confusing. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, for spotting what the right decision is. Of course, under the Mental Capacity Act some unimportant decisions are taken, but a decision such as whether to have the ventilation removed from you if you have motor neurone disease, that will almost certainly lead to your death, is without a shimmer of a shadow of doubt a life and death decision.

The Chief Medical Officer of England and Wales, in evidence to the Lords Select Committee, said:

“it is far better to use systems that people are used to and that are tested both in practice and, where necessary, in law”.

He went on to say:

“I have a concern that you could have a conversation in one bed in a hospital where someone is talking about, for example, an operation where they might well lose their life, because they are frail and there is the operative risk, done under the Mental Capacity Act, and, in the next-door bed, someone is trying to do the same process of having a difficult conversation about someone who might die, or could definitely die, as a result of that decision, but using a different legal framework. The risks that that could lead to confusion are not trivial”.


I also echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, who sadly is not in her place, said. There are problems about practically every aspect of how various parts of the health service work, but she was part of a process that considered how the Mental Capacity Act worked. The broad conclusion was that it was a good, workable Act, and we should not stray from it in this particular case. I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 13th November 2025 Grand Committee

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 146 on vaping devices, and I thank my noble friend Lady Walmsley and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for adding their names in support of it. I have been slightly outed already but, to be clear, this is a probing amendment. However, it touches on an important and genuine issue: regulation and the Government’s intention to define “flavour” in a vaping product.

Before I speak to my amendment, I want to be clear: I fully recognise the need to prevent young people vaping. I support age restrictions; changing names; making sure that vaping products are not appealing; ensuring that such products are not marketed; ensuring that they are hidden in shops and counter displays; descriptors; and every other tool in the toolbox to make sure that every trick big tobacco can come up with to put these products in the hands of young people is restricted. However, I firmly believe that, if this Government or a future one used these powers to ban or severely restrict vape flavours, it would be a retrograde step in the fight to stop smoking. As the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said, it is the flavour in vapes that reminds ex-smokers just how nasty cigarettes really are when they lapse—and ex-smokers surely do lapse.

As we have heard throughout the passage of this Bill, there are strong and legitimate concerns about the rise of vaping among young people. We have just passed a crossover point whereby more young people are now vaping than smoking, so I absolutely share those concerns. Nobody in this Room wants to see young people taking up vaping; nor do they want big tobacco to be able to start a whole new industry for a whole new generation, through which vaping is marketed at our young people.

However, if the Government are genuinely serious about taking this problem on, they need to do so through effective regulation, and that must start with clear definitions. My amendment is tongue-in-cheek in its approach, but it highlights a serious issue: the Government have created a bit of a heffalump trap for themselves here. I remind noble Lords that, as drafted, the legislation says that the Secretary of State may, through regulations, make provisions about the flavour of relevant products, and that the regulations may make

“provision for a determination to be made by a person authorised”.

My proposed new clause does not prejudge what those definitions should be. It simply asks a very reasonable question: by what criteria will the Government determine that a vaping product has a flavour? Once we start looking at this, the situation becomes absurdly complicated. This might be the philosophical background in my ancestry, but many vapes on the market today use a combination of chemicals that exist not to add fruit or sweet flavours but to mask the harsh taste of nicotine. Some add traces of methanol or cooling agents that are technically flavourless, but they change the sensory experience of those who vape. I do not know whether those will count as flavours. Under what threshold would they be counted? Which chemical compositions or flavours in these products would not be? Then there is the question of packaging, as we have heard, which brings up the descriptor point. Flavour is as much about perception as what might be contained in the product. If a vape has “mango ice” or “blueberry ice” on the package, but has no flavour, is that a flavour?

These are major complications, and I believe fundamentally that the route the Government are going down will end up in poorly drafted law, which will be hard to enforce. It will not work or do what the Government set out to do. It will lead to legal complication and challenges, and that is not good for the aims of the Bill, which I support. There really could be practical consequences and they go quite far. Concerning manufacturers, how will they comply with this when the Government are not clear? How will small retailers ensure that they are compliant with the terms of the legislation? Trading standard officers who have to enforce this stuff will find it complicated to do so.

I say again that for many adult smokers who turn to vapes to give up, as I think we have heard, the flavour element in the vapes is the thing that keeps them from going back to tobacco. There is strong evidence on this point, from Public Health England and numerous international studies, that it is about the wide availability of these flavours so that people can make a personal choice. None of them taste like their descriptor, but people can find a flavour that works for them personally. I just do not want the Government to act too harshly and crudely in this area and end up by creating perverse consequences, which are completely contrary to the stated intentions of the Bill.

I absolutely want to keep this stuff out of children’s hands. I support every other measure that the Government are taking in the Bill, but I come out strongly against this issue of controlling and restricting flavour. My amendment is really a tongue-in-cheek way of asking the Government to think again on it.

Turning briefly to the other amendments, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mott, for his Amendment 142. I now understand what his amendment is about: that despite the ban, it is still basically a disposable vape. It is used once and chucked away but it has 1,600 puffs in it. These things are cheap; again, they are marketed at children and disposable, so they are e-waste. I had an amendment earlier about creating minimum pricing for vapes but I think that, fundamentally, the Minister misunderstood what I was doing in that amendment. She said that it would make vaping more expensive than smoking, whereas that is fundamentally not true, because it is about buying a base unit that might last for three or four years. Although you would be paying £25, that base unit would stay with you for a long time and by doing it in that way, you are not needlessly generating e-waste. I would like to revisit that with the Minister prior to Report, but I basically support that amendment. These devices should not be in the hands of our children; they are absolutely designed to get children addicted to nicotine. They are not good for the environment, so let us get rid of them.

I absolutely agree with Amendment 144 on descriptors; I think we are on the same page and speaking about the same thing. My amendment might be a bit nuanced and tongue in cheek but we share an opinion.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I shall speak in defence of flavours, especially regarding Amendments 144 and 146. Over the last five years, 21% of adult smokers have quit smoking. Nearly half of them used vapes as part of that successful quit journey. I am one of those people. I started with single-use vapes, but they got banned, so I now use the replacements, which are used as much as single-use vapes. They have been crucial to millions of adults who have done the same. Their attractions are ease of use, convenience, prevalence in a wide range of retail outlets and, yes, flavours. They made the distinction from smoking clear for me. As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, explained, that becomes important. I was able to switch to suit my taste. I was trying to move away from the taste of tobacco—that was the point.

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[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I think I am correct in saying that all of the amendments I have proposed so far have generally been met with a buoyant response and a good level of engagement. I suspect that Amendment 198 will be less welcome; I will speak to it briefly, partly because my noble friend Lord Lansley has already explained what the amendment says and made a comment with which I do not, in essence, disagree.

The amendment seeks to establish a vaping and nicotine industry forum so that the Government can engage with the industry properly. It would disapply the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which Ministers treat as if it were binding but which has not been the subject of a parliamentary statute imposing it on Ministers. My noble friend Lord Lansley says that this should not be necessary—I rather agree with him—but, in fact, it is necessary in practice because Ministers are treating the framework convention as binding. They are, therefore, excluding from their consultation vaping industry firms that are part of tobacco groups. They will engage with those firms that are involved exclusively in producing vapes—or are at least involved in producing vapes without being tobacco firms—but they will not engage with the others. Obviously, that leads to a very fragmented level of engagement with the industry.

We must be practical and realistic about this. As the tobacco companies transition—they clearly are transitioning—away from cigarettes and into vaping and e-cigarette products, the Government should start to engage with them differently as to their background. That is what Amendment 198 proposes; I do not have to say very much more about it.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendment 198. This vaping and nicotine industry forum is very important; I am also very sympathetic to exploring different kinds of self-regulation, as is suggested in Amendment 154.

It is interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, was forced to put down that there would be a disregard of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control because it speaks to the problem. I have been concerned about, in our discussions in Committee, the conflation of nicotine with tobacco; the conflation of vaping with smoking cigarettes; and, sometimes, the conflation of industries. The industries are distinct. I am pleased whenever I hear that the Government are prepared to acknowledge and meet members of the independent vaping industry and so on; they often represent small SMEs and so on.

I want to mention something that I genuinely do not understand. A lot of tobacco companies have now moved into anti-cigarette mode. It is a bit like how BP went beyond petroleum. If you ever go to an event with anyone from a tobacco company, you will be more likely to get a lecture on the dangers of cigarettes than on anything else. They have been forced, by being treated like pariahs, to adopt a different method and different products. I wonder whether the Government might acknowledge that this is going on; personally, I think that treating even tobacco companies as pariahs is not helpful.

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[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Moylan, for tabling these amendments, and other noble Lords for their considerations today.

Turning first to Amendments 154 and 154A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, I understand the noble Lord’s intention and the comments that he and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, made. I heard the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, clarify that he is talking about co-regulation. I understand his intent, but as I have said on a number of occasions—other noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, have supported this—the industry has failed to self-regulate. Vapes are branded and advertised to appeal to children and rates have more than doubled in the last five years, with one in five 11 to 17 year-olds having tried vaping.

In addition to Part 5, the requirements set out in regulations are the best way to stop future generations from becoming hooked on nicotine. As I have previously said, we will consult on regulations where they are made under Part 5. The vaping industry and other bodies are welcome to respond to this consultation. We will return to advertising in more detail when we reach a later group, but despite existing restrictions on vape advertisements and the opportunities that the industry has had to self-regulate, evidence shows that vape advertising continues to appeal to young people. It is unacceptable that, in too many cases, vapes are being deliberately promoted and advertised to children.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I keep hearing that the evidence shows that the advertising is appealing to children. Can the Minister send me details of that evidence, because I cannot find it? I have seen lobbying material from organisations that do not like vaping but no evidence as such.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I will of course be happy to do that for the noble Baroness.

The noble Lord’s amendment also seeks to allow a self-regulatory body to exercise functions established in regulations under Parts 5 and 6. I point out that Clause 104 already provides for legislative sub-delegation where required. It allows the Secretary of State, when making regulations under Part 5, to delegate functions to other people, which will allow decisions to be made by the most appropriate body. For example, it may be appropriate to delegate functions under Clause 98 on testing, so that a body with specific technical expertise—the noble Earl, Lord Howe, referred to this—can carry out tests on products and determine whether they comply with product requirements.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th November 2025 Grand Committee

[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 3rd November 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I have never smoked. Having said that, I was for some 15 years in marketing and advertising. I do not think that the proposal here is at all practical. Cigarettes are very narrow so to read something in six-point type—which is what we are talking about—will be difficult and will have next to no effect at all. We have proper health warnings on the pack itself. We should concentrate on those and do more work on how well they are being communicated; that may take us further forward. Amendments 141 and 143 are, frankly, for the birds.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I worry that this group of amendments indicates that, in the name of public health, state overreach can get completely carried away with itself. I ask that we take a step back and consider the state’s ability to interfere in the manufacture and R&D of legal products, which is completely disruptive to those products’ manufacture and design; if the state is going to do that, there needs to be a very good reason.

I want to look at some of the reasons that we have heard in relation to either a ban on or alteration of the use of filters. There seems to be some confusion as to whether this is an environmentalist issue or a public health issue. Is it litter, or is it plastic? What is it? This is a debate about tobacco and vaping, so let me concentrate on that. There is an idea that one in four adults does not know that filters are not healthy. As a long-standing smoker, I have to say that, while there are arguments about filters, I have never heard a smoker say, “I use a filter because they’re healthy”. There are a whole range of discussions about the use of filters—

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the noble Baroness for giving way. By way of correction, in case I was not clear, 75% of smokers do not know that filters do not have any health benefits; the stat is the other way round.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

The point I am making is that it is true that the majority of smokers do not sit around and discuss whether filters have a benefit to their health. I am quite sure that, had you asked me in that survey, I would not have had a clue. You would then say that I was being conned into using a filter. However, I would be indifferent because that is not the basis on which people smoke, either with or without filters. I am particularly bemused by the idea that, as a woman, if I saw a white filter, I would immediately think “purity” and be forced to smoke a white-filtered cigarette. I mean, goodness me—have we all gone mad?

I want to talk also about the idea of health warnings on actual cigarettes, which, again, is completely disruptive to product design and so on. It is completely petty. Sometimes, I feel as though the public health people have done everything and anything they possibly can and have run out of things to do, so they are now down to the narrowest possible thing: the cigarette itself.

It is interesting that this idea is aimed especially at young people who might be given one cigarette at a party; and that people seem to be saying that, if only such people saw that written warning, it would be enough to stop them. Were we ever young? Were we ever at a party? Did we ever read anything on the side of a cigarette that stopped us? The point I am making is that, as it happens, the majority of young people know that smoking is bad for you; many young people even give adults like me lectures on how smoking is bad for you. The idea of a written warning is not, I think, very helpful.

I just wonder what the health warning would say. Would it say, “Tobacco kills you”? What is it going to say? I have had an idea. Public perceptions on the difference between smoking and vaping are at their all-time worst. Only a minority of current adult smokers—29%—are able to recognise accurately that vaping is less harmful than smoking. So I have an idea: if we are going to have a message on the side of individual cigarettes, perhaps we could say, “Vaping is cheaper and less harmful than smoking”. That is a good message. Why do we not say that? We could even say, “Vaping is good for you”. The point I am making is that that is not where we should be putting messages; we have heard confused messages in this Committee so far.

My final thought is on the success of Canada and Australia in dealing with smoking, which has been cited and thrown into the conversation. Let us look at what is actually happening and today’s front-page headlines in Australia. The only success of Canada and Australia has been the huge growth of a black market in cigarettes and vapes. It is a disaster. Many people in public health are now saying, “Maybe we went too far”. So, before we start emulating them, maybe we should take different lessons. The front page of the Australian newspaper The Age today is about the fact that people are panicking about what they have inadvertently done. This group of amendments is the kind of thing that could lead us in completely the wrong direction.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 34 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, to which I and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, have added our names. I declare an interest as the president of the Local Government Association. I thank ASH—Action on Smoking and Health—for its briefing, in which it laid out these amendments clearly. It supports the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, though not the one in my name; however, it raises some really interesting points around what we are trying to do and how far we need to go.

It is important to raise the issue of greenwashing and to look at better solutions than the one we currently have. Although this amendment does not go as far as some want, it is a step forward. I came to this amendment, which looks at the equivalent number of plastic straws that are in each cigarette—it is two plastic straws—because I worked on the impact of the ban on plastic straws on disabled people. Disabled people were vilified for daring still to want to use plastic straws, whereas people who smoke do not seem to have that same level of pressure against them.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, always makes really interesting speeches and asks really interesting questions. Are we doing this from the point of view of public health, the environment or littering? I would say, “All of them”. As somebody who has never smoked—I question how interesting any of the parties I went to as a teenager were—I presumed that filters were safer. It is only when you do the research that you realise that people have been deceived into thinking that they are safer than they actually are. The number of butts that are littered worldwide—4.5 trillion—is absolutely horrendous; it is the equivalent of 1.69 billion pounds of toxic trash. Look at the impact on the UK: a minimum of 3.9 million butts are littered every day. I am also interested in the fact that cleaning up these cigarette butts costs local authorities around £40 million a year; I think that that money could be spent far better in different ways.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 30th October 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, as this is the first time I have spoken in Committee on this Bill, I want to reflect for a moment on the extraordinary lengths to which tobacco companies will go to sell their products, including getting children addicted to nicotine. When I look at this Bill and the amendments to it, I see the extraordinary lengths to which government must then go in order to combat that.

Turning to the amendments in this group, we have heard three excellent speeches. I do not want to repeat any of the points made but wish to pick up one made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. It concerns the importance of the government side of this combat, if you like, between the tobacco companies and government. Put simply, the Government should have the data that is available so that they can hone their arguments in the continuing wrestle that we are seeing around this set of topics.

I very much support that amendment. I also support the amendments in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, on the “polluter pays” principle. Again, this seems practical to me; we heard the Minister refer to it as such at an earlier period, I believe. However, there are three terribly simple arguments, although I do not want to add to the detail. First, there is the principle that the polluter should pay for the damage. That is a very simple statement; it has, as the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, said, been used in other circumstances. There is very considerable damage, and it is very easily measured.

The second argument is to reduce the incentives for tobacco companies. As I have commented before, if only we could get the tobacco companies to use all their guile and manoeuvring to improve health rather than damage it. Perhaps there are things that government can learn from the way in which tobacco companies seek to influence the public.

The third argument is, of course, to support public health. Another good reason for this is to provide that money to support public health and at the same time the public purse. Finally, I note that tobacco companies probably come under the category of those with broad shoulders, so I ask the Minister whether we might expect to hear a line or two about this in the forthcoming Budget.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I stand with some trepidation on this one, but I will give it a go. I have some reservations about this series of amendments. On Amendment 12, I have a lot of sympathy with having more transparency as a general principle, but I ask the noble Baronesses, Lady Northover and Lady Walmsley, how we would deal with having a dangerous precedent on the commercial confidentiality and sensitivities, for any company, and what can and cannot be revealed. Asking for information is one thing; mandating it is a whole different ball game. Many companies hold data close to themselves, as they are allowed to, because they are private entities. It is a legal thing to do and there are reasons, beyond malevolent ones, why that might occur.

I am particularly concerned about Amendments 192 and 194. As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, noted, tobacco companies already pay, or are responsible for, substantial duties that are collected. I am not sure that I entirely agree with the “polluter pays” principle—or, at least, it is quite complicated. It sounds virtuous, and in some instances I might well support it, but when I was reading these amendments I kept thinking, perhaps because of my left-wing, Marxist background, “Oh my God, this is a new form of legal wealth distribution by force”. It felt to me as though we were saying: “Forget economic growth. We’re just going take more from legal companies, but it’s all right because they are evil companies”.

In the words that the noble Earl, Lord Russell, used about his more specific amendments on what the money should be used for, if I may put it that way, I recognised an argument that I came across from Cancer Research. It has been very helpful in its briefings on the Bill and, in many instances, I agree with what it is putting forward. But in this instance, it said:

“At a time when funding for public health initiatives is limited, this proposal raises money without directly costing the taxpayer. Given the current economic challenges, this presents an opportunity for the Government to act decisively, should it choose to seize it”.


I kept thinking of this as a way of avoiding crises in public health, or in the NHS, by simply not resolving what should be an adequate health service for everyone while turning to private companies instead and trying to compensate for that. That is a dangerous precedent. Private companies should not let the state off the hook for what it should be doing, because those public health services should be provided by the state, regardless.

The fact that there is an economic crisis at the moment cannot just be meted out to companies that we do not like. I realise that tobacco companies have for some time been treated as especially evil, malevolent and harmful, but if you enter other debates and read the briefings of lobbying groups on other issues, you will hear similar moralistic arguments used about sugary foods, junk food, alcohol, gambling and even fossil fuels. I read a fascinating paper the other day which basically said that fossil fuels were killing us all and should be closed down, and so on. That is the kind of language being used.

I therefore worry about setting a precedent for a moralised hierarchy of legislators deciding which are the evil companies, and who gets to decide that, with a punishment then meted out. I say this because, briefly, I was a bit disturbed the other day at some mention of a report by KPMG. The data in it was dismissed as being from a report produced for Philip Morris, the tobacco company, as if that somehow closed down any possibility of a discussion—that having said that, the report could be laughed off. The idea that all you have to do is say the name of a tobacco company, and then close down valuable information, is quite dangerous.

It thought that was particularly unfair on KPMG. I am not necessarily a great fan of the big four accountancy firms, but they certainly have reputations. To write them off as being in bed with the evil Philip Morris, so that we take no notice of what they do, seemed a little unfair. If that were the case, have the Government let KPMG know that this is their view of it—especially since KPMG is a supplier to the Government, as I understand it, focusing on Civil Service training and economic matters? KPMG might have a case to answer on those things, but it should not be written off as a company because it has done some work for Philip Morris.

Neither is it appropriate for our discussions to always assume that everything a tobacco company says or does is evil because of the nature of the product. The product is harmful and contributes to cancer in many people—I know that—but if this Government believe that the tobacco companies are so uniquely evil that they are killing the population, they should have the courage of their conviction, make them illegal and ban them, not take their taxes and have it all ways.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. Normal service is probably about to be resumed. I am on a different page from her on this issue.

These amendments give me the opportunity to clarify my position on the Bill. I fear that my previous opposition to the age-escalator provision in the Bill, meaning that some adults will never be able to purchase tobacco legally, has been misrepresented by some as a general objection to any form of regulation or restriction on tobacco. I state clearly that that is not the case. That is why I support all amendments in this group—Amendments 12 and 148, tabled by my noble friend Lady Northover, Amendment 192, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Young, and Amendment 194 in the name of my noble friend Lord Russell.

I come back to something the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said regarding the point made by my noble friend Lady Northover about data. If this was unique, some of those issues would need to be explored further, but this is not a first. For example, the water and energy companies have to give to the regulator investment details, asset details, investment plans and details of their costs and profits. This happens without commercial sensitivities going by the way. The amendments, particularly Amendments 192 and 194, generally represent a necessary and proportionate intervention to correct a profound fiscal and health imbalance, which is weighted too heavily in favour of the tobacco industry. The tobacco industry in the UK operates with a near monopoly, as many noble Lords have said, on selling an addictive product. The market structure allows them to generate excessive profits. They extract nearly £900 million per year in profit, while contributing little in terms of corporate tax to the Exchequer.

Simultaneously, the societal costs of smoking are vast, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, and my noble friend Lord Russell identified, with the NHS bearing the immediate cost of approximately £1.8 billion per year. The current system places the entire tax burden on the consumer and the taxpayer, while the manufacturer enjoys excessive returns. That is not only a moral wrong but an economic failure that government has a duty to correct.

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[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I support this amendment. We know that nicotine is highly addictive. In fact, it is one of the most addictive substances there is, even in small quantities. The noble Lord, Lord Kamall, made the point that people use it for cessation of tobacco or cigarette smoking. That is true, but the dosage, even of 20 milligrams, is too high. High doses of nicotine cause serious diseases, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. But apart from that, in older people it causes higher risk of cardiovascular disease, not just by increasing heart rate and blood pressure but by making platelets stickier and leading to higher levels of fibrinogen, which increases the risk of forming a clot. This is a good amendment and there is no reason, to my mind, why the Minister should resist it.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, have made some interesting cases probing the issue of the high nicotine content of pouches. However, it is worth noting that Cancer Research does not support these amendments. It says that there may well be a need for a deeper dive into the evidence, but it stresses something that has been missed in some of the debates we have had so far, certainly at Second Reading: it is tobacco that is the cancer-causing ingredient in cigarettes.

Nicotine patches do not contain tobacco. Nicotine is addictive, but the overall evidence does not support a direct causal link between nicotine and cancer: it is not carcinogenic. That is what the scientific evidence seems to show, and it comes from anti-tobacco lobbying groups and people whom I would not necessarily usually cite. It is noted that nicotine products and pouches are being used as recreational products, but they are also helpful for smoking cessation.

We have to consider what we are doing with the Bill. The NHS itself calls nicotine “relatively harmless”, and, in his 2022 review, Dr Javed Khan said that

“the government must facilitate access to the various already available safer alternative nicotine products such as nicotine pouches”.

We therefore have to be careful about demonising these things, because it is not straightforward.

There is a danger throughout the Bill—it will come up in other groups—of a constant slippage between tobacco and nicotine. Sometimes that occurs through a discussion around addiction. I would be interested to know what the Minister thinks about this—she talked about the problems of addiction on our first day in Committee—because the Bill is not necessarily tackling addiction; it is tackling harms. There is a danger that we get confused between that addiction, which, as I say, many people in the health professions do not see as a problem per se, and what we are targeting. I am worried that that slippage between nicotine and tobacco, between vapes and smoking cigarettes, leads to an unscientific mishmash of misinformation that, ironically, can damage public health.

In relation to young people using pouches until they vomit, young people use lots of things until they vomit. They can overuse a range of things, not helpfully, but it does not necessarily mean that the product itself is always the problem: sometimes, it can be youthful lack of restraint, which one might want to intervene in but not necessarily through the law.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, I broadly support these amendments but also agree with my noble friend Lord Patel that there is probably no reason to have oral pouches at all. It is something that we could carefully consider deleting from our society. If you are trying to withdraw from tobacco, nicotine patches are just as effective as pouches and do not cause the problems that have been so readily described today. While the debate has been going on, I looked back, and it was 1950 when Sir Richard Doll proved the relationship between tobacco and lung cancer. It has therefore taken us 75 years to get to this point, with the Bill. There is sufficient evidence in relation to pouches for us not to decide that we need a 75-year prospective trial to show their damage.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I too support the amendment, and I have a question for those who have tabled it, which relates to proposed new subsection (2)(b), saying the product is

“not intended to be inhaled or chewed”.

I am afraid that as someone who has been looking at tobacco control measures for many years now, through legislation, I am slightly concerned that, as we get rid of one thing, the nicotine manufacturers will find another way of bringing in a substance that is, in effect, addictive, which is promoted to young people, and is a way to get them started on the inevitable chain of addiction that leads to promotion.

When we look at the evidence around nicotine, we see that, yes, it is highly addictive, but the other thing that happens with an addictive substance is that you become tolerant to the effect, to that boost. Therefore, the addict seeks higher and higher doses to get a greater and greater hit. In the long term, as my noble friend Lord Patel pointed out, it is not only blood pressure and so on; there is a problem with platelet stickiness. We do not know what this will do in the microvasculature in the brain in the long term, because these high-dose nicotine products have not been around long enough and we have not had enough brains that have come to post-mortems—I am sorry to put it so bluntly—of people who have been using them for a long time. The hit that they get is greater than they would get from smoking a cigarette.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I want to clarify how we make policy based on evidence if that evidence is unknown unknowns about what might possibly be the problem with something. It is absolutely the case that, where there is proof of harm, evidence is given and medical papers are produced. They have not been produced on this issue—I have looked—so it would be useful to see lots of peer-reviewed evidence that showed harm. To suggest that something could be a harm because we have not had long enough to find out whether it is a harm does not seem to be the basis of sensible evidence-based policy.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

I completely take that criticism; it is a fair comment. However, we know the damage to the brain microvasculature from smoking over the long term and that these substances are highly addictive. We also know that when we previously took through tobacco control measures, we never anticipated vapes or pouches. The evidence therefore is that those producing nicotine products are very imaginative and creative, and there is concern about this being used as a gateway to further addictive products. That is why I question whether proposed new subsection (2)(b) is necessary or adds anything to Amendment 13, which otherwise should be strongly supported.

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16: Clause 10, page 5, line 16, leave out “age of 18” and insert “voting age, as defined in section (1)(d) of the Representation of the People Act 1983 (parliamentary electors: voting age)”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to probe the reasoning for the minimum age prescribed in Clause 10, in the light of the Government’s intention to extend the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, is not able to be here to move this amendment. For me, this amendment falls in a slightly odd group. I thought that it would be in the first group; then I thought that it was going to be in the group before. It has ended up in this group. I shall talk briefly about this amendment; I will then speak on what this group is actually about, which is a different set of concerns.

The point of this amendment is to ask whether lowering the voting age to 16 would add a layer of complexity to the discussion around any age-gating that is happening in relation to either the generational smoking ban or the sale of vapes and so on. This issue obviously intersects with questions around autonomy, responsibility and any kind of consistency that we might have in relation to how we treat young people.

A lot of concerns have already been raised today, in our debate on the first group, about young people and whether they are mature enough—that is, the vulnerability of young people and so on—but, if 16 year-olds are deemed mature enough to vote and to influence laws that affect society, that strengthens the argument against denying them the right to make personal choices about a range of things; those things could include smoking, let alone vaping. Denying them such a right when they have the right to vote—which implies, we hope, a level of rational decision-making capacity—would seem to be contradictory. So this amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, is a probing one; it would be interesting to hear the Government’s response to it. There is a danger of there being confusion around age, and around whom we think we are protecting from harm, with this contradiction in terms of a different government policy on voting.

I will now talk about the amendments in this group that make a bit more sense to me. I am very supportive of, and put my name to, Amendment 18 from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. It looks at the issue of a ban on all vending machines and whether there can be some exemptions. I urge the Government to engage with a wide range of stakeholders to prevent the unintended consequences I believe there will be if the legislation carries on with this ban. Surely this law wants to ensure that safer alternatives to smoking are available, especially in environments where they might help people resist having a cigarette, such as hospitals and, in particular, mental health settings.

I am reluctant to push this too much because it is the noble Lord’s amendment, but I cannot work out how else I can speak to it. I ask the Minister whether there is a danger that we are imposing measures on tobacco and vaping—this follows on from what we have just been talking about—without clarity about the differing relative harms of each product. The ban on vaping machines talks to a conflation of products, which I am concerned about.

Vending machines containing vaping products have been used very successfully in mental health settings, providing patients who would otherwise be smoking with a route to giving up. Therefore, an exemption to the vending machine ban for healthcare settings—which, by the way, is supported by the Mental Health and Smoking Partnership, which is a coalition of 27 health and mental health organisations and includes some of the major royal colleges—seems to be something of a no-brainer, as they say.

I started my professional life working in mental health and went on to work in education in psychiatric hospitals for a period. When you first start working with people with severe mental health conditions, who may be sectioned into hospitals, or those with terrible debilitating illnesses such as schizophrenia, the thing that you notice—I remember noticing this when I was young—is just how much they smoke. Chain-smoking is almost part of the condition. All of us who worked with the mentally ill were always concerned that not only were they suffering these terrible psychotic illnesses, but they were smoking so much. The irony was that you also knew that it was part of calming them down; that was how they were able to cope with the heavy medication, the psychosis and so on.

I am not making a case here for smoking cigarettes, because it is fantastic—is it not?—that we have found a substitute for smoking cigarettes for a group of people in society who are already suffering terrible mental health problems, which is vapes. We are therefore talking about a group of people who, by the way, are often locked up in hospitals, having access to those vapes. That is what the vending machines for vapes mean, and it is why, I think, so many people are very enthusiastic about this. There are a couple of amendments so I will just say quickly that that is why this amendment is really important.

I am afraid that I cannot support Amendment 21 in this group in the names of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, on minimum pricing of vaping products. The noble Earl assures me that his £30 vape is ultimately cheaper than constantly restocking. He also says it is easier to use. I have two thoughts on that. First, £30 as a minimum price is rather an expensive upfront cost for the people whom we keep hearing that everybody cares about: poor people. Generally, the problem with poor people is that they have not got enough money. We should have a thriving economy where they can earn money through jobs.

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[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly to this group of amendments. Amendment 16 is about age. My noble friend Lord Moylan said that young people are sensible. I agree with that. I think it follows from that that they are sensible enough to understand that Parliament may have prescribed different age limits for different activities, so I do not find that argument wholly conclusive but, on a more conciliatory note, I agree with what my noble friend said about Clause 12.

“A person commits an offence if the person has the management or control of premises on which a vape vending machine … is available for use”.


However, there is no provision for any exceptions.

My noble friend made a case for those mental health hospitals that have vending machines that enable patients to remain smoke free. Is it the case that, when the Bill becomes an Act, they will have to take those vape machines out and go through the whole process of licensing to be able continue to sell vaping products? Is it the case that, under Clause 16(3)

“The Secretary of State may by regulations create exceptions to the prohibition in subsection (1) or (2)”.


Is that the “get out of jail” card we need to solve the problem my noble friend rightly drew attention to?

My noble friend also touched on Amendment 17A, which relates to vaping machines in non-age-gated premises. The explanatory statement says that the amendment

“would permit the sale of vapes and other nicotine products through vending machines in only those premises that are already restricted to adults only”.

I wonder what those premises are, because younger people can go into pubs and clubs. What are these age-gated premises? I can think of nightclubs and the Chambers of the House of Lords and the House of Commons, but it would be helpful to hear in slightly more detail exactly what these exemptions might be.

I am cautious about any exemptions, because I see vaping products as a smoking-cessation tool. Allowing vaping products to be made available in pubs, clubs, restaurants, or wherever, tends more towards the recreational use of vaping, which I think we all want to downplay. I give way to the noble Baroness, who will explain what these age-gated premises are.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

The point of vape vending machines in a lot of nightclubs and late-night premises—of which I hear tales and know nothing—is that, when people are out and about, very often they recreationally smoke. That is how a lot of young people start smoking: they have a cigarette with a drink. The idea therefore is that people should at least have the option of vaping. Young people are actually lobbying for this. I know how keen everyone is on giving young people what they want. That is the deal.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

The noble Baroness destroys her own argument by saying that nightclubs are premises where young people go for recreation and then saying that they might use the vaping machines and start vaping. The last thing we want is for young people, who do not want to smoke, to start vaping because they are in a recreational atmosphere where other people are vaping and there is an opportunity for them to join in. I repeat the point that I see vaping as a smoking-cessation tool, not a recreational exercise.

Finally, while I am normally on the same page as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, on this, I find his argument—that we need to fix a price that is so high that it is out of the reach of young people with pocket money, but so low that we do not penalise those in poor communities where smoking is prevalent—to be an impossible circle to square. He indicated some flexibility, but flexibility does not solve the problem, because the easier we make it for the smoking communities to start vaping, the easier it is for young people. I am not sure that price control is an area that is going to solve the problem, but I accept the environmental consequences that he spoke so fluently about.

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[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I will be happy to check exactly what I said but, to be clear, we are not continuing discussions about vapes in hospital and mental health settings, in respect of vending machines. As I said, that is in the Bill. I hope I was making the point that discussions are continuing in respect of vape-free places, and that will be a matter for regulations. I assure the noble Lord that NHS England was in full consultation with the relevant parts of the services. It does provide services and it is the right organisation. As the noble Lord knows, we are bringing NHSE into the department in any case in the future. I am sure he will welcome that, as I certainly do.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

This has been a wide-ranging debate and I thank the variety of noble Lords who spoke. There has been some clarity: it might not be clarity that I am happy with, but we heard the noble Earl, Lord Russell, say that his aspiration is a nicotine-free generation, not just a tobacco-free one. There has been some confusion about the conflation of tobacco and nicotine. The Bill, at least, makes a distinction between those things. It is possible that the Minister—and every other Lord who wanted to get rid of that distinction—wants to challenge the nature of the very core of the Bill, but I assure them that the Bill makes that distinction. If that is not true, it would be interesting to hear what has happened there.

Also, medical scientific discussion on this makes the distinction very clearly and endlessly, particularly, by the way, by oncologists. Those who work with people who have developed cancers from smoking are very enthusiastically promoting nicotine products. As I understood it—as I was assured at Second Reading by the Government and noticed in other communications —we should not be fearful that vaping was a target of prohibition from the Bill. But the more the conversation goes on, and the more it is treated the same, then that is the direction of travel. I would still argue that when one says that the evidence is not in on whether something is helpful, it is not a scientific way of approaching it. The evidence is not in on a wide range of things that are happening in the world. It is evidence that we base evidence-based policies on, not the lack of it.

In the discussion on young people, we ended up discussing whether we are protecting children in a variety of the amendments, through to 20 and 30-somethings in a nightclub who should not be let near a vending machine with vapes in it. My point was not that they would be recreationally vaping because they would be having a good time and therefore it was very dangerous. Although, I have to say that having a good time in a nightclub is not yet, I think, illegal. Having a drink and a cigarette outside a nightclub is, as yet, not illegal—although it might well be by the end of the Bill. The point about vaping was that young people having a good time will often have a social cigarette, and the vaping vending machine might encourage them to do something less harmful. That was my point, rather than me trying to get them all vaping or forcing them to vape.

The conflation of children and young adults needs to be sorted out. In that sense, although I am sure I did not do remotely as good a job of moving Amendment 16 as the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, would have, we need to be clear that voting in elections is not a technical matter; it is philosophically about saying that someone is an autonomous adult. Therefore, we have a conflict in who we consider children and adults when it comes to health.

I finish by saying I am genuinely, totally disappointed by the attitude to mental health provision and vending machines. Many mental health charities are concerned about this. The age-gating issue is not an issue in mental health hospitals. This idea that there will be hordes of children wandering around accessing vapes from a vending machine—it just seems cruel and inhumane. I do not understand why that exception would not be made. It is true that mental health charities and family groups have suggested that having the odd vending machine in a hospital where people are restricted from leaving would be helpful. It would be kind and compassionate. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 16 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

Vaping, as a mechanism for smoking cessation, is now recommended by NICE as the first-line quit method. It has been endorsed by the NHS and it has formed the backbone of the Government-funded and the already discussed and, indeed, boasted about Swap2stop scheme for local authorities. Vaping is very much part of government policy, it seems to me.

Vaping has enabled millions of UK smokers to quit over the last five years. The way that that has happened and that single-use vapes revolutionised smoking cessation was through being easy and cheap enough to swap to quit. Inevitably, with such a revolutionary success story in innovation on the horizon, what did the Government do? They banned them.

As I explained at Second Reading, the ban on single-use vapes, which the noble Earl, Lord Russell, explained very well in relation to his amendment, was brought in for environmentalist, green reasons. That is fair enough, but health did not even come into the ban on single-use vapes; it was not even discussed. I think that that shows that although, in some of the discussions, it is as though, whatever the freedom or civil liberty considerations, the most important thing is always public health, suddenly, there are things where public health is given secondary consideration to a different set of political priorities.

I am therefore opposed to Amendment 22. Even though we have now banned single-use vapes, the amendment intends to ban the reusable vapes that are on the market and actually being sold. The amendment is interesting because it is at least honest—the noble Earl, Lord Russell, has been honest throughout the day—because, in the heading of his amendment, the word “prohibition” is used. Absolutely. Noble Lords might be delighted to know, because my own person experience might fuel these prohibitionists, that I objected to the ban on single-use vapes. Now, of course, because we are no longer able to buy them, I use reuseable vapes, but, guess what, I use them as disposable. Because nobody really thought beforehand what the point of this ban was. Despite huge inconvenience to manufactures—and just to clarify, not all manufacturers of vapes are tobacco manufacturers—all sorts of independent of vape makers have had to completely redesign everything; it has completely disrupted a successful, innovative product that was a brilliant smoking cessation tool. We have gone through this big law change, and not very much has happened.

This brings me to my amendment, which suggests that the single-use vape ban, which was brought in as a piece of legislation, should be assessed before we discuss what we are doing with the Bill in relation to vaping. It is vital that the ban on single-use vapes is subject to a comprehensive impact assessment as to its impact on public health and any effects that the ban has had on public health. According to the figures, 17% of people are purchasing illegal single-use vapes that are still being sold on the black market where I live, and in other places too. Some people have now given up on those vapes, because they saw all the kerfuffle about single-use vapes, and reverted to smoking.

So it is imperative for the Government, before the Bill is passed, to review the outcome of the single-use vape ban, as proposed by my Amendment 145. It happened and I do not think it has made the kind of difference that the Government anticipated—but nobody ever talks about it any more. If you go into a corner shop or whatever to buy a vape, you will see similar-looking products that are reusable, but many people use them as if they were disposable—and even I think that that was not quite what the Government had in mind, so they should at least consider the outcome.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

I did not want to speak to the noble Baroness’s amendment before she had spoken to it but, now she has, I will briefly respond. I have no problem with her overriding concern that there should be a review of the ban on disposable vapes. Information is important. Obviously, the regulations were done by Defra, so I do not quite know where we are with that.

I will make two further points. The first is in relation to Swap to Stop; it is really important that the Government continue to fund that programme and that people are given proper, long-term vapes, because that is what they need.

With respect to the noble Baroness, I think she is the exception. On the one hand, we have had the ban on disposable vapes, but the problem is that there has not been that much change, as she says. I think we need to go further and move to proper, reusable vapes that cost slightly more but are a one-time purchase that give consumers long-term value. The trouble is that we have not gone that far; this has been a bit of a fudge. If we had a clearer distinction between what was once a one-time, disposable product and what we need to move towards, which is a long-term, reusable product that you would save money from by not needing pods and things like that, we would end up in a clearer and better place.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

The noble Earl, Lord Russell, is good at advertising the product that he is promoting. If anyone is interested in doing PR on anything, this is your man.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 22 in my name and those of my noble friend Lord Russell and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. As my noble friend said, it seeks to prohibit pre-filled single-use vaping pods, mainly for environmental reasons. These things have been the tobacco industry’s response to—indeed, its pre-emption of—the ban on single-use vapes that was introduced in June this year. Single-use vapes were such an effective entry point into vaping for young people and such a terrible blight on the environment.

These liquid pods are single-use vapes by another name. Just because you have to insert the pod does not mean that this is a multi-use product. They are cheap and available and have turned out to be just as bad for the environment as the single-use ones were, for all the reasons outlined by my noble friend. Indeed, they have introduced a new litter problem, which is that the removable sticker from the liquid container is appearing everywhere, stuck on to waste bins and pavement furniture after people have peeled them off to insert the pods. Local authorities have to spend time removing those, as well as the discarded vapes. They are just as much of a litter hazard as their predecessors were. Perhaps the Minister will tell us why they should not be treated in the same way as the original single-use vapes.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that the industry has only itself to blame for the ban on single-use vapes, because it used them, via its egregious marketing, to attract young people to addictive nicotine products. So the Government were quite right to ban them.

The problem with Amendment 145 is that single-use vapes were immediately replaced by the devices we are talking about in this group. There is no point reviewing the effect of the ban on the original single-use vapes alone, because they are all mixed up with the emergence of these products at pretty much the same time. A review would only cause a delay to the introduction, by this Bill, of measures to reduce youth smoking and vaping and to assist smokers to quit—which is an objective to which everybody who I have heard speak so far is committed.

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[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I can clarify that she has answered her own query in a way. My concern is that lawmaking—and bans—should not be rushed through without any cost-benefit analysis. That is what happened with the ban on single-use vapes. Many of us knew—and warned—what would happen without a review or process, but nobody took any notice.

The consequence of that ban was a huge amount of disruption for retailers, corner shops and people who work in the retail business, who had to completely empty their shelves and bring in new products. Product designers had to be brought in. That was a complete faff for absolutely nothing—for rushed lawmaking and a rushed ban—which happens all the time. I am simply suggesting that we should have a cost-benefit analysis, maybe retrospectively, of what has happened, before we bring in more bans of more products without thinking through what the consequences might be. It is a probing amendment, you might say.

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These amendments are about ensuring that the Government, and hopefully even some of the well-intentioned campaign groups, listen and take the time to hear from those whose livelihoods, expertise and long experience will be directly affected by the legislation that is before us. I hope that the Government will want to achieve the right balance between reducing and stopping smoking, which is clearly the intention of the Bill, while working with small retailers and specialist manufacturers, so that they believe that their voices are being heard and that they can continue to contribute to our economy. I beg to move.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am pleased to see this group of excellent amendments. They have been so well explained and motivated that I do not need to add very much more.

I support them for a couple of reasons. In my dealings with different groups of people who represent convenience stores—shopkeepers—they have made it clear that they do not feel that they have been consulted at all. Ironically, the quotes always come from the British Retail Consortium. I have nothing against the British Retail Consortium—it has said some interesting things on the Bill—but shopkeepers feel that there are specific issues that are not being picked up, particularly around convenience stores.

Convenience stores are often a community asset; they are part of the community. I know that the Government understand this, because they are bringing in a new law—although I do not know whether it is necessary—to protect retail workers from assault. As I pointed out in the debate on that Bill, I hope that we already have a law protecting retail workers from assault, but it would be a double whammy if we have two. This indicates that the Government care about retail workers. Part of the motivation for that was the increase in assaults and violence. However, people from those different organisations have contacted me because of my Second Reading speech, where I made similar points. They have pointed out that they are most worried about the age verification that will come with the generational smoking ban and the economic hit that will come from the regulations that will come in with this Bill. These are some of their big fears.

When we talk about cost-benefit analysis and really weigh up what matters, we keep saying, “Health, health”, or “Public health, public health”, but let me tell you that, if you are running a small convenience store, a different thing can affect your health, and that is worrying that you will go under because of new laws and changes. So consultation with the wider group is very important.

I also want to back up the point about the peculiar position on manufacturers. We have constantly heard about everything being big tobacco, which I know is an easy way to close down a debate. I do not actually think that it would be wrong to talk to those manufacturers, but there are lots of manufacturers involved in lots of different products that will be affected by this Bill. We cannot just write them all off as “big tobacco”. Having that nuance is something on which I hope the Minister and the Government will listen.

The most important amendment of all, though, is Amendment 150 because it stresses that this consultation is not to be just a box-ticking exercise. It would insert the words,

“and take into consideration the views of”—

words that the Minister should welcome, because a consultation must listen properly. You must take into consideration the views of the people you are consulting and not have just a box-ticking exercise. I would like a broader range of organisations to be consulted; I would also like the Minister and the Government to listen to them when they are consulted.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, as I understand it, following the Royal Assent of this Bill, there will be more consultations on many of the regulations the Government plan to bring forward. The call for evidence, which was published on 8 October, is already seeking evidence on some of the more technical aspects of the Bill.

I point out to those who tabled these amendments that the UK Government are a signatory to Article 5.3 of the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which aims to protect health policy-making from tobacco industry influence. That is why I think that there should be no further mandation for consultation with those who have a vested interest in producing or selling tobacco products, as long as we keep an eye on small retailers. As far as the bulk of their sales of products containing tobacco—I choose the way I express it very carefully—are concerned, there will be a small impact because only a one-year cohort at a time, which is a relatively small amount, will be prevented from being sold these products. As I said on our previous day in Committee, that will give small retailers plenty of time to adjust their sales models. We will deal with things such as age verification, as well as other issues that may cause small retailers concern, in our debates on other groups; we must do that rigorously.

I point out that there is nothing to stop tobacco companies responding to past and current government consultations on proposed regulations, but, of course, all respondents are required under the WHO convention to be transparent about their direct or indirect industry links. This is appropriate given their commercial conflicts of interest, which are sometimes in direct conflict with the Government’s public health objective to eliminate smoking over a generation.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th October 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I do not want prohibition and I do not want smoking to be illegal, but I feel that I would be having a more honest discussion if that was what was being proposed. I feel that, in the end, this is a Bill about prohibition. One reason I am so uneasy about the generational smoking ban, which is only part of the Bill, is that it restricts individual autonomy by ultimately denying adults the right to make their own choices about a legal activity, whatever its harms. We are asked to focus our eyes on young people, but those born in 2009 will grow up to be adults who are then denied the choice. In the end, that restricts adult freedoms—and that is a problem.

I appreciate that that is a matter of principle that some people do not think very important. By the way, one reason I am nervous about the specific amendments proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, is that I am not convinced that moving the legal age from 18 to 21 helps my conscience matter at all, however well motivated the amendments are. I understand their intention but they muddy the waters around adult autonomy.

I was interested in the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Carberry, about polling saying that the public are all behind this. In fact, in one poll in August 2025, 59% of respondents thought, because the question was posed differently, that if a person can vote—and that age, as we know, is getting ever younger—drive a car, join the Army, buy alcohol and possess a credit card, they should be allowed to purchase tobacco. In other words, they could see that when asked that, they thought that. By the way, only 29% thought it should not be permitted and 11% said that they did not know. Mind you, the same polling asked about the 10 most important Bills, this being one of them, and this Bill came ninth on the list of what should be seen as important, progressing through the House. The 10th, by the way, was the hereditary Peers Bill. I thought that might appeal to some people; I was playing to a certain crowd. No, but anyway, that is what the polling said.

One thing I want to ask the Minister, in all seriousness, because I still cannot understand it, is: how can the Government justify a ban that creates an unequal application of the law, whereby one group of adults, born before a cut-off date, can legally purchase tobacco while another group, born after, cannot? I just do not understand how that arbitrary cut-off point is not discriminatory by treating people solely based on their birth. I asked that at Second Reading and nobody answered me.

I also wanted to ask whether it is realistic to think that this will stop young people smoking. At the moment, young people are not allowed to smoke. However, according to ASH, in 2023 11% of 11 to 15 year-olds—400,000 people—had tried smoking, 3%, or 120,000 people, had carried on smoking, and 1% were smoking regularly. In other words, even though it was completely against the law for them to do it, they carried on smoking. The idea that the Bill will magically stop that seems a little ambitious.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, as legislators, all sorts of laws pass through our hands—the good, the bad and the ugly. All are consequential for our fellow citizens, but rarely does a Bill weigh as heavily as this one. Wherever we stand, this law change could have a seismic impact on social attitudes to life, illness and death. Our task is formidable because of how many norms the Bill will overturn; I will mention a few.

The Bill unsettles centuries-old medical ethics. It rebrands assisting someone to die as a medical treatment, upending its understood meaning. The Bill rewrites the role of doctors. They will no longer be guided by the “Do no harm” ethos of preserving and protecting life; instead, the Bill mandates that they actively engage in taking a patient’s life by supplying lethal drugs that will kill them. The Bill especially shakes the foundations of society’s attitudes to suicide—and, yes, that is the accurate word; we know this because, at present, intentionally assisting someone to end their life is a criminal offence. So the Bill is forced to amend the Suicide Act 1961 to allow medical professionals to plan, prepare and assist in intentionally ending the lives of a particular group of citizens.

My greatest dread is that this state licensing of suicide could unleash a regressive culture change. For decades, we have made concerted efforts to deter people from taking their own life; this was brilliantly documented last week by the noble Baroness, Lady May, and the noble Lord, Lord Jackson.

Now, I pause. Any of us who have known family or friends who have committed suicide know that it is gut-wrenchingly tragic; it brings an especially visceral, raw grief. This is compounded by guilt as loved ones endlessly soul-search, totally unfairly blaming themselves: “What more could we have done?” This is why, if we see someone about to jump from a bridge, even if they give us 100 objective reasons why their life is not worth living or even if they have only a few months to live, we do not just shrug and walk on—we cling on to them and plead, “Don’t do it. Don’t jump”. All this reflects our deep humanistic intuition that, when a person acts to end their life, it should be resisted with all the energy society can muster. What happens culturally, though, when the state shouts, “Jump”, or agrees with those who say that ending their life is a compassionate choice?

I worry especially about what message this sends to the young, who are already often nihilistic and prone to anxiety, self-harm and mental health problems. When we debated the censorious Online Safety Bill, those of us who raised its negative impact on free speech were metaphorically slapped down and hectored. The one indisputable reason for that law was to close down suicide sites—something echoed by the Prime Minister only yesterday. We had to protect the young from malign online suicide influencers, but I worry that this Bill is the legislative embodiment of a suicide influencer. What do we think will happen when we tell newly franchised teens that, in some instances, taking your own life equates to dying in dignity? Saying that it will be restricted to those with a terminal illness just will not wash with a generation immersed in the language of rights and entitlements: “Why not assist me when I am suffering so much? Why am I being discriminated against?”

That brings me to my final point. We have heard some fine speeches from supporters of the Bill, stressing the importance of autonomy and giving people control of their life. I usually champion such sentiments in a political sense, but not when they are used to justify the state having a role in ending human life—forgive my squeamishness. For those who state passionately, “My body, my life, my choice”, why back a Bill that limits that choice to the terminally ill? Surely logically that right should apply to anyone who wants to kill themselves. No doubt this logic will lead to demands to expand the law—God help us once human rights lawyers get involved. As I say, we have a weighty responsibility to ensure that such nightmarish unintended consequences do not become a reality.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I say many thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for such an interesting speech. It has been quite refreshing today to hear members of the Liberal Democrats talking about liberalism—something of a shock to the system, but I am delighted. It is also a bit dispiriting that a Government who promised change keep introducing cut-and-paste Bills from the previous Tory Administration, only worse. The ministerial power grab in the Tobacco and Vapes Bill means that democratic accountability could be going up in smoke.

Ministers from both parties have boasted that this law, which bans all future generations from purchasing tobacco, is world-leading, but what if the world has not gone that way for good reasons? There is certainly no evidence that this is a workable policy. The Bill’s own impact assessment admits that there are no international case studies to follow. This is all a gamble, based on academic modelling. Has the Minister read the document from Trading Standards Wales that challenges the efficacy of such an “aggressive prohibitionist approach”, noting that the New Zealand Government abandoned its version as unenforceable? Meanwhile, in Malaysia the Attorney-General rejected a similar ban as unconstitutional on the grounds that it denies citizens equal treatment under the law. How would it be different in the UK if a future 40 year-old will be legally able to buy cigarettes whereas his 39 year-old sister will be criminalised if she does the same? How is that not discriminatory?

We also have to be honest about just how illiberal this legislation is, and I am delighted the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, reminded us of why that matters. We should drop the F-word a lot more in this Chamber, even if it offends some, but querying the state’s criminalising of adults’ freedom—that F-word—to buy legal products is not some sign of a dangerous, mad, libertarian ideologue or because we are in hock to big tobacco, as has been suggested by some, which, to be frank, is a cheap and insulting avoidance of debate. It is because, in a democratic, free society, we should be careful not to be careless with civil liberties.

Regardless, let us take the Bill’s motives at face value: to stop people smoking for the sake of their health. Luckily, some innovative geniuses have invented vapes, with unambiguous evidence that they actually work and have enabled millions to quit. Even the NHS Better Health web page includes the message that you are roughly twice as likely to quit smoking if you use nicotine vapes compared with other nicotine replacement products. But instead of celebrating this success and seeing vaping as an opportunity, this Bill irrationally treats it as a threat.

I know the Government say that the Bill is targeting youth vaping, but hugely disproportionate regulation, such as the proposal to make it illegal to publish any marketing materials for vapes or nicotine products, can only create an information void and ensure that adults will be confused by scaremongering misinformation about the dangers of vaping. Alarmingly, over half of adults who smoke mistakenly believe that vapes are equally or more harmful compared to smoking.

Similarly, why, oh why, are the Government so fixated on demonising flavoured vapes? Does the Minister really believe that only children like sweet things? Has she not noticed the exponential rise in the flavoured gin market for adults? Research shows that 65% of adult vapers find fruit and sweet liquids preferable—ironically, often because of the perceived difference to the tobacco they are quitting.

Let me tell you a story. Once the proud winner of the smoker of the year award, I quit smoking 18 months ago after 40 years of chain-smoking. It was tough, but, advised by no less than two doctors, I tried disposable vapes. Banana and strawberry worked a treat, and now I am smoke-free. But rather than patting me on the back, along comes Defra, which, with scant regard for public health, has prioritised the environment. I now live in dread of 1 June and an outright ban and I am stocking up. Now we have this Bill’s counterproductive attack on flavours, despite the evidence that four in 10 vapers say that if there are no flavoured vapes, they will return to smoking. Indeed, in America, in 375 localities that adopted permanent restriction on vape flavours, the results were increased sales in cigarettes.

On the theme of counterproductive outcomes, over Easter the Government issued flashy filmed adverts promising a new law against assaulting shop workers. I am not sure that law is necessary—it is not legal to attack retail staff now, surely—but did the Government consider that this Bill is guaranteed to make matters worse? The latest British Retail Consortium crime survey reveals 130,000 instances of shop workers being verbally and physically assaulted every day in 2024—a 340% increase since 2020—and a significant number of these attacks followed requests for age verification. There is unanimous agreement among retailers that a law which will force staff of convenience stores at the heart of our local communities to increase proof-of-age ID checks on tobacco buyers of any age will trigger a huge escalation of violence and abuse.

The cost-benefit analysis of this Bill means there are massive costs for many people. Just saying we want to stamp out smoking is not good enough. In Committee, we should ensure that we follow and track those costs and do not allow unaccountability to happen, at least here before it gets passed.

Mental Health Bill [HL]

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 2nd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler. I have attached my name to the noble Baroness’s Amendment 49. As the noble Baroness said, like Amendment 48 it addresses one of the primary reasons for reviewing the Mental Health Act in the first place. Black people are over 3.5 times more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act than white people, and over seven times more likely to be placed on a community treatment order. Their experiences and outcomes are worse. All of those are facts. As the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, said, the Bill somehow does not seem to be addressing that. We are taking an overall systemic view but not addressing the issues of a particular population. The reason I chose to sign Amendment 49—we are going to come shortly to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, looking at the resources being put into the Mental Health Act—is that this is another way of putting resources into what everyone agrees is a crucial issue. This is a different way of allocating resources.

The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, has made the case that PCREF is not the same thing. The Care Quality Commission does not have the same kind of situation. We are talking about people at a local trust level here; that is where the responsible person would be. As the noble Baroness said, if there is already someone, because of local arrangements, fulfilling this role, they can simply adopt this along the way. It does not have to be any kind of duplication. I note that the campaign group Mind very strongly backs this amendment. It delivers where we started from on this whole Bill.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 61, which calls for a review into the causes and consequences of the huge spike of diagnoses of mental disorders. It should also investigate the impact of this on the availability of services that we envisage treating people with a mental disorder that this Bill seeks to help.

If, in our best efforts to provide alternatives to detention for the severely ill, we hope to ensure that adequate care in community settings exists, we must look at the phenomenon that threatens to squeeze out those who most need access to such services. Implicit to this endeavour is to ask if, inadvertently, some aspects of policy set in train a self-fulfilling prophecy. Rebranding any deviation from the norm, troublesome behaviour, anxiety or even, according to the Government’s curriculum review, GCSE exam stress, under the therapeutic language of mental health has consequences. As Tony Blair has noted recently:

“you’ve got to be careful of encouraging people to think they’ve got some sort of condition other than simply confronting the challenges of life”.

Yet the young especially are prone to internalising the narrative of medicalised explanation and adopt an identity of mental fragility and illness. This can create a cohort of citizens demanding official diagnoses, NHS intervention and treatment.

This week, the media has featured the new book by Dr Alastair Santhouse, a neuropsychiatrist from Maudsley Hospital. In the book No More Normal: Mental Health in an Age of Over-Diagnosis, Dr Santhouse argues that it has become crucial to reassess what constitutes mental illness:

“so that we can decide who needs to be treated with the limited resources available, and who can be helped in other ways”.

He worries the NHS has

“buckled under the tsunami of referrals”.

Other state services are straining to the point of dysfunction as well. Despite the fact that the number of children with education, health and care plans has more than doubled in less than 10 years, parents are still desperately complaining about waiting for years for autism and other assessments. In other words, the demand is just galloping.

All of this is leading to at least 18 councils being at risk of insolvency, according to the Guardian on Monday. The present row over PIPs and the welfare system collapsing under the costs of ever greater numbers claiming disability payments for mental disorders is now a major political issue. I have been partly inspired to table this amendment by the Health Secretary Wes Streeting’s concern about overdiagnosis of working-age adults leading them to be “written off”, as he said. It is especially tragic that this is happening overwhelmingly among young people.

My concern, and the point of this amendment, is that this can skew NHS provision. A Savanta poll of 1,001 GPs for the Centre for Social Justice’s report Change the Prescription reported that four in five, 84%, of GPs believe that the ups and downs of normal life are now wrongly being redefined by society as mental disorders. Of those GPs, 83% now believe that anti-depressants are too easily prescribed to patients. But the GPs are under so much pressure from patients demanding treatment that they prescribe them. Similarly, in 2013 and 2014 just 1,800 adults were prescribed drugs for ADHD, but last year 150,000 adults were prescribed with ADHD medication. Waiting lists keep growing and lots of anger continues.

When I last spoke on this topic in the Mental Health Bill debate, the media picked up on it and I was inundated with emails, largely from people furious with me for challenging overdiagnosis; I had a tsunami of hate mail. There was even a formal complaint sent to the standards committee of the House. People said, and I understood it, “How can you say there is an issue with overdiagnosis when I can’t get a referral for myself” or “for my child” and so on. It is true that a GP cannot formally diagnose ADHD as it requires specialist assessments. The average waiting list for an ADHD referral on the NHS is now three years. This lack of formal diagnosis is not necessarily stopping service provision becoming overwhelmed and distorted, and I think this mood will have a very damaging impact on what we want this Bill to do.

I will finish with an apocryphal tale from the University of Oxford’s disability report from 2022-23. It reveals that the university has, under pressure from students, agreed to

“accept a wider range of disability evidence”

as a key to giving 25% more time in exams and the use of computers in exams. The university’s explanation is telling. It talks of

“a wider context of extensive and ever-growing waiting times for ADHD and autism diagnostic assessments”,

so it aims to reduce “administrative burdens and barriers” for disabled students.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, she mentioned autism several times, but the whole purpose of the Bill is to remove autism and learning disability from mental health, where it previously was. In fact, I served on the Bill Committee, as did others in the Chamber, in 2005-06, when I was really opposed to autism being added to the 1983 Act. But it was added, and now it is being taken out, I am very pleased to say.

I hope that the noble Baroness will accept that there is a piece of legislation about this on the statute book: the Autism Act 2009, which is being reviewed by the House at the moment. Autism is not some fad, something that people just make up, or something temporary; it is a lifelong neurological condition. I raise the failure to provide the right services for people with autism who are in that part of the spectrum where they need support. Not everybody does: it is a spectrum, and I quite agree that there are people on the spectrum who cope quite well with life, knowing that they have autism and not needing that sort of support. We have discussed that support a lot in the course of this particular Bill, and if you do not provide it where it is needed—this is the weakness that we are looking at in the current Autism Act—that leads to quite serious mental health conditions, including suicide. Of all the conditions that the noble Baroness mentioned, among the autistic community the suicide rate is the highest.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I genuinely appreciate that intervention. That is what I think too. It is precisely the inappropriate use of terms such as autism in relation to this overdiagnosis that concerns me, because it is too glibly used. That is part of what I am talking about. I absolutely want those people who need the intervention to get it, but my concern is if it becomes widely used socially, in the way that I did not want to go into in great detail, on university campuses or in society in general. I note the TikTok phenomenon of people getting diagnoses and that being used, and so on. My concern is that the label, the labelling process and the demand for diagnosis and treatment squeeze out the very people that the noble Baroness is talking about.

I too have spent many years trying to distinguish between autism and mental illness. It drives me mad that people do not know the difference. My problem is that, in the debate about this issue, they are very often all lumped together in a way that is medically not clarifying, but the demand for a medical label can mean that people are not even that choosy about which one they get. That is where I have tried to raise an issue.

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

I am very grateful for that response. The noble Baroness said that autism is different; it certainly is different, which is why it has its own Act of Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I rise briefly, having attached my name to Amendment 59 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, and backed by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, and the noble Lord, Lord Scriven. We saw in Committee multiple amendments all trying to address the resource issue. We have focused on this one because it is both an elegant solution, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, just outlined, and it is—emanating from the Cross Benches—a moderate solution that can and I think will attract wide support from around the House.

As the noble Lord and the noble Baroness have said, parity of esteem has never been achieved and, on the current figures, is currently going backwards, in the wrong direction. We have to focus on the fact that the waiting lists for community mental health care for adults and young people and children are twice as long as those for physical healthcare. That is the outcome of the inequality of esteem with which mental health is being treated. I note that the Rethink Mental Illness Right Treatment, Right Time report found that most people living with a severe mental illness experienced worsening mental health while waiting for treatment, with 42% requiring urgent care and 26% being hospitalised. We are aiming to shift from hospital care—in-patient care—to community care, but we are actually forcing things in the other direction because people reach such a state of crisis. I have to preface the horror of what I am about to say with a warning. The Right Treatment, Right Time report found that 25% of people whose mental health deteriorated while waiting for treatment attempted suicide, which highlights how the lack of funding for mental health care impacts on that awful statistic.

This is a step to create a framework that heads in the right direction. As noble Lord, Lord Stevens, said, how could you possibly oppose this?

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, very briefly, I will say that I absolutely support this amendment. I think it is worth clarifying what I said earlier about overdiagnosis. The danger is that that can be interpreted as meaning that I want cuts; what I actually want is targeted intervention for the right people, rather than saying, “Oh, everybody’s been calling themselves mentally ill, so let’s cut the services”.

I completely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, that, if we do not sort out the amount of community provision, what we have done over the last few weeks, never mind the years preceding it, will have been a waste of our time, because the Bill will not be worth the paper it is written on—that is the danger. It is very tempting, in a period of intense economic difficulties, to suggest that this might be one of the first things to go—so I do think this is a very good amendment.

I will remind the House of a discussion we had late the other evening on the plight of prisoners. If there is no community resource for people leaving prison—ex-prisoners—they will deteriorate and end up becoming very ill in the community and being incarcerated again. I discussed that in great detail. In other words, this is essential if we are serious about saying that we do not want to lock people up but, instead, want to treat them appropriately.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I rise very quickly to support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, and have put my name to it.

I will add a couple of extra things to the noble Lord’s very well-argued case. Modest as it may be, I think it is an effective measure—and this is why I think it is and why the House should support the noble Lord’s amendment if he decides to push it to a vote. It is not that the Secretary of State has announced that the percentage will decrease next year; the percentage decrease happened during this financial year, going down from 9% to 8.78%. So we are now on a trend for the percentage of National Health Service spend on mental health.

Furthermore, one has to question the priority of the Government when they look at the national planning guidance and some of the targets that have been dropped from it. There are no plans to target the 2 million long waiters waiting for mental health care. It would be slightly disingenuous of the Minister, in response, to talk just about the mental health investment scheme, because all it refers to is ICB spend. The uniqueness and cleverness of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, is that it talks about all health service spend, including non-ICB spend, specialised commissioning and other elements that need to be there.

Mental health takes up 20% of illness treated by the NHS, which will probably be spending 8.7%. Because of the trend that is happening, the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, is absolutely vital to ensure not just that the percentage is maintained but that the community facilities within this will be funded and implemented.