Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Baroness Fox of Buckley and Earl Russell

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Thursday 16th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. I do not need to repeat his excellent exposition of why Motion A1 is needed, although I stress that his original amendments were better, but we are where we are.

It is important to note that this is not about preventing enforcement at all. We can all agree on the need to clamp down on the problem of anti-social behaviour. In a situation where fixed penalty notices for PSPOs are presently at record levels—they have gone up 32.5% in a couple of years—the public might believe that councils are doing their best to stamp down on anti-social behaviour. However, that would be misleading and misinformation, because, where we have private companies, they are paid a commission of that penalty income, which can be up to 80% to 90% of the fine paid. That gives them a direct incentive to issue as many penalties as possible. Motion A1 tries to ensure that we protect the public from unscrupulous incentivised enforcement agencies, which I think are corrupt.

The main thing—if I can appeal to the Government—is that this does not actually tackle anti-social behaviour at all. If you live in an area with a private company, you might think that because everyone is being fined then the council are doing something about anti-social behaviour, but that is not true. I stress that those of us who support Motion A1 want to tackle anti-social behaviour and want a fair and just enforcement regime, but do not think that the private companies employed by some councils are tackling anti-social behaviour or delivering justice or fairness. I hope that the Government will reconsider.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I will respond to the amendments in this group on waste crime and fly-tipping. As we know, nearly one-fifth of all our waste ends up in the hands of criminals. The rising number of mega tips and the speed at which they are now appearing show the increasingly sophisticated nature of criminal networks and that they are operating with impunity, making vast profits at little risk. That causes direct costs to our economy of more than £1 billion annually, with devastating effects on the environment, communities and individuals. Since our last debate, as the Minister mentioned, the Government have published their 10-point plan on waste crime. More must be done, but I record my thanks to the Minister and the Government, because this is a very welcome step forward.

We support the amendments before us, but none alone would shift the dial on this problem. Amendment 6, from the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, rightly seeks to make the polluter, not the landowner or the community, liable for clean-up costs. The Commons rejected this on the grounds that sufficient powers already exist. However, with 1.26 million fly-tipping incidents recorded in 2024-25, an increase of 9%, any conversation with any landowner or farmer in this country would show that the powers we have now are not adequate. The “polluter pays” principle remains unmet and clean-up costs can reach tens of thousands of pounds, which is simply bankrupting many individuals. In a similar vein, Amendment 12 would require waste authorities to collect fly-tipped waste and recover costs from offenders. The Commons dismissed this as a public cost.

In truth, these amendments would address only part of a much larger system. Real solutions require systemic reform, prevention, adequate local authority funding and compensation for local authorities where they do clear sites. Without turning off the supply tap and properly resourcing councils, responsibility is merely passed down the chain. Mentions of local authority compensation in the 10-point plan are encouraging, although the details remain missing. Treasury receipts from landfill tax need urgently to be allocated to the clean-up of sites.

Amendment 10 proposes penalty points on licences for fly-tipping convictions. Although that was rejected, the two government amendments in lieu are welcome. Amendment 11 would add fly-tipping to the list of offences allowing vehicle seizures, which is a proportionate step since vehicles are the primary means of committing these crimes. My party supported this measure in the other place and, if it is pressed to a Division, we will support it today. I would, however, prefer roadworthy seized vehicles to be reused or sold rather than crushed.

In conclusion, the 10-point plan makes some real progress, but this Bill largely remains a missed opportunity to tackle waste crime decisively. Serious organised waste crime should be treated as serious organised crime. The Environment Agency lacks specialist skills and technology to counter these networks effectively. The Government’s plans to strengthen its powers is welcome, but questions remain. The plan says:

“On enforcement, we are committing further funding. We are exploring giving the Environment Agency police-style powers”.


The Bill could have given the Environment Agency the police-style powers that it so desperately needs to improve enforcement and make it more effective and speedy. The truth is that those powers have not been given.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Debate between Baroness Fox of Buckley and Earl Russell

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.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Debate between Baroness Fox of Buckley and Earl Russell

Committee stage
Thursday 30th October 2025 Grand Committee

[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.