Tobacco and Vapes Bill
Baroness Walmsley ExcerptsThursday 13th November 2025
(3 days, 9 hours ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Tobacco and Vapes Bill 2024-26 View all Tobacco and Vapes Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 89-V(a) Amendment for Grand Committee (Supplementary to the Fifth Marshalled List) - (12 Nov 2025)
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
My Lords, I am sorry, but we will have to wait a few more moments for the noble Baroness’s excellent speech, which I know is coming filled with logic and reason.
I want briefly to speak in favour of many of these amendments. I echo the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, on the importance of the validity of the evidence relating to the TPD. Does the Minister feel that this legislation is in the spirit of the Windsor Framework? It may be technically in line with it, but is it in the spirit of it to have two totally different trading environments on the island of Ireland? I am not sure whether information relating to the potential objections from member states to this is published and can be accessed. What can the Government tell us about the objections and the information that we can gather around that? If the Government will not accept these clear, simple and reasonable amendments, why not?
Creating a smoke-free generation is extremely groundbreaking and novel, fundamentally trampling on the human rights of an adult to make a free decision. This is seismic, though I disagree entirely with it. Many in the Committee believe in this and I have the greatest respect for the Minister, but it is a significant move away from all the liberties that this Parliament and Parliaments over many centuries before us have tried to protect. If we go down that path, it is important that there is true validity, that every option has been explored and that all the legal issues have been thoroughly explored. If not, you will lose the cultural change, which is what this is about. This is not just a technicality, about trying to change the law to reduce some act. It is a huge cultural change, changing the activities of people in this country. If it is done in a nefarious or opaque way and there are further complexities with endless legal challenges, it will lose its impact. It is important that we are open as to where the problems are and that we understand them better. Simply being told that everything is okay is not good enough.
I support the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Murray and will follow on from the well-made points from the noble Earl, Lord Russell. The Better Regulation Framework is an important component of how government functions. I challenge any Minister to explain to me what the Better Regulation Framework actually contains; I am afraid that I have never seen an example of it being properly followed. The key component is not just the nature of proportionality, which many laws simply do not fulfil, but the principle around a review of the effectiveness of regulations, their costs and impact. I have never seen a post-implementation review of any regulations; I am sure that they must exist somewhere, but I do not know how useful they are. In this instance, a review must go into the legislation in a very clear way. We must ask how we will assess whether this has been a success and we must establish now what that means. We should also make sure that we have some type of sunset, to ensure that there is a sense of focus.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, mentioned the costs of implementation. To that I would add—forgive me if I misheard him—the effects on crime; whether the illegitimate marketplace has increased significantly, which we would expect; and whether it has actually worked. The amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Murray has great logic, because if we were to create a smoke-free generation, surely all these excessive regulations, checks and so on will not be required, as no one will be engaging in tobacco usage of any sort.
I am aware that some of the amendments that we have put down challenge the principle of creating a smoke-free generation. We believe in them but, in this instance, we are looking at pieces of additional legislation that will make the Bill better. If the Government truly believe in their ambitions, our amendments will make them more likely to succeed.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I strongly support my noble friend Lord Russell’s Amendments 195 and 196. As he said, they intend to support the core principles of the Bill and ensure effective delivery. It is one thing to legislate; it is quite another to deliver and even to implement. I am currently involved in following measures that were put into legislation through the Health and Care Act 2022, which have still not been implemented. We must make sure that things like that are properly implemented.
Whatever the Government’s intentions are now, when the facts change a sensible person changes appropriately, albeit along the same core principles. A number of potential barriers along the way have been suggested by noble Lords as we have debated the Bill, including today, such as an expansion of the illicit market; the possible clever responses of the tobacco industry to get round the intention of the Bill to protect young people and achieve a smoke-free generation; and technical issues such as age-gating, age verification and so on.
Although the Bill gives the Government wide powers to act, my noble friend’s points about having two reviews, to which his amendments would mandate the Government to adhere, would give naysayers confidence that any unintended consequences would be dealt with either by the Government using the powers in the Bill or by introducing further legislation if necessary after the reviews.
I particularly support my noble friend’s inclusion of nicotine use in his request for reviews. Although the use of vapes as a quitting tool has already been shown to be effective, we all know that they have been taken up by large numbers of young people who have never smoked tobacco. However, the industry is still very young and there is still little evidence about the effect of both the flavour additives and the long-term use of nicotine on the young brain and lungs. Over the coming years, that evidence will emerge one way or another. We already know how addictive nicotine is and that it can make people feel stressed, restless, irritable and unable to concentrate. That is problematic for children in school, which is the very reason why sales of nicotine vapes are banned for under-18s, although illicit sales to younger people are really problematic for teachers.
We also know that nicotine leads to short-term increases in heart rate and systolic blood pressure; as I understand it, that is why tobacco pouches are endemic among professional footballers before a match. Unfortunately, this habit is being copied by many of their young fans. Some use several of them, resulting in dizziness, nausea and, in a few extreme cases, fainting. We do not know about the long-term effects of the use of nicotine by very young people, as the research focuses on users of legal age; this is the sort of thing that may emerge over the next few years. As to the future, we will see how well vapes and other nicotine replacement therapies work as quitting tools. We need to be sure that the legislation will respond to this and other evidence.
These two age points are significant since they have been suggested as an alternative by some opponents of the generational escalator in the Bill. Why not, they suggest, simply raise the legal age of sale to 21 or 25? A promise of reviews at these age points will help encourage those people to support the Bill as it stands, so I hope that the Minister will accept these two amendments; I prefer them to the amendment in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, except that I certainly support his reference to small businesses. I am sure that noble Lords will know about these matters from previous debates, but perhaps we could put our heads together before Report.
On the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, regarding the EU’s Technical Regulation Information System and the standstill period that now impacts on the Bill, it is important to note that several EU countries, such as Greece, Romania and Italy, object pretty routinely to all tobacco control legislation in the EU. There is no new information today that is cause for concern regarding this Bill.
On the legal opinion to which the noble Baroness referred, it appears to have been shared with only the Daily Mail—it certainly has not been published—so I am unable to take a view on it; besides, doing so is probably beyond my skill set and pay grade anyway. I just hope that the Minister has good legal advice.
There is a point to be made here, however, about how the UK seems to have found itself in the worst of both worlds, with EU states being able to object to legislation that we wish to bring in to protect the health of our nation but with us having none of the benefits of being a member. That is a point for another debate, though. I hope that the Minister can confirm that any such objections will not be binding on the UK; and that this sovereign Parliament will be able to push ahead with this important legislation.
I turn to Amendment 216 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth. He appears to be expecting a different Administration in the next Parliament; I will leave it to the Minister to reply to the noble Lord’s comments.
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, I will speak briefly to this group of amendments, which centre on three linked themes: the need for careful, joined-up policy-making; the need for proper review; and the need for clear accountability on how this Bill will work in practice once it becomes law.
In her Amendment 114B, the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, directs the Committee’s attention once again to the issue of the Bill’s compatibility with the provisions of the Windsor Framework. I am glad that she has done so because I agree with my noble friend Lord Johnson; with no disrespect to the Minister, I felt that her reassurance on that question in our earlier debate was more of an assertion than a reasoned explanation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, are quite right that there is still considerable uncertainty and anxiety around the Windsor Framework issue. The noble Baroness quoted the opinion of the former Attorney-General for Northern Ireland, John Larkin KC; I will not repeat it, although I have those words in front of me. Like the noble Baroness, I am very concerned by his unequivocal statements on this question. Surely it is imperative that the Government can clarify exactly how the Bill will work in practice. It is not good enough to say merely that it will work; we need to know how it will work and how the concerns raised by legal experts such as Mr Larkin will be addressed.
An authoritative, independent legal opinion would give us much greater confidence on this point. Indeed, the question of legal compatibility has a direct bearing on the other amendments in this group, which pertain to Northern Ireland; we will listen very carefully to what the Minister says in response to those.
Lord Lansley (Con)
I wanted to intervene just to say one or two words in support of my noble friend Lord Moylan’s amendment. In a sense, it challenges the Government to explain what they are trying to achieve, and if that is to regulate flavour descriptors, that is exactly what we should put into the Bill. I think the industry is very aware of the need to control flavour descriptors, because certain descriptors can be intentionally directly attractive to youth vapers and children, and the industry knows it needs to act on that. I will talk about that a bit more later.
We should use this amendment and this debate to find out what the Government are trying to achieve, and I hope the Minister will give an explanation. If the intention is to go down the path of, for example, the Australians or the New Zealanders, with a very narrow control of vape flavours, we run exactly the risk that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, was just talking about. As she said, the academic research on restricting vape flavours shows that that leads to vapes not being as effective at smoking cessation as we want them to be. That is an important consideration.
I could not explain it to anybody in detail, but I remember how the uncle of a good friend of mine when I was a boy was a flavour scientist at Bush Boake Allen, now part of International Flavors & Fragrances, and there is a very precise relationship between the chemical additives that can be added to products. Of course, there were no vapes in those days; he was working on crisps. On one occasion we went to their house, and they provided for us the very first occasion on which anybody ever tasted prawn cocktail-flavoured crisps. That was a remarkable moment in one’s early life, never to be revisited.
The point is that the relationship is modulated by these companies extremely carefully. So, it is possible to regulate it, but it is quite an intrusion into an industry to think that we should need to do this. I suspect that my noble friend is on to exactly the right issue in saying that, if we regulate the descriptors, we will have done the thing that it is most important for us to achieve.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Russell’s Amendment 146. It seems to me both sensible and essential to set the groundwork, as he put it, for further work on defining vape flavours—keeping in mind at all times the Government’s intention, which we support: to allow vapes as an effective, proven tool in quitting smoking tobacco while at the same time addressing the egregious activities of the tobacco industry vis-à-vis young people. It has used colours, flavours, images, packaging and marketing to encourage young people who have never smoked to take up vaping. We know that, once hooked on the nicotine in these products, it will be very difficult for these young people to wean themselves off them when they want to. We also know that evidence of real and lasting harm will continue to emerge over the next few years, and that is why the work to define flavours is so important and why I support this probing amendment.
I am one of those nerdy people who, when they go shopping at the supermarket, takes a little magnifying glass with them. I strongly suspect that the “banana ice” vape of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and the “mango ice” vape of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, have never been within five miles of a banana or a mango, and that anything called “raspberry fizz” will never have been within five miles of a raspberry. These things are put together. They do not contain any raspberry, mango or banana; instead, they contain a whole mix of chemicals. It might be more honest to label them with, “This vape tastes a bit like banana, but it contains the following 15 chemicals”, but you cannot do that, can you? Hence the Government’s problem.
As with the other amendments in this group, Amendment 142 would open the way for the Government to include big-puff vapes and other technical measures in regulation—perhaps things such as age-gating at some future point—but it would not mandate them to do so. So, I would certainly not oppose it, although the Minister might tell us that the Government can do all this without the amendment.
Amendment 144 could inadvertently restrict the Government’s opportunity to limit the number of flavours. I would not want to do that, so I do not support this amendment, but I would like to see the Government allow a reasonable range of flavours to help people who use vapes or who are quitting smoking, for the very reason indicated by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox: smokers like the fruity flavours, which certainly help them. That would be a very good thing. I really do think that allowing only a tobacco flavour would be a bad idea, because tobacco is the very thing that smokers want to get away from.
I very much look forward to the Government’s response, particularly to my noble friend’s amendment.
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, I need to start with some apologies to my noble friends Lord Mott and Lord Udny-Lister because I have to express a measure of caution on Amendment 142, which would increase the power of Ministers to make regulations on the sorts of products that can be banned by extending the scope of Clause 90 to include design and interoperability.
Although I recognise the intent behind the proposal, the problem here is nailing down exactly where the truth lies. One hears from a number of people that so-called high puff count vapes are inherently harmful and are, therefore, to be regulated or prohibited. My noble friend Lord Udny-Lister certainly indicated that that was his view, but it is nevertheless striking that the briefing I received from ASH regards this amendment as unnecessary. If the Committee will forgive me, I will just read out a section of it:
“Concerns regarding larger big puff products may be unfounded. There is no current evidence to suggest that these might increase harms or pose additional risks from products containing less liquid. It is possible that larger-volume products could have benefits in terms of satisfying consumer demand for longer-lasting products, reducing environmental impact and increasing the price point of initial purchase without unduly raising the price per puff for those using them to quit smoking”.
I find that a little baffling, and it would be very helpful if we could hear from the Minister the official view of these high puff count devices.
Lord Lansley (Con)
May I make a suggestion? It seems that we are trying to find out whether it is the Government’s intention to regulate flavours—that is, to determine which chemical additives can or cannot be added to vapes, which would end up determining what flavours are allowed—or whether it is the Government’s intention to regulate the description of flavours, meaning which flavours are to be “described”, “characterised” or any such word. We do not yet know what the Government’s intention is. If the Government want to retain the power to do both, I submit that they need to specify in Clause 91 that they will have the power to do both.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
Before the Minister answers that, may I ask her another question? Which agency regulates and licenses the various flavours used in vapes? Is it the Food Standards Agency or some other agency?
Earl Russell (LD)
I apologise but I, too, want to make a brief point. I welcome the fact that the Government are conducting a review and collecting evidence; that is good. I hope that those things will be used to make fundamental, good policy. However, there is a tension here because we could have a situation where flavours are appealing both to children, whom we do not want to take up vaping, and to ex-smokers, whom we do not want to go back to smoking because we have taken flavours away. What I have not heard the Minister say is that there will be an examination of price in that gathering of evidence. Doing more to raise the price of vapes, keeping them out of the territory of pocket money, is important in making sure that young children do not get access to these products. I encourage the Government to include that in their call for evidence.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I want to dispose of this very quickly. I must start with an apology because I am trespassing greatly on the indulgence of the Committee; I must also declare a non-interest by making clear that I do not have an interest.
This amendment is very awkwardly and almost misleadingly worded, as it is limited by scope and reasons; I am perhaps trespassing beyond the scope of the Bill in raising this matter at all. That is the first thing I have to say. The second is that I am advancing this argument on behalf of a firm, Allen Carr’s Easyway, which is deeply involved in the smoking cessation business. I have no financial or other interest in the firm; in fact, apart from email exchanges, I have never met the people involved, as far as I am aware.
I wish my noble friend Lord Bethell were here—he does apologise. As a former Health Minister, his experience is that Allen Carr’s Easyway is a firm that does tremendous work in the field of smoking cessation. It produces books and booklets that encourage and inspire people and facilitate them, psychologically, to stop smoking. It also runs seminars and other in-person group sessions. When I gave up smoking three years ago, it was partly with the help of a copy of one of its books, which was given to me as a present by my sister.
It is also—this is perhaps the crucial factor—one of the four different smoking cessation methods recommended by NICE. It is not only recommended: the guidelines for local smoking cessation services which receive government funding say that there are four different smoking cessation methods that local stop smoking services must ensure are accessible to adults who smoke. They are behavioural interventions; medicinally licensed products, including nicotine replacements; nicotine-containing e-cigarettes; and Allen Carr’s Easyway in-person group seminars. However, it is the case that, throughout the country, most stop smoking services do not offer Allen Carr’s support as one of those options; they go for the easy options, if you like, of nicotine replacements and e-cigarettes.
The crucial difference is that, if one stops smoking in the old-fashioned way, one gives up not only cigarettes but nicotine. If, as some of us have found, you move from cigarettes to vapes or other nicotine-replacement devices, you may give up smoking, which may be very good for you, but you do not break the habit or the addiction to nicotine. It is much easier for the local stop smoking services to encourage that path, and so very often they do not follow the NICE guidelines, despite the fact that they are required to.
The Government provide, I believe, about £150 million a year in grant funding for local smoking cessation services. My request is that the Government make it a condition of those grants that all the NICE-recommended methods be supplied by the local smoking cessation service before it receives a grant. I do not expect the Minister to give that commitment at the Dispatch Box today, because of a lack of preparation—I have given her no warning of what I was going to say—but I hope she will be able to write to me and say that that will be a course that the Government will want to follow. If necessary, I am very happy to facilitate a meeting between her and the people from Allen Carr’s Easyway, so that they can describe the good work they do and explain the difficulty they have in reaching smokers through local smoking cessation services, despite the requirement placed on them to facilitate that. I beg to move.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I shall say a few words in support of Amendment 147 from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. I think his intention is quite correct for the following reason. Many of those who wish to stop smoking want to be released from the addiction to nicotine altogether, as they did in the old-fashioned way, as he has just said. They do not just want a less harmful nicotine hit. It is an expensive and harmful addiction, particularly for the developing young brain, yet we are told that many young people are becoming addicted to nicotine through vapes and tobacco pouches, and there is no help for them to quit in many places. As the noble Lord said, NICE guidelines list four services that should be available, including behavioural interventions and in-person group sessions, to help people quit, as well as nicotine-containing replacements for tobacco, which are available in most local stop smoking services. I have received a briefing from Allen Carr’s Easyway, although I have never come across the company before.
There is some evidence that some people who manage to stop smoking tobacco by using a nicotine replacement go back to smoking tobacco in the end. Quitting nicotine altogether has been shown to be more sustainable; people go back to smoking less often when they have managed to kick the nicotine habit as well. I assume that that is why NICE has recommended that services to get off nicotine addiction must be offered as well as vapes and patches. I note that, in its guidelines, NICE does not say “should” or “could”; it says “must”.
The ultimate role of NICE is to ensure that people across the UK have access to the most effective and cost-effective treatments and services; that is why it says that all four methods of quitting should be available. It may be much easier, quicker and even cheaper just to hand out patches and vapes—it is certainly much more difficult to arrange behavioural therapies and group therapies—but, for some people who want to quit smoking, it is more effective for them to have behavioural therapy, group therapy and the help of Allen Carr’s Easyway. That company must be good, authentic and of a high quality if it is recommended by NICE.
I certainly support the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, in his amendment.
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, I cannot put it better than the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has just done in relation to the recommendations about Allen Carr’s Easyway, which has been warmly endorsed by NICE in its guidelines. This is one of the four interventions that NICE recommends. The content of those guidelines should now be underlined for NHS smoking cessation clinics, to ensure that, exactly as the noble Baroness said, there is an option for those who do not want to remain addicted to nicotine when they elect to stop smoking.
I hope that the Minister will take this amendment away with her; I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Moylan for raising this issue. I say to him that there is probably another dimension to his amendment, if one takes literally the wording around what constitutes an appropriate level of nicotine in vapes. We have heard from the Minister that there is a power to regulate this in the Bill. However, again, we have a tension here: on the one hand, there are obvious arguments in favour of limiting the strength of nicotine in vapes that are used recreationally; on the other hand, we want vape dosages of nicotine to be strong enough to satisfy the addictive craving of someone who is hooked on smoking tobacco and who does not wish to go down the Allen Carr route. If you make the dosage too weak, the patient will simply revert to their former harmful habits.
My noble friend’s amendment is also useful in the sense that it would enable us to hear from the Minister how the Government propose to reconcile those dual objectives and the potential difficulties that face policymakers in attempting to regulate nicotine strengths. This short debate has brought us to an interesting point in the smoking cessation arguments. I look forward to what the Minister has to say.
Tobacco and Vapes Bill
Baroness Walmsley ExcerptsTuesday 11th November 2025
(5 days, 9 hours ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Tobacco and Vapes Bill 2024-26 View all Tobacco and Vapes Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 89-IV(b) Amendment for Grand Committee (Supplementary to the Fourth Marshalled List) - (11 Nov 2025)
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 81 and 83, but as this is Committee I also note the virtues of Amendment 89 from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. We will soon find out which one the Minister prefers, if either of them.
My amendments would ensure that the money from the fixed penalty notices goes to the local authority to pay for public health initiatives determined by the authority. As the Committee knows, local authorities are very hard up. Indeed, some are going into administration. I know from my work on food and health that the public health grant is stretched to breaking point for obesity services, let alone all the other services that we are talking about, such as smoking quitting services. All that makes the burden assessment, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, very important, so I too would be interested to hear where it is.
Although I hope that the level of compliance with the new laws will be high, so that there is no need for too many fixed penalty notices, I believe there is virtue in the idea that such fines should support smoking cessation services. I am afraid that at the moment there is limited access to these services. As I have said before, young people who wish to stop vaping also complain of a lack of services to help them to do so. One would hope that what I should perhaps call the traffic warden syndrome, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, would not happen—but, of course, if people are breaking the law, they will need to pay the penalty. One would not want small businesses to be overburdened by constant vigilance on that score.
However, if the Minister were minded to accept one of my noble friend Lord Russell’s amendments in another group, on a levy on the profits of tobacco companies to support the NHS and smoking cessation services, that might be even better because it would raise a lot more money, which could be spent on cessation and prevention. That is the subject of a different discussion.
Why is the additional government funding for trading standards not enough? Is it enough or not? Perhaps the proceeds of fixed penalties should go to enforcement, rather than helping people to quit smoking and vaping. Prevention is always better and cheaper than cure and enforcement.
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, taken together, this group of amendments focuses on the question of how the new fixed penalty notice regime will operate in practice, how enforcement will be resourced and how local authorities will be supported in carrying out their duties under the Bill. Those are all important themes.
Amendment 74 in the name of my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister proposes a stepped approach to fixed penalty notices reflecting the number of times a person has been issued with a notice. That makes a lot of sense to me. The first time somebody commits an offence should surely be treated differently from the fourth or fifth time. I hope that enforcement officials will want to do this anyway, but such an approach would help strike a balance between giving people the benefit of the doubt—particularly as this will be, at the beginning, a complex new framework of rules—and ensuring that repeated non-compliance is dealt with properly.
That spirit of proportion and fairness also underpins Amendment 77, which would give local enforcement authorities the discretion to issue a formal warning notice to first-time offenders in lieu of a fixed penalty. I hope that the Minister will recognise the constructive intent behind both proposals.
I turn to the series of amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Lansley, which seek to ensure that the proceeds of fixed penalty notices arising from offences under Clauses 17 and 20 are used to support trading standards teams directly, rather than being absorbed into the Consolidated Fund. Like my noble friend, I can see no real reason why the proceeds of fixed penalty notices arising from those breaches should not be treated in exactly the same way as the proceeds of other fixed penalty notices or fines. Trading standards officers are at the forefront of enforcing the Bill’s provisions.
There is, perhaps, a debate to be had about whether hypothecation along those lines creates an incentive for enforcement officers not to exercise the kind of discretion favoured by my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister. However—I admit that this is entirely guesswork on my part; I hope the Minister can illuminate us further— I do not think we should expect the yield from fixed penalty notices to be all that great in the scheme of things. This means that the incentive for overzealousness is likely to be more theoretical than real, so on balance I can identify with my noble friend’s argument that the resources generated by enforcement officers through their activity should be reinvested to strengthen their own capacity.
Amendments 81 and 83 from the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, would instead direct the revenue from fixed penalty notices towards local public health projects. This idea has considerable merit. There are some practical considerations because such a funding stream would, by definition, be inherently unreliable—and, in the context of a local authority budget, it would probably be very small beer—but, in any case, as the noble Baroness said, we hope that the number of penalty notices issued under this part of the Bill will start at a low level then decline even further as we go along.
Nevertheless, the noble Baroness asked an important question about how enforcement and public health objectives can be more closely aligned. I would be grateful if the Minister could set out how the Government see the relationship between enforcement activity and public health outcomes—specifically, how enforcement might be used not only to punish but to deter and to prevent the behaviours that lead to such offences in the first place. If the Minister can convincingly join the dots, as it were, I will have a better basis for assessing the merits of the noble Baroness’s amendment.
Finally, I turn to Amendment 204 tabled by my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister. This is a welcome and sensible amendment. It highlights the central role of local authorities in delivering and enforcing the provisions of the Bill. It is no secret that local authorities are already under significant financial strain, as has been said, and yet this Bill leans heavily on them for its success. I think it is fair that they are given certainty that the additional duties and regulations imposed on them will not leave them further out of pocket. With that, I look forward to what the Minister has to say.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, we have had a great debate. Those noble Lords who know me know that, like the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, I am a great supporter of this Bill, and I would not want to do anything to weaken it. Noble Lords who know me also know that I am a great supporter of evidence-based policy. I therefore looked very carefully and thoughtfully at this group of amendments, and asked myself a number of questions.
First, would this group of amendments interfere with the principal core objective of the Bill, which is to deter young people from smoking highly addictive tobacco products and achieve a smoke-free generation? This is a desirable objective both for the physical, mental and financial health of the individual and for the cost to the NHS and overall economy, which affects all of us as taxpayers. I concluded that, in one case, these amendments would affect the core objective of the Bill, and that is the case of snuff. I am very sorry that the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, has included snuff along with handmade tobacco. My noble friend Lord Russell has already outlined the evidence that snuff is a problem for young people, and it can be very dangerous.
I also concluded that, on the basis of the evidence currently available to me, these amendments are unlikely to affect that objective, because of the very high cost of cigars compared with other tobacco products. But we need to be careful, as the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, just outlined, about the unintended consequences of any exemption because the tobacco industry is very clever and driven by high profits. There is some evidence that, albeit not harmless, cigars have less effect on health than other tobacco products, as they are not inhaled, have no additives and therefore are probably less addictive and certainly smoked less frequently than cigarettes.
I am a fan of evidence-based policy, but I am also a fan of fairness, so I asked myself: is the legislation fair in this respect? I thought initially about small retailers that sell cigarettes, vapes and many other products. Under the terms of the Bill, they will have to adjust their business plans gradually, over many years, to account for the loss of one potential year’s cohort of young smokers to whom they will no longer be legally able to sell cigarettes. That adjustment and time period are not unreasonable and that is what the Bill does.
However, there is one group of small retailers that claim they would lose their business entirely with no gradual adjustment if the Bill is not amended. They are the sellers of exclusive handmade cigars. I have never smoked a cigar in my life, but I am concerned about all small retailers and about fairness. This is because we are told that the nature of the global market, of which the UK is only 2%, is such that they would not be able to comply with packaging regulations.
I then asked myself if it is fair to existing smokers. The Bill is considerate to existing smokers of cigarettes, currently over 18, who are addicted to cigarettes and who will be able to continue smoking them until they die if they really need to. Of course, we need to help more of them to quit, as so many want to do. But is it fair to smokers of cigars? If the sector briefing is correct, they will not be able to buy compliant cigars in this country once the Bill is passed. I asked myself if that is fair to them.
I then asked myself whether exempting cigars from the legislation would create a loophole and encourage young people to switch from cigarettes, vapes and all the other much cheaper forms of nicotine-delivering mechanisms to cigars, which cost over £20 per unit. I think this is very unlikely. There is also the potential of people moving to cigarillos, as has just been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, so any exemption would have to be carefully drafted. Actually, Amendment 104 is quite carefully drafted, apart from my criticism about the inclusion of snuff. Something very similar would need to be drafted to avoid the industry using it to lure young people into smoking.
Lastly, I asked myself what the evidence is to include handmade cigars in the scope of the Bill. As I understand it, the evidence is based on a single study that lumped together a large group of non-cigarette tobacco products, all of which are very different from each other. This has been mentioned in the debate. Lumping them together like that, without the desirable granularity of getting evidence about each individual type of product, resulted in evidence of increased usage. We know that there is a rise in use of tobacco pouches and heated tobacco among young people, but what about cigars? Is there any evidence that young people are increasingly smoking them? I have not seen any up to this point, so perhaps the Minister can point us to the evidence that young people start smoking by using cigars and that the incidence of them doing so is rising or that they report an intention of turning to cigars if they cannot legally get hold of cigarettes.
In the light of all that, I think the Government need to show that they have taken evidence from specialist cigar retailers and their customers about all the issues that I have just mentioned. The Minister has frequently told us that her team has talked a lot to small retailers and their industry representatives, and I know she has done so when it comes to small corner shops that sell a variety of different nicotine-delivery mechanisms. So could she give us chapter and verse on when and how frequently her team have spoken to this particular and rather different group of small retailers? If she and her team do so, they may be open to the suggestion that further consultation and evidence on this issue is required, possibly followed by a careful and watertight exemption from parts of the Bill—if the evidence is there.
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, the amendments in this group speak to a set of principles that my noble friend Lord Kamall and I have emphasised throughout our scrutiny of the Bill: namely, that the policies set out in legislation should reflect its core purpose, but that unintended consequences that do disproportionate damage should be avoided. We can avoid those consequences by adopting policies that take account of the facts not just in one policy dimension but in all other relevant dimensions—in other words, as my noble friend Lord Lindsay put it, policies that are truly evidence based.
My many noble friends, together with the noble Baronesses, Lady Hoey, Lady Fox and Lady Walmsley, and the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, have made the case—in my view, a convincing one—that, when it comes to those tobacco products that occupy what is, by any measure, a niche position in the marketplace, most especially handmade Havana cigars, a much wider set of considerations should be factored into policy-making than those that apply to the vast generality of tobacco products, such as cigarettes, which are both mass produced and mass consumed.
Handmade cigars are a world away from what we typically refer to as the tobacco industry. As someone who was a Health Minister for a full five-year Parliament, I know how difficult a proposition that is for Health Ministers to accept. The Department of Health and Social Care rightly sees it as its function to preach the ills of tobacco in all its forms and to take every possible step to constrain the demand for tobacco products for the good of patients and the public. I completely understand that.
As a Minister, I was proud to take through Parliament the measures proposed by my noble friend Lord Lansley that mandated plain packaging for cigarettes, and as an opposition spokesman I supported the policy of the last Labour Government to ban smoking in the workplace. I need no persuading about the damage to health caused by both active and passive smoking. However, I have also been consistent in acknowledging that there are one or two narrow areas of tobacco regulation—
Tobacco and Vapes Bill
Baroness Walmsley ExcerptsMonday 3rd November 2025
(1 week, 6 days ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Tobacco and Vapes Bill 2024-26 View all Tobacco and Vapes Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 89-III(a) Amendment for Grand Committee (Supplementary to the Third Marshalled List) - (3 Nov 2025)
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)
I support this group of amendments. It is absolutely right that we have a thoroughgoing licensing scheme. Many people would be very surprised to find that we do not have a licensing scheme for tobacco, as we do for alcohol. It is unregulated, so I welcome the proposals to have a thoroughgoing licensing scheme. It should be streamlined; we need to recognise that the vast majority, as has been said by my noble friend, comply with the law and are fully responsible.
In developing a licensing scheme, we need to look at the experience of other, diverse countries that have a licensing scheme—Finland, Hungary, France, Italy, Spain, Australia, Canada and Singapore, to name some—because there is a lot to be learned from them. I urge the Minister to have a good look at what is happening elsewhere.
A vaping licensing scheme is particularly welcome. Currently, vapes are prolific on our high streets, in markets and at counters in nail salons, and so on. They are unregulated, and that must change to protect people and hold those that are responsible to account. I very much welcome the move to have a licensing scheme here, and I associate myself with what my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering has just said.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, these amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, from whom we will hear later, address the details of a licensing scheme, which could, I believe, be better worked out during consultation and are better put in regulations than on the face of the Bill.
I think there are problems with the suggestion that there should be a joint alcohol and tobacco products licence—as superficially attractive as that may sound. This is for two reasons. The first is practical; there are plenty of retailers who sell both ranges of products, but there are plenty who do not, including some small shops and specialist vaping retailers. Let us not overcomplicate this by having several kinds of licence: joint and single.
The second reason is even more serious, because the objectives of the two schemes are not the same. The objective of the tobacco and vapes licencing scheme should be public health. Indeed, that is the main justification for the generational ban and other restrictive aspects of this Bill. On the other hand, public health was not the objective of the design of the original alcohol licence, and things are set to get worse—which I will come to. Therefore, there are issues about putting the two together.
On Amendment 35, there is a case for restricting the density of tobacco and vapes licensed premises in a local area on public health grounds. Local authorities already have the powers to limit the density of fast-food outlets in certain areas, such as near schools, on the basis that the food they sell is often high in fat, salt and sugars, and is energy dense. Why should local authorities not have the same powers for the density of shops selling tobacco and its various products? Therefore, I oppose Amendment 35. Density is better decided by the local licensing authority, which knows and understands its own area. It is not something that should be on the face of the Bill but something that should be considered in consultation.
I turn now to Amendments 30 and 42. The Government have recently launched a rapid consultation on alcohol licensing, led by an industry task force that would see “growth” incorporated as an objective of the revised scheme, rather than public health. Its recommendations have been warmly welcomed by the Government, but I would advise caution, especially in the light of calls for joint tobacco and alcohol licences today. It is true that hospitality outlets can be important for people’s well-being and community cohesion and often provide economic benefits to local communities. However, many of them rely nowadays more on the sale of meals than on just alcohol and provide an opportunity for family outings. The implication by the industry in the recommendations of the task force is that people cannot enjoy themselves unless they are consuming alcohol. That is, of course, a nonsense suggestion. By the way, each of the three working groups was led by a senior member of the industry and there was no representation on the task force from the Department of Health and Social Care or public health bodies, despite public health acting as the responsible authority for local licensing committees.
The task force report defines the core purpose of licensing as economic enablement and sets out a series of mechanisms to promote that approach. The foreword in the Government’s response, written by the Minister for Services, Small Business and Exports, not only describes licensed hospitality as “foundational” to the UK economy but as selling “happiness, creating lasting memories”, and providing
“the glue that binds us together as a society”.
This is language that, if used in alcohol marketing, would probably breach the industry’s own code of conduct.
The task force’s recommendations would undermine the powers of elected local authorities in several ways: first, by the creation of a quasi-statutory national licensing policy framework to direct local decision-making; secondly, by the automatic addition of off-sales permissions to all on-sales licences; thirdly, by the enhanced powers for unelected licensing officers to override decisions of elected officers on licensing committees; fourthly, through the
“Requirement to link licensing to economic development and culture policies”;
fifthly, by a blanket “amnesty” on licensing conditions deemed to be
“outdated in the modern world”—
deemed by whom, I ask—and, finally, by the imposition of a higher evidential bar for objections to licence applications, with adherence determined solely by licensing officers.
That is why there should be no attempt to link alcohol licences under such a regime with tobacco retail licences. There are other ways of helping the hospitality industry rather than undermining the very foundation of the alcohol sales licensing regime by attacking local democracy in this way.
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, in speaking to Amendments 35 and 42 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Kamall, I will also express my strong support for Amendment 30, moved by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering. All the amendments in this group are guided by an important principle. The success of a new licensing regime will depend not only on the strength of the associated enforcement powers but on the fairness, proportionality and practicality with which those powers are exercised.
Amendment 30 is a sensible and fair proposal. It acknowledges that the vast majority of retailers selling tobacco and vape products do so responsibly and already operate under stringent regulatory regimes. Many of those businesses hold alcohol premises licences and are personal licence holders, and as such as are meticulous in complying with the rules and standards legally in force to prevent under-age sales and the supply of illicit goods.
Clause 16 will impose new licensing obligations, checks and costs. Taken together, for many small independent businesses they will represent a significant administrative and financial burden. My noble friend’s amendment simply asks that the Government recognise the existing history of compliance by allowing a streamlined process for those that have already demonstrated that they meet high licensing standards elsewhere. This would embed efficiency and fairness into the enforcement system and reward good practice. It would save time and cost for retailers and allow enforcement resources to be focused where they are most needed, on those who persistently flout the rules.
Amendment 35 turns to another crucial point of principle: fairness and proportionality in how licensing powers are applied. As drafted, Schedule 1 would allow licensing authorities to impose proximity or density restrictions, in effect preventing a licence being granted simply because a premises happens to fall within a designated zone or is near other retailers that sell similar products. That is an extremely broad and, frankly, concerning power. It risks punishing businesses not because they are non-compliant through choice or negligence but simply because of where they are located.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, just to clarify on the previous group and to quote myself, I advised caution about the idea of combining the two kinds of licences, specifically because of the strong possibility of fundamental change to the remit of the alcohol licences.
On this group of amendments beginning with Amendment 32 in the names the noble Lord, Lord Kamal and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, it is important that the Government do not delay unduly in laying out the details of the new licensing scheme. That is only fair to retailers who need to respond to it. However, it is also important to get it right, and it is a highly technical issue. There will be a lot of noise about the workability of elements of this Bill without adding to that by getting the licensing scheme wrong, and I am sure the Government are aware of that. However, I am also aware that the Government have already issued a further call for evidence on the technicalities of the scheme, which I hope will help them to iron out any problems. I hope that they do not hang about over this, as they did with putting the Bill into your Lordships’ Committee—which we awaited with bated breath; it took a long time—but I do not support rushing such a technical process. Therefore, I do not support putting these amendments with their specific timescales on the face of the Bill. I look forward to the consultation.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for the amendments in this group.
I note the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, that the noble Lord, Lord Mott, is not in his place to speak to his amendments, but I will just touch on them briefly, if I may. Basically, his amendments seek to require licensing regulations to be made within three months of the relevant provisions in the Bill coming into force. The amendments would also extend the existing retailer register in Northern Ireland. I emphasise that, of course, the Government share the noble Lord’s desire to move as quickly as possible to implement the licensing scheme. That is why we have recently launched the call for evidence on the range of issues that we have laid out, including questions on the design of the retail licensing scheme. The feedback received will be absolutely critical, and we want to get on and launch this as soon as possible. However, it is also important that the Government have sufficient time to ensure that the regulations are properly thought through. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Mott, when he hears the discussion, will be reassured and understand that three months is not sufficient time to run a consultation, analyse the feedback received and prepare well-considered regulations. That is as much as I shall say on his amendments.
Turning to the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, I hope to give him the reassurance that he seeks, as we discussed in last week’s Committee, that I understand these particular concerns. His amendments would similarly require Ministers to publish draft regulations implementing a retail licensing scheme for England and Wales within six months of the Bill achieving Royal Assent. The Government are committed to ensuring that those impacted by regulations and those with expertise have the opportunity to contribute their views. We want to minimise additional costs and burdens as far as possible, while ensuring that the scheme is a success and achieves our aims of supporting legitimate businesses as well as tackling those that disregard the law. Again, the recently published call for evidence seeks input on a range of topics, including the implementation of the retail licensing scheme. As I have said, this will inform the consultation, which we will launch as soon as possible.
To respond directly to the noble Lord’s comments, our call for evidence also asks about the implementation of the scheme and how long will be required to implement the policy. We will, of course, work through the appropriate channels to ensure that businesses have the necessary guidance to implement the changes. I cannot emphasise enough that this is for all businesses, regardless of their size or the organisations that represent them. We want to make sure that we get that message out loud and clear, so that they have confidence that their views will be regarded with the same importance as all those who contribute to the policy.
I note the noble Baroness’s comments about making sure that we get this right, so we cannot be beholden to specific timeframes on the face of the Bill. We all acknowledge that this is a complex policy and, while we want to move swiftly, it is important that there is enough time to ensure that the policy is properly thought through before developing regulations. I repeat that requiring the Government to publish draft regulations before adequate consultation may risk creating a flawed policy. For the reasons that I have outlined, bringing together previous comments, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)
My Lords, in supporting this group of amendments, it is clear that the very word “filter” is the most misleading of epithets. It leads many people to believe they make smoking safer. I would take a lot of convincing that people are not led to believe it is safer by the use of that very misleading epithet. It is not the point that filters do not make smoking more dangerous—incidentally, some of the early filters actually contained asbestos, so there were certainly some at an early stage that did make smoking much more dangerous. Leaving that on one side, the whole point is that people are misled into believing that smoking with filters is safer. That is the reason for Amendment 33.
There is a logic to the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, that I find compelling. The fact that we can do something in relation to the environment as well as to health is not a reason for not acting; it is a reason for acting. The suggestion from the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that the state has no role here or only a qualified role and should not be entering this area, I find staggering. There is every reason we should be doing so in my humble opinion. Therefore, I strongly support Amendments 33 and 34.
On Amendments 141 and 143 proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, there is unimpeachable logic in putting a warning on something if you are trying to deter people from using it. I do not think it is sufficient that it is on packets; there are many people who will have a single cigarette proposed to them. They will see the warning there, and there will be publicity given to that warning. It is not just the warning on the cigarettes; the fact the Government are doing that will mean it is more widely known.
There is a great logic, and I urge the Minister to be bold. It is not sufficient that we are having this generational ban, important though that is. There is a reason for moving more quickly and forcefully in relation to the amendments, and an unimpeachable logic to trying to iron out the position on filters, which are indeed a giant fraud.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 34 in the name of my noble friend Lord Russell and Amendments 141 and 143 in the name of my noble friend Lord Rennard. I will also rehearse arguments in favour of Amendment 33 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for the consideration of the Committee. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, suggested there is some confusion about why people might want to ban filters. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, that a ban is about both public health and environmental considerations.
It has been clearly shown that filters of all kinds have no health benefits whatever. Indeed, I maintain that they are actively harmful to health, but I will come to that later. They are also very costly to public authorities and bad for wildlife and the environment. Filters have been called, by a Back-Bench Member of the government party,
“the deadliest fraud in the history of human civilisation”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/3/25; col. 1043.]
because they were formerly advertised—when cigarette advertising was still allowed—as being safer and less harmful to health than cigarettes without filters. This lie has had a long tail because even now only 25% of people understand that they have no health benefits.
As a result of the false perception that the filter—because of its very name as pointed out by the noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Bourne—removes some of the tar and other harmful tobacco chemicals, evidence shows that smokers of filtered cigarettes inhale deeper and more frequently. Proof that filters were invented to deceive is the fact that they were deliberately made from a white substance which turns brown when heated, adding to the illusion that they were removing some of the harmful elements from the tobacco smoke. This was deliberately to mislead the smoker.
Filters of all kinds are bad for the environment. The plastic ones in particular contain thousands of toxic substances, including microplastics and nanoplastics. They take up to 10 years to break down in the environment, releasing all these microplastics as well as the 7,000 toxic chemicals from the on average five millimetres of tobacco that remains attached to each butt. These are washed into our soils and water systems and damage marine life, other wildlife and our drinking water.
Microplastics are ubiquitous. They have been found from the top of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans. They cause cancer, including colorectal, liver, pancreatic, breast and lung cancers, and the levels of them found in human brains—causing who knows what effects—have increased by 50% since 2016, according to pathologists. Even the so-called biodegradable ones contain microplastics in the glue and in any case take a very long time to break down. I deliberately put one in my compost heap, and it was still there a year later. In any case, they, too, always have some tobacco attached. They have zero health benefit and lead to a false sense of security.
The environmental damage is also very costly. We all pay to clean them up when they are discarded through littering; as has been said, local authorities spend £40 million every year, money paid by taxpayers—you and I—which could be better spent on public health and other services. Some 86% of the public and even most smokers believe that manufacturers should switch to fully biodegradable filters rather than plastic ones, but, frankly, I think that is not enough to fix the problem, for the reasons I have outlined.
The killer fact, to coin a phrase, is that there is a strong epidemiological link between the rise in the prevalence of cigarettes containing filters and the proportionate rise of a kind of cancer called adenocarcinoma, while other lung cancers have fallen along with the reduced prevalence of smoking overall. A paper by Min-Ae Song et al published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in America in 2017 analysed 3,284 citations in scientific literature and internal tobacco company documents and concluded thus:
“The analysis strongly suggests that filter ventilation has contributed to the rise in lung adenocarcinomas among smokers. Thus, the FDA should consider regulating its use, up to and including a ban”.
Indeed, such a link had originally been suggested by the surgeon-general as far back as 2014. Therefore, I am inclined to support Amendment 33 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, but at the very least I hope the Government will accept Amendment 34 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Russell.
On Amendments 141 and 143 in the name of my noble friend Lord Rennard, I hope the Minister will see the sense of consulting on this. Not every cigarette smoked by a child or a young person or an adult smoker comes immediately out of a packet bearing health warnings. Many children, when they start illicit smoking, share a packet among themselves and many never get to see the packet at all. That is why the principle, already accepted by successive Governments, that a health warning on the packet should accompany tobacco-containing products should apply to individual products and not just the packaging. I am aware that the Government plan to make sure that there is an insert in each packet signposting smokers to cessation services and products. This is a welcome positive measure to accompany the deterrent measures of health warnings, but it is not enough. I am sure the first thing many will do is throw away the insert and never read it, as people sometimes do with pills. They cannot throw away the paper that wraps the cigarette. That is why it would be the most effective place to put the warnings.
If you believe that the health warnings on packages work and deter, how much more effective would it be to reinforce that message every time a cigarette is removed from them? A consultation and a review of the evidence of the ban in other countries would be a good idea, and I recommend it to the Minister.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Walmsley, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for introducing the amendments in their names.
Baroness Walmsley
“Prohibition of distribution of tobacco products etc in England without a licence(1) An individual must not do any of the following things in the course of business in England, except under the authority of and in accordance with a commercial distribution licence—(a) distribute relevant products to any person;(b) possess relevant products for the purpose of their distribution (by the individual or another person).(2) A person must not in the course of business use or permit the use of premises in England for any of the following except under the authority of and in accordance with a premises distribution licence—(a) the storage of relevant products for the purpose of their distribution (by the person or another person);(b) the supply of relevant products to businesses or wholesale purchasers.(3) The Secretary of State may by regulations create exceptions to the prohibition in subsection (1) or (2).(4) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision for and in connection with the grant of commercial distribution licences and premises distribution licences.(5) Before making regulations under this section, the Secretary of State must consult any persons that the Secretary of State considers it appropriate to consult.(6) Schedule (Distributor licensing scheme: England) makes further provision about regulations under subsection (4).(7) Regulations under this section are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.(8) In this section—“commercial distribution licence” means a licence granted by a licensing authority that authorises a business to do the things mentioned in subsection (1);“distribution” means the supply of products to retail businesses, wholesale distributors, and other forms of non-retail supply;“grant” includes variation or renewal;“licensing authority” has the meaning given by paragraph of Schedule (Distributor licensing scheme: England);“premises distribution licence” means a licence granted by a licensing authority that authorises the use of premises for the purposes listed in subsection (2);“relevant products” means—(a) tobacco products;(b) herbal smoking products;(c) cigarette papers;(d) vaping products;(e) nicotine products;“supply” includes despatch;“wholesale distributors” are businesses that offer goods for sale that are sold to persons for resale by them or for processing and resale by them, to members of the general public for their use or consumption.”
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, this group of amendments starting from Amendment 39 and ending at Amendment 212—apart from Amendment 119, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe—are an attempt by the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, who cannot be in his place today, and myself to provide a framework for regulating the wholesale and distribution element of the supply chain for tobacco products.
For the sake of transparency, the development of this framework has been led by the UK’s largest online vaping retailer, Vape Club, which is a founding member of the UK Vaping Industry Association and operates independently of any member of the tobacco industry. The creation of the proposed scheme involved consultation with multiple key industry stakeholders, including trading standards and the Association of Convenience Stores, excluding representatives from the tobacco industry. I am aware that it is in the interest of these organisations to do everything possible to tackle the illicit market.
This set of amendments would require businesses distributing or storing tobacco, vaping and nicotine products for commercial purposes to obtain and operate under a valid licence. It outlines offences and penalties in England, Wales and Northern Ireland; Scotland has its own system.
These amendments deliver two key benefits. They would help to tackle the rise in youth vaping and to curb illicit trade in tobacco products, although we are aware that the number of illicit cigarettes smoked in the UK has declined by 90% since 2000. I also accept, as the Minister has often said, that the best way to eliminate the illicit market in tobacco-containing products—I use that phrase carefully—is to eliminate demand, which is the objective of this Bill.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, for his comments and to the Minister for her response. The very fact that there is an illicit market is an indication that there are gaps in enforcement. This group of amendments is an effort to control that illicit market or, at the very least, to deter illicit supply by way of the size of the financial penalties proposed.
The Minister mentioned vapes laced with spice, which are often obtained online by young people from websites with a very poor level of age restriction. Many of them do not even know what they are getting because many of these products claim to have THC, the active element of cannabis, in them and do not mention spice at all. Perhaps that leads us to reconsider the earlier amendment that proposed a ban on online sales, because it might get rid of that problem.
However, I accept that the Government are keen on controlling the illicit market. That the strategy will be based on the illicit tobacco strategy will help, because it will be based on lessons learned, I hope. So I am content for the moment to look forward to the increased powers of HMRC and increased funding for enforcement. I will not press my amendments any further.
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, I feel it is appropriate that we should have at least a short debate on Clauses 35, 36, 129 and 130, partly because they raise concerns that are very similar to those I had intended to flag when responding to the group of government amendments that were, in the event, not moved. Our debate on that group of amendments must remain a pleasure in store.
However, these clauses together confer on Ministers the power to take over the enforcement and prosecutions of local authorities or other enforcement authorities, either for individual cases or entire categories of cases. The inclusion of these powers in the Bill needs explaining, first, because they appear to go much further than is necessary or appropriate and, secondly, because they raise a number of important questions about the relationship between central and local enforcement and about accountability.
At present, the Bill rightly places day-to-day enforcement in the hands of local weights and measures authorities, which have the expertise, local knowledge and operational independence needed to make these judgments. Under these clauses, however, the Secretary of State or the devolved Ministers could simply direct that those functions are to be discharged instead by Ministers centrally. There is no statutory test to be met before that happens, no requirement for the local authority to have failed or refused to act, and no mechanism for consultation, appeal or review.
By any standard, that is a very wide power to exercise over democratically elected local authorities. In effect, it allows central government to displace local enforcement at will. Inherent in the exercise of this power is a risk that enforcement decisions become politicised. Local authorities act impartially and are guided by the evidential tests and the public interest. One can imagine a situation in which a future Government—I am not saying this one—choose to intervene and adopt an approach of their own when taking over investigations or prosecutions. How will we safeguard the impartiality of decision-making? How will the basis of any decisions be scrutinised or, indeed, challenged?
There is the added issue of proportionality. If these are intended as reserve powers for exceptional circumstances, the Bill should say so. At the moment, there are no thresholds, no published criteria and no requirement even to lay a Statement before Parliament when such powers are used.
We have tabled these stand part notices to probe the Government on several points, and I would be grateful if the Minister could respond to the following questions. First, why does the Secretary of State need these powers at all, given the enforcement architecture already in existence and set out elsewhere in the Bill? Secondly, in what circumstances does the Minister envisage using them? Is this a genuine power of last resort or something that might be used more routinely? Thirdly, what safeguards will there be for local authorities whose functions are overridden? Will they be consulted, or have the right of challenge? Fourthly, how will accountability work once a Minister takes over enforcement? Will there be a published direction, a report to Parliament or any means of scrutiny? Finally, how do these powers sit with the devolved authorities?
We all want effective enforcement of the law, and there may be rare cases where national co-ordination is required. However, I think we need some further and better particulars from the Minister.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I am afraid I do not support the wish of the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, to delete Clause 35 and its associated clauses. I do not believe that the backstop, which enables the Secretary of State to take over enforcement from trading standards, is a power grab; it is necessary in case a local authority goes into administration and cannot fund trading standards. Similar measures to protect social services in the case of a local authority going into administration can be found in the Care Act 2014, amended by the Health and Care Act 2022. The Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016 recognise that there may be situations where it is more appropriate for the Secretary of State to act rather than local weights and measures authorities.
Tobacco and Vapes Bill
Baroness Walmsley ExcerptsThursday 30th October 2025
(2 weeks, 3 days ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Tobacco and Vapes Bill 2024-26 View all Tobacco and Vapes Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 89-II(b) Amendments for Grand Committee (Supplementary to the Second Marshalled List) - (30 Oct 2025)
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)
My Lords, in support of the speech we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, there is ample evidence of successful earlier levies, contrary to what the noble Baroness suggested. They include levies on landfill and soft drinks as well as provisions following Grenfell, as my noble friend said. In the gambling industry, there is also a very successful levy. Nor is it a unique matter to require companies to publish data, with the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, correctly naming water and energy as two examples.
I can quite see why the Minister is attracted to the idea of the levy. In this hard-pressed time, we have hard-pressed taxpayers about to be even more hard pressed; they should not have to pay for the gap in public resources for public health. Nevertheless, there is a gap in the public health budget that needs to be filled—and this will fill it. I can therefore see why the Minister is attracted to it. There is also of course the incalculable harm that is caused by the industry—whether one calls it evil or not. As the noble Baroness mentioned, two-thirds of people who smoke will ultimately die from it—that to me can be characterised as evil. It certainly causes harm, and that harm needs to be dealt with.
So I strongly support this group of amendments. Amendment 12 in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Northover, and Amendment 148 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, concern publishing data. They seem eminently sensible. However, my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham’s amendment would provide a means of getting the polluter to pay. That is something we should seek to do because, as noble as the aims of this legislation are, there is a big gap in spending. I do not see why the taxpayer should have to pay for this, but I can quite see why the industry should; I hope, therefore, to hear from the Minister that that is going to happen.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, on behalf of our Benches, I have added my name to my noble friend Lady Northover’s Amendment 12. I also support Amendment 148, of course, although my name is not on it yet; I have a bit of a track record on changing “may” to “must”, so I am very much in favour of that amendment.
As my noble friend said, the tobacco industry sits on a rich source of data that would help public health planners and practitioners to plan and deliver public health smoking cessation services in a granular way. That could help to reduce inequalities, so my noble friend’s Amendments 12 and 148 are no-brainers for the Government in the fight against health inequality, which I know they are in favour of winning. As the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, pointed out, if you have the data, you have a powerful weapon; the industry uses it and the Government should have it.
The data would also shine a light on the massive profits of the tobacco companies, which saw the writing on the wall about the decline of tobacco smoking and shifted part of their business model to hooking young people and existing smokers into being addicted to their nicotine vaping products instead. They then surrounded them with brightly coloured packaging, attractive-sounding flavours and masses of expensive advertising. One has to wonder why they spend so much money on advertising and the attractive displays in my local village shops. Ah, yes—it must be because that enables them to hook people to their profitable products for life.
These profits are addressed in Amendment 192 from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, which is supported by my noble friends Lord Rennard and Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and in my noble friend Lord Russell’s Amendment 194, which I also support. Both amendments propose a levy on the profits of tobacco companies. Tobacco and the nicotine it contains are uniquely harmful products, which is why they should be treated in this way. They are highly addictive for some people from their very first use, by the way; that is sometimes ignored. Tobacco kills more than 76,000 people in England every year—that is almost as many as were killed by Covid in just one year, in 2020—and the four manufacturers that are responsible for most of the UK’s tobacco sales make excessive profits that require regulation. It has been said that they make an estimated profit of £900 million a year in the UK, with an average net operating profit margin of about 50%; as my noble friend Lord Scriven pointed out, most manufacturers of other goods are quite satisfied with an average of 10%. Yet those companies currently pay very little corporation tax in the UK. The tobacco tax of £6.8 billion that they pay does not even scratch the surface of the harm they do; as has been pointed out, that tax is paid by the consumer and not by the producer.
In other areas of society, polluters are required to avoid and minimise pollution and to pay to clean it up. Tobacco companies make no effort to do either. In other monopoly situations, such as energy supply, the Government intervene, yet tobacco companies get away scot free, despite the fact that their products cost the NHS £1.82 billion annually and the ill health caused by them causes major suffering to individuals and families; they also have a major effect on productivity and the economy, costing society in England £43.7 billion a year.
Given this Government’s objectives on growth, I would have thought that a “polluter pays” tobacco levy would be very popular with them, as it is with the general public, 76% of whom support the policy. It could raise up to £700 million per year to fund vital smoking cessation and wider public health activities, as my noble friend Lord Russell suggests in his amendment. It could prevent industry manipulating prices to undermine the health aims of tobacco taxes. A levy would make tobacco less profitable in the UK and reduce industry incentives to lobby against government actions to achieve a smoke-free country. I know that they are very clever lobbyists. Although I trust that this Government will resist such lobbying, this would ensure that the cost burden of taxes is not shifted to consumers because a levy alongside a cap on manufacturer pricing would prevent manufacturers passing the costs on to consumers.
Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death in the UK, alongside obesity caused by poor diet. Investing in the resources raised by the levy to help smokers quit, as in Amendment 194, will support the Government’s ambitions to halve the difference in healthy life expectancy and shift healthcare from treatment to prevention, an ambition outlined strongly in the Government’s 10-year health plan.
These amendments are very much in line with what the Government want. I hope that they will have the courage to accept them. The key principle is that the revenue to tackle the harms of tobacco should come from the industry, not the poor, addicted and often sick consumer, and the cost of the damage caused by tobacco should certainly not come from the taxpayer.
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, this group of amendments addresses common themes: the regulation of the tobacco industry, its profits and its reporting obligations. Collectively, these raise important questions about transparency, fairness, proportionality and the limits of state intervention.
Beginning with Amendments 12 and 148, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Northover and Lady Walmsley, these concern the provision and publication of information by tobacco manufacturers and importers. We recognise the intent behind these amendments: to improve the quality and availability of data so that public health policy can be better informed. Data, transparency and evidence-based policy-making are essential to an effective tobacco control strategy. However, would these amendments enable us to achieve that? Requiring every manufacturer and importer to publish detailed quarterly sales data broken down by product type, brand and region would give us more information, but how useful would it be? The Department of Health and Social Care and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities already have access to significant data from HMRC such as market surveys and other reporting systems. The question usefully begged by this amendment is whether there are any gaps in that data that could usefully be filled.
This brings me to Amendment 148, also tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, which seeks to change Clause 95 so that the Secretary of State “must” rather than “may” make regulations requiring producers and importers to provide information about their products. I would like an answer to my earlier question before I jump one way or the other on that amendment. I appreciate the spirit in which she has tabled it. Having more data would certainly be useful, but we need to know exactly what data before we compel companies across the board to do one thing or another. It is generally better to provide Ministers with flexibility, allowing them to act where there is a clear and proportionate need, without imposing automatic or universal obligations on every business regardless of its size or nature.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
The noble Lord will be glad to know that I am reminded of what I should know already: matters in relation to the dates for Third Reading are matters for business managers. It will also depend on how much progress we make.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
I ask for a brief clarification. Is the Minister claiming that Amendment 12 is not necessary because she will accept Amendment 148?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
No, that is not the case. I urge the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I have a great sympathy for this group of amendments introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Kamall. There should be a limit on the strength of nicotine products which are legally for sale. Some of those products are clearly, from what we have heard from other noble Lords, very dangerous to both physical and mental health. The evidence is emerging on that.
Limiting the strength of something is not a new idea. Strength limits and price controls have been put on various alcoholic drinks, such as white cider, which has been particularly responsible for problem drinking. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, I am concerned about nicotine pouches and young people, because their packaging and flavours make them look like sweets, making them appear very attractive to children. I accept that only a small percentage of tobacco product users buy this form of tobacco product, but a high proportion of those users are young people.
There is not much evidence yet of the effectiveness of such pouches as a smoking quitting tool; they are nowhere near as effective as nicotine patches or vapes. Apparently, only about 3% of quitting efforts are based on them. In fact, you do not need a high concentration for these things to work; nicotine patches work for many users, and they are not particularly strong. However, there are clear dangers with these very strong products. Perhaps this is an area where we need further evidence, so can the Minister say whether it will be covered in the Government’s recent call for further evidence on measures in the Bill? Before we go forward to the next stage, perhaps we could get the results of that consultation.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for raising these points and for bringing forward the amendments to Committee today. Listening to Finn’s story from the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, it is important that we always bear in mind that we are talking about real young people and children and the actual harms that can come to them.
Amendments 13, 14, 15, 139 and 140 seek to introduce a ban on manufacture, sale and possession with intent to supply high-strength oral nicotine products, specifically those containing more than 20 milligrams of nicotine per portion. I say from the outset that we are sympathetic to noble Lords trying to define the correct and safe nicotine level of a nicotine pouch—we need to address that. As we have heard, unlike with nicotine vapes, there is currently no set nicotine limit for nicotine pouches, and nicotine strengths can be as high as 150 milligrams, with the harm that goes with that. There is also significant variation in these strengths internationally.
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.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I will speak first to the amendments from my noble friends. My noble friend Lord Russell and I laid Amendment 21 to probe the issue of the affordability of vapes for young people. Currently, the evidence of the number of young people below the legal age of 18 accessing vapes indicates that they are currently affordable. Not all young people are getting them on the black market, because about half of them state in surveys that they get them from a shop. This certainly raises the question of why retailers are selling vapes to young people without proof of age.
It also raises the role of price. Minimum pricing is a mechanism that has been used for public health reasons to increase the price of alcohol and decrease the amount that people buy. Why do we not take the same approach for vapes? Besides, as I understand it, if the price of vapes is seen as a barrier to quitting, a patient can have them prescribed to them by a doctor. Is that true? Perhaps the Minister will clarify that later.
We want to use this Bill to protect the use of vapes as an effective tool for quitting smoking. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that I do not think there is any contradiction between that and wanting to protect young people from taking up vaping, especially as it sometimes leads to smoking tobacco as well.
We are aware that a vape liquid excise duty will come in next October, which will increase the price of vapes. A smoker who wants to use vapes as a quitting tool will not be deterred from buying vapes if they continue to be cheaper than cigarettes because clearly they can afford cigarettes, so of course they can also afford vapes. Can the Minister reassure us that the concurrent increase in the tax on tobacco will maintain that gap and keep tobacco more expensive than vapes? Do the Government have any granular research on the effect of the price of these products as a deterrent?
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.
Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I had prepared a whole speech opposing Amendment 145, but I have now abandoned it, because the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, made my points for me.
Before I make some observations on that, I take this opportunity to say that, on the first day in Committee, I spoke to an amendment in the first group, but I had to leave before my noble friend the Minister responded. Therefore, I take this opportunity to apologise to the Committee and to my noble friend the Minister for that discourtesy.
The reason I am now slightly perplexed about the intention of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, is that her amendment purports to seek a report and an extra process before the regulations on content and flavour can be introduced. However, as we heard from the noble Baroness, we already know the effects of the ban on single-use vapes: as was widely predicted, trying to ban those products had very limited success in attaining the Government’s environmental and health goals. As has already been said, we can plainly see how the ban has failed every time we walk down our high streets and see very similar products available—I suspect that most people who use vapes cannot tell the difference between them. I put it to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that the report, review and consultation that she seeks have already been answered by what we can see every time we go to the supermarket.
I wonder why, in her view, it will be necessary to hold up the regulations in the way that is proposed. Surely, given the extent of the apparent consensus among Members in Committee that we would like to see youth vaping greatly reduced because of the harm it brings, we would want to see regulations not held up unnecessarily. Obviously, we want the Government to proceed carefully and introduce legislation that will be effective and reach its objectives efficiently, but we have to get on with it and not introduce delays and barriers where they are not necessary. I would be very grateful if the noble Baroness could clarify that.
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.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for these amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Kamall. Amendments 26, 27, 31, 56, 111, 150 to 153 and 213 seek to ensure that the views of consumers, businesses and retailers are captured as part of the consultations on the licensing scheme and the display regulations, as well as before Part 5 of the Bill comes into force.
Let me start by saying I strongly agree with the intention behind the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kamall. When it comes to consulting on the regulations, of course we must ensure that those who will be impacted are able to contribute their views. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, for her constructive comments on the need to do that and on the way we will go forward.
Tobacco and Vapes Bill
Baroness Walmsley ExcerptsMonday 27th October 2025
(2 weeks, 6 days ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Tobacco and Vapes Bill 2024-26 View all Tobacco and Vapes Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 89-I(a) Amendment for Grand Committee (Supplementary to the Marshalled List) - (24 Oct 2025)
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, I want to add a brief footnote to the excellent speeches from my noble friends Lord Bourne and Lord Bethell. This group of amendments is probably the most important one that confronts this Committee because it challenges a major plank underpinning the Government’s approach to this by challenging the generational ban. It is appropriate that this group contains not just the first of the marshalled amendments but the last.
A long time ago, I held the position of the Minister as a Health Minister. From 1979 to 1981, I was in charge of the negotiations with the tobacco industry—the Tobacco Advisory Council as it then was—and I adopted a fairly aggressive negotiation tactic. When I suggested that the health warnings should not be just on the packets but the cigarettes, they told me I could not do this as the ink was carcinogenic. In 1981, my tactics proved a little too much for the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who moved me to a less confrontational position on that issue.
I have listened with respect to the arguments made by my noble friends in favour of Amendment 1, which would basically substitute the generational ban with a ban for anyone under 21. As my noble friend Lord Howe said on Second Reading, these issues involve a balance between personal freedoms on one hand and health gain on the other, a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. Noble Lords may come down on different sides of the argument in free vote territory, but it seems to me the weakness of the amendment is simply its lack of ambition. It does not appear to bring to an end the harm done by the tobacco industry which is the whole point of the generational ban. As the former Prime Minister said last week, it was one of his proudest initiatives of those he introduced when he was Prime Minister.
It is worth just reminding your Lordships that the Bill passed the other place twice, once with a majority of 415 to 47. Last year, when my party was in government and had a free vote, I noted that the vast majority of Conservative MPs voted for the Bill, with just 67 voting against, and only two members of the Cabinet of about 30 voted against. So I hope that the broad policy introduced by the previous Government will continue to be carried through by this one and that a free vote will be allowed on my side for those who take a different view. I also recognise that the Bill is actually a little different from the one that was introduced last year.
This amendment would indeed reduce the harm done by smoking, but the Government’s own assessment concludes that a generational ban promises a far greater effect on smoking prevalence and broader support among young people. We should not want a smaller scale of ambition for a product that has killed a million people in this country over the last 50 years. The increase in the age of sale was a bit of policy conceived on evidence and based on long-term public health reform. It has strong public support, and it is backed by experts.
As the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, said, this does not impact current smokers. The impact on personal freedom is less under the Government’s proposal than under the amendment. The rewards from this are substantial: fewer young people taking up smoking, fewer families suffering avoidable disease and loss, and a future in which our economy and NHS are no longer burdened by the toll from tobacco.
I will say a quick word about the black market. I can do no better than to quote what Victoria Atkins said when this point was raised when she introduced nearly the same Bill last year. On the point about
“the age of sale and the black market, tobacco industry representatives claim that there will be unintended consequences from raising the age of sale. They assert that the black market will boom. Before the smoking age was increased from 16 to 18, they sang from the same hymn sheet, but the facts showed otherwise. The number of illicit cigarettes consumed fell by 25%, and smoking rates for 16 and 17-year-olds dropped by almost a third”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/4/24; col. 188.]
So I recognise the concerns of some of my noble friends on the libertarian wing of my party, but I remind them that crash helmets were made compulsory under the Heath Government in 1973; seatbelts became compulsory for drivers under the Thatcher Government in 1983 and for all passengers in 1981 under John Major. The previous Conservative Government introduced the Health and Care Act, which unblocked progress in adding fluoride to the water supply to promote dental health. So the generational ban is consistent with my party’s approach to public health over the last 50 years and I hope it will be sustained in this Parliament.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I just make a few points that have been raised in the debate. Noble Lords will soon find out that I do not take the same view as my noble friend Lord Scriven; I take the same view as my noble friend Lady Northover. Some of the aspects of this Bill are indeed a free vote for my party.
In this group of amendments, the noble Lord, Lord Murray, intends to remove the generational element. However, as the noble Lords, Lord Bichard and Lord Young, have just mentioned, this is not prohibition for those already addicted to tobacco. In fact, the reason why the generational ban and the way that it works through is a good idea is because it is considerate to people who are already addicted to tobacco. It allows them to have plenty of time to quit if they so wish—the fact is that most of them do, but many find it very difficult. Retailers have been mentioned. The same thing applies to retailers: this gives them an opportunity to gradually adjust their business plan as demand falls. This is a good way of doing it for them as well. Taxation has been mentioned. Of course, taxation on tobacco does not nearly cover the damage that it does, but we will come to “polluter pays” later.
The noble Lord, Lord Murray, has been shouting fire about the illicit market but, on the illicit market, the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, and I have some helpful amendments that we will discuss in a later group, which may help. As the noble Baroness, Lady Carberry, said, the central point of the powers that the Government are taking is to stop people starting in the first place and thereby reduce the market, both legal and illicit. Sadly, the Government have taken so long to bring this before us in Committee that 120,000 young people have started smoking since the Bill was first introduced. Something must be done. It is, as the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, said, a public health crisis.
My noble friend Lord Scriven talked about the difficulty where you have two people who are very close in age but have different rights of choice. However, if you move the age limit to 21, you have the same problem with the 20 year-old and the 22 year-old. Really, it does not make any difference to that point. A very small choice restriction on one person’s freedom of choice is for the greater good and their own good.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, we were talking about the issue of one person almost the same age as another person having less freedom of choice. The point is that once you are addicted to nicotine, your freedom of choice is extremely limited, as we have just heard from my noble friend Lady Northover. She gave the example of her nephew, who found it extremely difficult to give up. My late mother-in-law was in the same position. She tried to give up smoking until she died—and she died of smoking, sadly.
It is very important that we have a robust system of enforcement. I look forward to hearing the Minister telling us about it, and what future measures the Government might take to reduce the number of illicit cigarettes—although I am told that it has declined by about 90% since 2000. One or two noble Lords mentioned the case in Australia. The fact is that it was a lack of robust enforcement that caused the problem in Australia. Despite that, the amount of people smoking has indeed gone down—but I agree with noble Lords who say that we need strong enforcement. When it comes to a smoker who, let us say, is my age, or who will be my age in many years’ time, who needs to provide some kind of ID, as long as it is not absolutely mandated, I am sure that some form of ID will be devised by clever people for those aged 82, and it will not be very difficult for them; they will just be able to do it, and that will sort that problem out altogether.
As noble Lords might have gathered, I support the Government’s generational approach to reaching the point of a smoke-free Britain. It is a public health crisis, as is obesity, on which the Government also need to take action. Lots of amendments are coming up about various aspects that have been mentioned today, such as age-gating, which we will discuss in greater detail. This has been a very extensive and passionate debate. I must say that I find myself a little surprised that so many of former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s party are so against what the Government are trying to do achieve his ambition. However, I shall leave it at that.
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Murray for bringing forward the amendments in his name, because he has allowed us to begin this Committee by engaging with one of the central and, dare I say, most controversial pillars of this Bill: the generational smoking ban. It is fitting that we start with this big policy issue, because the clause goes to the very heart of what the Government are seeking to do in creating what they describe as a smoke-free generation.
Before I turn to the points made in the debate, it is worth reminding ourselves of the context in which we are discussing the Bill—and a number of noble Lords have underlined that context. Smoking remains the single biggest entirely preventable cause of illness, disability and death in our country. It kills some 80,000 people each year. It costs our NHS and social care systems more than £3 billion annually. Someone is admitted to hospital because of smoking almost every minute. It shortens lives, it devastates families, and it deepens inequality. Yet, as we debate this issue, we can recognise that, happily, the direction of travel is positive. Smoking rates have been falling: in 1990, nearly one in three adults smoked, but, today, that figure stands at just above one in 10. The number of children who smoke is falling as well.
Those are not arguments for complacency or for not legislating, but nor are they arguments for legislating carelessly. My noble friend Lord Murray asked some pertinent questions for the Minister to answer, in particular on the Windsor Framework and the dangers of a burgeoning illicit market, but, more generally, he was surely right to challenge the Government to explain exactly how the generational ban will operate. I say that he is right, because the proposal will represent a profound shift in how the law treats adults. It will, for the first time, make a permanent legal distinction between two adults, based solely on their dates of birth. One person aged 35, say, will be permitted to buy a legal product, while another person aged 34 will put a tobacconist in criminal jeopardy for selling him precisely the same product.
I emphasise that I pay tribute to my right honourable friend the former Prime Minister. Nevertheless, serious practical questions arise from that distinction, quite apart from the questions around discrimination throughout this Bill, to which we need—I say this to the Minister—to face up. Some of those questions have already been foreshadowed by my noble friends Lord Murray and Lord Moylan but, as a starter, let me pick up the question of enforcement, which came up in the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Scriven. How exactly do the Government intend these measures to be policed? How much responsibility will fall on shopkeepers, how much on trading standards and how much on the police?
Then there is the impact on retailers. How will small and independent retailers be supported to implement the new age checks and avoid inadvertent breaches of the law? Are we just going to leave them to cope as best as they can? Importantly, there is also the question of public understanding. How will the Government communicate to the public, especially younger adults, that some people of more or less the same age may face entirely different legal restrictions?
Can the Minister confirm one point of detail, which we discussed in our meetings on the Bill ahead of Committee? Will a person born on or after 1 January 2009 be permitted to sell tobacco products to someone born before that date? In other words, will someone who is themselves legally prohibited from purchasing tobacco still be able to serve or sell such products to others who remain entitled to buy them? That may seem a minor question, but it is one of the many practical questions that shopkeepers and retailers are already asking. The answer will affect staffing and hiring practices. What age will an employee of a tobacconist have to be to handle tobacco sales? Those are not arguments against the generational ban, but I hope that the Minister can address these concerns in her reply.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)
My Lords, I support the amendments proposed by my noble friend Lord Moylan on having the affirmative resolution procedure for statutory instruments. That seems wholly sensible.
On age verification, I strongly support the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham. Dealing with online sales is a real issue. We have the overseas experience of countries such as France, Mexico, Brazil and so on to look at, but this seems a neat solution to what could otherwise become a very real problem.
On the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Lansley, considerable work has been done on age gating in relation to vaping sales and, as he said, those who are vaping strongly support having some kind of process. We have the system being developed by IKE Tech in the USA, currently awaiting FDA approval, which provides a very neat and quick method of age verification via a smartphone app. It will enable adults to remain protected—it will take them only 90 seconds for the initial process and six seconds for every subsequent vape, so it will not take long. That seems a very sensible way of proceeding and I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say on that.
In relation to what the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, said about what the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, would have said, there is certainly an issue to be looked at. I strongly support looking at what has been working in Scotland. It seems sensible to look at what they have been doing, learn from their experience and follow it where appropriate. Again, I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say on that issue.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I do not think it is fair to ask a courier driver to verify the age of a person, so the noble Lord, Lord Young, has a very good point, and age verification online is very poor. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, spoke about age gating. I can see why it is popular with retailers, because it would take some of the burden away from them.
It has been claimed that the Bill may not currently keep up with technology. Can the Minister say whether the wide powers in the Bill would allow powers to be taken in future to mandate age-gating technology if the evidence indicates that it is needed? Clearly, there is a problem even now with underage children buying vapes. A briefing that I—and I think quite a few other noble Lords—received from something called IKE Tech said that 71% of underage children buying vapes get them from retailers. That indicates that we need a really vigorous enforcement regime. It also said that 76% said they are buying them online, which indicates support for the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Young.
On the whole, when people buy from a retailer, I think that I am in favour of a wide range of means of age verification being acceptable. Both these amendments aim to reduce opportunities to start vaping underage, which is a very good thing, because young people who start vaping may not be killed by tobacco but they will be made addicted and very poor by the addiction to nicotine that they will get hooked on. I look forward to the Minister’s reply on that. I would not want to prevent an adult who could not obtain digital age verification buying an effective quitting tool, so we have to be a bit careful about unexpected consequences.
One thing that I saw in the briefing was interesting. The claim is that similar tech can also prevent circulation of illicit products by embedding low-cost NFC tags into product packaging so that every legal vape can be instantly verified; this stops fakes at the border and on shop shelves. That is something that we should all be concerned about, because drugs could well be inserted into vapes—and I understand that this is happening already—so people are getting things that they do not expect to get. Of course, something like that would not be legal and, if there was a tag on them to identify anything that is legal, you would only want to buy those. I know that teachers have reported problems with children being drugged by things that have been inserted into vapes, so that is something that we should consider.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I am not going to say much about Amendment 4. I think that, if this Bill is effective, there will not be many people still left smoking by 2040—I certainly hope not—but I do worry a bit about the poor old chap of 95 who has somehow managed to avoid the bullet of lung cancer and all the other health problems but started smoking when he was in the Army and simply cannot give up.
Leaving all that aside, as your Lordships know, I welcome the Government’s plan for us to become a smoke-free country. I believe that that is achievable, but we must go further and faster than we have ever gone before; that is what we are doing. Such a plan will require a comprehensive, integrated, monitored and enforced strategy—hence the need for a road map, as proposed in Amendment 193 by the noble Lord, Lord Young, my noble friend Lady Northover and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson.
It is true that smoking rates have declined by two-thirds over the last half century while smoking inequalities have grown, but, at the current rate of decline, we will miss the Government’s target and the poorest in society will suffer most. We will achieve a smoke-free Britain only by motivating more smokers to quit using the most effective quitting aids, while reducing the number of children and young adults who start smoking each year.
The evidence on which policy levers work is quite clear, but what is needed is for the Government both to pull them together to their fullest extent and to report on them. This will require targets, monitoring, enforcement and investment, but the investment required for education and smoking cessation services can be counted in millions of pounds as compared with the billions of pounds that it costs us to treat smoking-related diseases and in lost productivity caused by smoking-related disability. The benefits will far outweigh the costs.
As I say, there are big inequality issues in this smoking situation. Smoking drives more than 1 million people, including many children, into poverty by leeching money out of their pockets and out of the local economy. Indeed, only a tiny proportion of the spending on tobacco stays in local communities; most of it goes up in smoke, in taxes or in tobacco manufacturers’ profits. We will probably come on to that next time.
Young Children: Convenience Foods
Baroness Walmsley Excerpts(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Walmsley
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to address the nutritional content, labelling and promotion of convenience foods aimed at very young children, including fruit pouches and snacks.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)
My Lords, good nutrition is essential to our goal of raising the healthiest generation of children. Foods for infants and young children have to meet regulations on nutrition, composition and labelling standards. More widely, we are committed to tackling the child obesity crisis and government actions, including the junk food advertising ban, demonstrate the scale of our ambition in this area.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I echo the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, “Oh dear”, because this issue is not new. In 2019, Public Health England drew attention to the fact that these products contain free sugars, they are not advised by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition for these young children and they are very misleadingly labelled. Every time the Government respond to this, they do what the Minister has just done and say that there are very good regulations about nutritional content and regulation. But does the Minister agree that regulations are only as good as their enforcement, and these are not being enforced? So, when the Government have their many conversations with the food industry, will they please get a grip and stop these companies producing products that are making our children obese, with rotting teeth?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
I hope the noble Baroness will be pleased to know that I recognise the view she states. I realise that this has gone on for some time and I am grateful for her work in this area, including through chairing the Lords committee that produced a very helpful report. I recognise that the current situation is not good enough.
On the matter of food regulations and enforcement, it is the responsibility of local authorities in England to enforce legislation where breaches are suspected. Local authorities will liaise with businesses to clarify and, if necessary, agree the action to put it right. It is indeed the responsibility of individual businesses to ensure that they comply with the law, and I assure the noble Baroness that that is a matter we will continue to press, as well as keeping those food regulations under review.
Social Care Reform
Baroness Walmsley Excerpts(5 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Merron (Lab)
I understand that, but the noble Lord said we were just waiting until 2028, and I am not aligning myself with that.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
It is recognised that any meaningful social care reform must deliver for unpaid carers. Will the Minister say what role carer organisations are playing in shaping these talks?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
Unpaid carers are key because they provide care and support to those who require care. The needs of unpaid carers will be very much part of the commission. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, will be speaking to relevant organisations and those with lived experience.
NHS and Care Volunteer Responders Service
Baroness Walmsley Excerpts(5 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)
I start by saying, as I am sure the noble Earl agrees, how grateful we are for the generous contribution made by volunteers. They play a vital role in supporting patients, staff and services in many ways. The national NHS and Care Volunteer Responders programme was first established as part of the Covid response, and the noble Earl helpfully set out its contribution. The fact is that a model that worked well in a national crisis is no longer the most cost-effective option, so there will be a new recruitment portal for NHS volunteers to be fully launched this year. This is all about expanding voluntary opportunities and getting more volunteer hours to further support patients even better than volunteers do already.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
Where will the current funding for this programme go? Will it go into the new scheme the Minister has mentioned, or into community services or support for vulnerable groups, or will this result in some kind of cut to services?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
I assure the noble Baroness that there is no intention that this will impact on services. As I mentioned, this is about getting value for money; the previous scheme did so during the Covid pandemic and just after, but we are in a totally different world now. All those who volunteered through the scheme that is being brought to an end will have been sent an email advising them how they can continue their volunteering—we do not want to lose people—and how it will be easier. The launch of the portal will provide a one-stop shop, overseen by NHS England. That is what will be funded. I hope that the noble Baroness and other noble Lords will find the website a much friendlier place through which they can volunteer.
Tobacco and Vapes Bill
Baroness Walmsley ExcerptsWednesday 23rd April 2025
(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, this is a very important public health Bill, and for my own part I support it. Who among us would not, having heard the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Jopling?
Your Lordships will have heard some concerns expressed by colleagues on these Benches. I can therefore clarify that the environmental protection measures in the Bill are party policy, and all my colleagues will support them. However, there are some aspects of the Bill where colleagues have different views, which I respect but do not share, and on those we will have a free vote wherever necessary. I am on the side of my noble friend Lord Scriven’s fortunate twin, who was born a minute after midnight, because he could well live a longer and healthier life than his very slightly older sibling.
As we have heard, smoking is the biggest cause of preventable death. There is no safe way to use tobacco products, including when they are mixed with cannabis, so the legislation must cover all tobacco products. My noble friend Lady Northover, the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, and many others have pointed out that tobacco is unique because it kills two out of every three people who use it as directed, so serious measures are going to be needed to protect new generations. About 80% of smokers have tried to quit—as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, told us, it takes an average of 30 attempts to do so—and they need help. Vaping has proved to be the most successful aid to quitting smoking, which is why access to these devices must be protected for that purpose.
Smoking tobacco damages our economy. Yes, smokers pay tobacco taxes, but the cost to the NHS and in lost years of working life is much greater. We have heard some figures from my noble friends Lord Rennard and Lord Crisp and a number of other noble Lords. Why not therefore have a levy on these very profitable companies to pay for the measures recommended by my noble friend Lord Russell?
Smoking is an inequalities issue, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, emphasised. People on low incomes or living in areas of deprivation, or who have mental health issues, are more likely to smoke. Some 21% of pregnant women in the most deprived areas smoke, compared to only 5.6% in the least-deprived areas. The noble Baroness, Lady Rafferty, told us that this has contributed to the large differential in rates of stillbirth. We must take action on this, with more help for pregnant smokers to quit.
Smoking is not being banned or criminalised by the Bill; it just protects young people from becoming addicted to tobacco. People who already smoke will be able to continue to do so. Of course, this Bill will not help with poverty, except in the savings in smokers’ pockets if they quit, but it will reduce the number of people suffering ill health or early death through tobacco use. The purpose of the Bill is to avoid young people taking up smoking, because we know that nine in 10 smokers began before the age of 21. Adults who already smoke can continue to buy tobacco legally.
I welcome the announced increased funding for smoking cessation services, but would like to know if funding will go only to services that offer help to quit nicotine, as well as tobacco, as recommended by NICE. I congratulate the Government on reintroducing this Bill and the former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on setting the ball rolling. However, time is of the essence, because 35,000 18 to 25 year-olds have started smoking since the King’s Speech—so we need to get on with it.
Raising the legal age of sale incrementally is the best way to move towards a smoke-free generation, for two reasons. First, it will enable retailers to adjust gradually to the new regulations, by compensating for profits lost on tobacco products by introducing other products to their stock. Removing a one-year cohort at a time from the potential market will minimise the impact of this adjustment. I suppose that is why so many retailers support these measures. It is interesting to note that the retail margin on tobacco products is 8.5%, compared to around 21% on other products, while the tobacco manufacturers make 50%. I agree with the introduction of licensing to sell tobacco and vapes, but would like to know what sort of burden the application process will put on small retailers. What about the rest of the supply chain? Should not importers and wholesalers also be licensed?
Secondly, the gradual implementation answers the claim from the tobacco companies that the Bill will encourage the illicit market—well, they would say that, would they not? A single-year cohort of potential smokers does not introduce a vast new market for illicit traders to prey upon. The numbers are small, and the Minister may know how small. Previous legislative measures did not increase illicit sales because of effective enforcement, and those enforcement measures have recently had some considerable successes. However, adequate funding for Border Force and local trading standards continues to be vital, as the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, said. Will the Government monitor the adequacy of this funding as things progress?
Some of my colleagues are concerned that the Bill restricts the freedom of adults to buy a legal product, and that the way in which it is done would allow one 37 year-old to buy tobacco while another, whose birthday was a month later, could not. I will leave it to the Minister to explain why a particular birth date was chosen, rather than a particular age. My personal view is that, once people are hooked on nicotine, they are no longer free to choose because it is so highly addictive. That is why it is so important that they should not take it up in the first place. Most people who smoke regret having started, and many of them try hard to give up. I quote Professor Chris Whitty, who stated:
“I’ve seen many people in hospital desperate to stop … yet they cannot—their choice has been removed”.
Nicotine takes away their freedom. That is why it is so important to stop people taking it up in the first place and to disincentivise taking up nicotine-containing vapes, except as a quitting aid.
Some say that age verification may raise the spectre of ID cards, which my party and I are very much against. However, most young people are already quite used to having to show ID when buying a beer or cigarettes, and small retailers often ask for it. I was asked for ID this week when collecting a parcel from the Post Office and taking rubbish to the local tip. I think that extending the range of products for which age verification is required is a small price to pay for eliminating this dangerous and costly product within a generation.
Some suggest that we could achieve the same objective through education, public information and smoking cessation services, but we have found that government action works better. Since the indoor smoking ban and advertising restrictions, young people now smoke at half the rate of their parents’ generation. However, we must not let up on education about the dangers of smoking and indeed vaping, especially since there is evidence that refillable vapes are being spiked with spice or cannabis.
As mentioned by the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and others, some smokers believe that filter cigarettes give some protection from the harms of tobacco, but of course they have no health benefit at all and may give a false sense that they do. However, filters do have an environmental impact as many are made of plastic that does not decompose, and even the biodegradable ones take a long time to rot down and can pollute our rivers. There is therefore a strong case for banning cigarette filters on environmental grounds.
There has been an exponential rise in young people vaping, and the Bill gives Ministers the power to regulate vapes without presenting a barrier to smokers using vapes to quit. Vapes are relatively new, so the effects of long-term use are unknown, although the fact that it is illegal to sell vapes to children is because there is some evidence of negative effects of inhaling vaping products on the developing lungs and brain. However, although vapes may be less harmful than smoking, the purpose of the Bill is to discourage non-smokers from taking up vaping. The nicotine in vapes is just as addictive as that in cigarettes and, as the noble Lord, Lord Rook, told us, some schools are reporting concerning effects on children who are managing to get hold of them. As Professor Chris Whitty says,
“if you don’t smoke, don’t vape”.
Once you start, they have got you—like any other addiction—and that is why the tobacco companies have turned to vapes to protect their profits.
On the powers for Ministers to regulate aspects of vapes such as flavours, colours, advertising and packaging, I say that the industry has cynically targeted children—as the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, showed us very graphically —with brightly coloured packaging and flavours that are attractive to children. The powers to stop this are welcome, but the Government must engage with young people, and existing smokers who want to quit, to make the regulations successful. As the noble Baroness, Lady Mattinson, said, we need to make vapes really boring and unattractive.
On the powers to extend the smoking and vaping ban to new outdoor areas, I say that if you can smell smoke, you are inhaling it. That reduces your freedom to breathe clean air, and nobody has given you any choice. However, I would like assurance that before this power is used there will be serious consultation to establish whether there is really any harm to non-smokers. There must be evidence of harm.
Prevention of one of the major causes of illness is better and cheaper than cure. We have to plug the hole in the leaky bucket of public money by stopping preventable diseases wherever we can, and that includes action on bad food and obesity. Do we want to pay higher taxes to pay for the NHS to treat more generations made ill by tobacco dependency? That is what the tobacco and vape manufacturers would like us to do. I encourage the Government to stand up to them.
Food, Diet and Obesity Committee Report
Baroness Walmsley Excerpts(7 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Walmsley
That this House takes note of the Report from the Food, Diet and Obesity Committee Recipe for health: a plan to fix our broken food system (HL Paper 19).
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I thank the members of the committee for their hard work and dedication, and our wonderful staff team: Stuart Stoner, Lucy Valsamidis, Abdullah Ahmad, Lara Orija and Kate Willett. The advice of our specialist adviser, Professor Martin White, was absolutely crucial.
Albert Einstein is said once to have said:
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.
Unfortunately, the Government’s response to the committee’s recommendations smacks of insanity. Why? Because we have an obesity crisis and a consequent health crisis, which the NHS is meant to clear up. Page 3 of their response accepts that this is real, urgent and caused by bad food—yet there is no commitment to do things differently.
There was outrage from food and health campaigners at the Government’s response. But the following sentence appeared in an article in The Grocer periodical:
“However, food industry bosses welcomed Streeting’s response to the inquiry”.
Well, yes, that says it all—of course they did. They are laughing all the way to the bank with their profits on making our children sick, because the Government have accepted hardly any of the recommendations in the committee’s report. All they have committed to is implementing the policies of the previous Government: reviewing the soft drinks industry levy; implementing the advertising ban on less-healthy food; and banning energy drink sales to children. However welcome these are, they are not enough. Ambition needs action, not just words. We have a new Government with a new mandate and a duty to enhance people’s lives, but all we got was obfuscation and delay.
The Food, Diet and Obesity Committee’s remit was to consider the role of foods such as ultra-processed foods and foods high in sugar, salt and saturated fat in a healthy diet and tackling obesity. We interpreted that as asking us to recommend how the Government can ensure that all our citizens get access to healthy food, real food, affordable food. The committee looked at how we got here. We heard that our food system has changed over the past 30 years: less cooking from scratch, more fast-food outlets and more ultra-processed foods. These are usually high in calories, highly palatable and high in harmful nutrients such as salt, sugar and saturated fat; they are low in fibre and vitamins, and loaded with additives. There has been a vast increase in the advertising and promotion of less-healthy foods. Only 2% of advertising spend is on fresh fruit and vegetables, while 36% is on confectionery, snacks, desserts and soft drinks.
We heard that food is an equalities issue. The poorest 20% of people would spend 45% of their family income to comply with the national dietary guidelines, rising to 70% if they have children. Therefore, they suffer the consequences in lower life expectancy and more years in poor health. On average, today’s British children consume less than half of the recommended amount of fruit and veg, but twice the amount of sugar.
The committee looked at government action over the past 30 years while overweight and obesity have rocketed. There have been 14 obesity strategies, including about 700 policies. We asked researchers which ones had worked and which ones had not—and, if not, why not? The answer was that they failed because they were piecemeal, had voluntary rather than mandatory targets and relied on personal choice in a world where many people, because of the food environment and poverty, were not free to choose healthy food. The exception was the soft drinks industry levy, which was mandatory and led to a reduction in the amount of sugar in soft drinks, as manufacturers reformulated to avoid paying the tax. That was the point of it, of course.
The committee therefore determined not to fall into the same traps, and that led to our main recommendation that the Government should develop a comprehensive and long-term strategic approach to the oversight and regulation of the food system, backed up by legislation. Despite Wes Streeting saying he would steamroller over the food industry if it did not improve, the Government are falling into the piecemeal and voluntary action trap again.
Because of the public health obesity crisis, we recommended a shift to mandatory rather than voluntary policies, such as healthier food targets, reformulation taxes on sugar and salt and a laser focus on improving the diets of babies and children—but we are not seeing any of that in this response. We regulate the oil industry, the tobacco industry, alcohol, drugs and gambling, so why not food? It is not just about the safety of food but its quality and healthiness.
I find it sad that this is despite the Government being elected on some very worthwhile promises—first, to have the healthiest generation of children ever. However, there is no commitment to reviewing the school food standards and the eligibility for and value of free school meals. There is no commitment to increase healthy start payments or to address the deluge of advertising of junk food to teenagers or the poor regulation of foods advertised for infants and toddlers. Will the Government start by implementing all the recommendations of the CMA report on formula milk, and then tackle the shocking and harmful content and misleading advertising and labelling of food for young children?
Secondly, there is the Government’s health mission, to move from treatment to prevention. What has happened? The only tangible initiative on obesity has been treatment through expensive anti-obesity jabs—which would cripple the NHS budget according to NESTA—rather than primary prevention by ensuring everyone can get a healthy diet. I do not deny jabs can be appropriate and successful, but prevention is cheaper.
Thirdly, the Government promised to save the NHS, where the cost of treating obesity-related illness is £18 billion per year. However, the Government seem content for the taxpayer to pay for the NHS to foot the bill for obesity, rather than the food industry that caused it.
Fourthly, the new national food strategy shows no sign of getting to grips with the food industry, the sector that has caused the obesity crisis in the first place. Last week, the membership of the advisory board for this strategy was announced. Although there are several very good people on the board, the majority are from the food industry, and so is the secretariat—talk about the fox in the hen coop. It includes a major supermarket which refused to give the committee evidence in public, but instead offered us a private meeting with researchers that it funds—we rightly refused on transparency grounds. I wish the advisory board and the food strategy well, but I fear it is already in danger of going in the wrong direction.
Finally, there is the Government’s growth objective. We have almost 3 million people of working age out of the workplace because of preventable illnesses caused by obesity. Sick people cannot work. They do not pay taxes, but they qualify for benefits, adding £4 billion per year to the Government’s existential economic problems, according to Frontier Economics. But it is not the patient’s fault; it is the fault of our broken food system, and the Government could fix it if they wanted to.
Wes Streeting said recently,
“Our sick society is holding back our economy, and that is why we should act”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/11/24; col. 685.]
The committee heartily agreed, because the annual economic cost of overweight and obesity is £98 billion. Professor Susan Jebb, chair of the FSA, has pointed out:
“At a time when government is looking closely at public expenditure, it’s important to remember that costs of inaction far outweigh the investment needed to deliver a safe, healthier, and more sustainable supply of food for all”.
The OBR has warned that many older workers are leaving the workforce because of obesity-related health issues. On the plus side, investors told us that there are billions of pounds waiting to be invested in companies that produce healthy food, but they wanted to see a clear direction of travel from government and a level playing field on regulation.
The case for bold action is made, and it is in line with the Government’s own objectives and the public’s wishes. Some 68% of those polled support the committee’s recommendation for a sugar and salt reformulation tax. Indeed, our recommendations could have been written precisely to enable the Government to achieve their objectives—but that means that they must get a grip on the food industry, with measures well beyond the last Government’s proposed restrictions.
And then there is lobbying. The committee recommended that the Government should establish their food policies independently of companies that rely mainly on sales of less healthy foods but should engage on implementation. After all, the Government’s objective should be public health, while the industry’s legitimate objective is making profit. In many cases, these two objectives are incompatible, but the Government have given a majority on the food strategy advisory board to the food industry. I ask the Minister: are the Government deliberately misrepresenting our recommendation, or are they responding to the vigorous lobbying of the industry?
Those few food industry witnesses who were prepared to give evidence in public wanted one thing. Like the investors, they want a level playing field: regulation that applies to all industry players, so that the good guys doing the right thing are not undercut by the bad guys who do not care who pays for the health consequences, as long as it is not them. The Government say they will continue
“to review the balance between mandatory and voluntary measures”,
but the voluntary target of reducing sugar by 20% resulted in a measly 3.5% reduction. Are the Government serious about saving the NHS, improving children’s health and growing the economy?
I am afraid I paint a very disappointing picture, and yet there is much to celebrate. So, here’s to those who produce and sell good healthy food, the food banks and redistributors, and the chefs and restaurants who serve good, healthy local food. Here’s to the food campaigners who never give up—and I hope they never will—and the parents and carers who try their best to feed their families healthy meals. Here’s to the health professionals who treat the consequences of bad diets, and here’s to the many witnesses who shared their experience and expertise with the committee. I thank all of them.
As I come to the end of this rather depressing analysis, I would like to quote from page 17 of the Government’s response. They said that they
“will consider whether further action is needed”.
You bet it is, my Lords. I beg to move.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response, and I will come back to some of her comments in just a moment.
Time does not allow me to thank everyone and pick up points from all the fantastic speeches we have heard today. However, the hard-hitting speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Freeman of Steventon, reminded me that I was remiss at the beginning of my introduction to not thank her. She had the clever idea of producing a podcast to disseminate more widely the fantastic evidence that we received. I thank her for the many hours of her—absolutely free—professional advice and work. Noble Lords might be interested to know that, next week, our digital department is going to publish a short YouTube video about this debate and the Government’s response. I am going to film some of it next Tuesday.
In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, I say that regulation is needed because voluntary action has failed. If the food industry does not like it, they have only themselves to blame, because they did not come up trumps when it came to voluntary targets. However, I agree that it is not the only thing that is needed and thank her for the FDTP; its work is really needed to get the metrics for measuring the achievement of mandatory health targets, which we recommended.
The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, mentioned a lot of food companies. He might be interested to know that the majority of them were invited to give us evidence and refused to do so.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, about markets. I spoke recently to Sadiq Khan’s health adviser, Professor Everington, who is a long-standing GP in London. He was very keen on markets because, through them, people on low incomes can get healthy food for the same price that they might pay for unhealthy food in the supermarket. That was a very good point.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord McColl, on UPF, that the committee came down in the middle ground. We asked the Government to fund more research and to really take notice of what it comes up with. We also suggested that it would be appropriate, in dietary guidelines, to warn people that it could be dangerous to have too much UPF in their whole dietary pattern, because it pushes out wholefoods.
We had very hard-hitting speeches about children’s food from the noble Baronesses, Lady Brown of Silvertown and Lady Suttie, the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and others. I say to the Minister that nobody can criticise a Government which do stuff to improve the diet of children, so they should go ahead and do as much as they can on that. They will not get any criticism or push-back from the population.
I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Batters, that I regret that we did not have the opportunity or time to talk about food waste—she is absolutely right about that. We had only eight months and we could not look at education, sustainable production, food security or food waste; I only wish we could have done so. However, the Minister has given me some hope. The last Government showed that you can legislate and then give time for implementation to be prepared for—the advertising ban is one of those things, although I do not think it should have taken three and a half years. I also point out to her that the IGD, which is the secretariat of the advisory committee for the food strategy, is an element of the food industry.
I am very pleased to hear that the Minister intends to keep some of our recommendations under review, and I assure her that many people in this Chamber today will also be keeping an eye on her and the Government. We will follow up in detail how many of the things that we are proposing are put into place by the Government. So it really is encouraging to hear some of the things that she has said, but there are some things that we need to watch very carefully.
I say to the Government that, if they get to the end of their five-year term of office and have not done something to improve the healthiness of the food in this country, they will suffer at the ballot box, because this is what people want. Their Food, Farming and Countryside Commission has done a lot of polling on this, and it is very clear that it is what people want, so, if the Government want to win the next election, they need to do something about it. The best advice I can give the Minister has already been given by the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin: listen to Tony Blair and be bold.