Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Patel

Committee stage
Thursday 30th October 2025 Grand Committee

[Earl Howe (Con)]

If it is a tobacco product, I take the point, but I thought that the noble Baroness was also arguing about handing out free vapes. Making it illegal for a shopkeeper to supply an adult with a regulated vaping product as a free sample feels very much like an unreasonable restraint of trade. If someone enters a shop to buy cigarettes—let us say he is a smoker—and the shopkeeper offers him a free vape, what exactly is wrong with that, as long as the regulations are adhered to? Do we really want to criminalise that kind of free supply? I am afraid that I am not convinced.

The Bill already imposes a series of significant new obligations and compliance costs on legitimate businesses. The restrictions contained in Clauses 13 to 15 alone are substantial and will likely require many retailers to make complex and costly adjustments. To introduce further constraints and prohibitions, as well as a substantial potential liability, however well-intentioned, has to be thought about very carefully before we go down that path.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, if the nicotine contained in the vapes is not extracted from tobacco, where is it coming from?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

Perhaps the noble Lord, with his compendious knowledge, can enlighten us on that.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

It comes from tobacco.