Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

No; I want to make some progress. I want to say something about the measures on vaping because, as Members have already demonstrated today, there is a great deal of interest in the subject.

As any parent or teacher will know, there has been a dramatic and dangerous increase in youth vaping. At least one in five children have tried it. Many will say that the solution is simply to enforce the law, and of course that is a vital component, which is why we are investing £30 million in our enforcement agencies and hitting cynical businesses that sell vapes to children with on-the-spot fines. However, we must and will go further, because vaping damages our children’s future. It could damage their lungs while they are still developing, intensify the long-term pressure on the NHS, and damage their concentration at school—a point that many teachers have made.

We cannot replace one generation addicted to nicotine with another, and vapes are cynically marketed towards our children. They are sold at pocket-money prices, they share shelf space with sweets, they are branded with cartoon characters, and they are given flavours such as cotton candy and watermelon ice. Our children are being exploited, and we cannot and will not let that continue. The Bill will give us powers to crack down on child-friendly flavours and packaging and to change the way in which vapes are displayed in shops—measures on which we will consult.

Through separate environmental legislation we are banning the disposable vapes that young people favour and that do so much harm to our planet. Some 5 million are thrown away, either in bins or on our streets, every single week. That is equivalent to some 5,000 lithium car batteries from electric vehicles being thrown away every year. We have a responsibility to tackle the harm to our planet that is perpetrated by the vaping industry. While vapes can be helpful in assisting adult smokers to quit, our message remains clear: if you do not smoke, do not vape, and children should never vape.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way; she is being very generous. The Bill gives her wide-ranging powers in relation to the flavours of vape liquid, packaging and so on, but does not oblige her to consult widely or look at impact statements. In fact, the word “consultation” does not appear anywhere in the Bill. Will she give the House a commitment that she will consult fully before exercising any powers given to her by the Bill?

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting that. I give a commitment here at the Dispatch Box that we will consult. We are very conscious of the complexities of this issue. We want to get it right, and my hon. Friend has my absolute undertaking that we will consult before regulations are brought before the House.

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[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I draw attention to my role as a vice chair of the all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health, an APPG that supports this Bill and in particular the commitment to creating a smoke-free generation by raising the age of sale for tobacco. This will be the most impactful public health intervention since the introduction of smoke-free legislation under the last Labour Government. The Bill is particularly welcome after years of Government inaction on tobacco, which has put us well behind schedule for achieving the Smokefree 2030 ambition. According to Cancer Research UK, we are currently not on track to be smoke free until 2039, which is almost a decade later than planned, and it will be even later for the most deprived.

I welcome the new funding committed to local tobacco control activity and national mass-media campaigns, which will go some way towards fixing the damage done by more than a decade of cuts to public health funding. Those cuts have fallen disproportionately on local stop-smoking services, which are a vital component of our strategy for reducing smoking rates. I am pleased that the Government have now recognised the importance of such services.

Since the legislation to raise the age of sale progressively by one year every year was announced, tobacco manufacturers have argued that it will be burdensome to business. They have also paid for advertising urging retailers to lobby against the legislation. Despite this, a survey by NEMS Market Research for ASH shows that more than half of a representative sample of retailers are supportive of such action, compared with only a quarter who are opposed.

Of course, the tobacco industry has form on trying to use retailers to lobby against tobacco laws. The Tobacco Retailers Alliance, a trade body 100% funded by tobacco manufacturers, funded the “save our shops” campaign against the display ban and the “no to plain packs” campaign against standardised cigarette packaging. Both campaigns used exactly the same argument now being used to campaign against raising the age of sale: that it will put a terrible burden on small businesses, that it will be impractical to implement and that it will increase illicit trade. Both campaigns were exposed as being fronts for the tobacco industry, and the subsequent legislation was successfully implemented by retailers. Indeed, a 2022 survey by NEMS Market Research for ASH found that the vast majority of small retailers report no negative impacts on their business due to the display ban or plain packs.

My region, the north-east, has been hit particularly hard by the tobacco epidemic, with 117,000 deaths from smoking since the turn of the century and thousands more added each year. That is not to mention the thousands more living with tobacco-related illnesses. As in every other region, this suffering is concentrated in the most deprived groups and areas. Although around 13% of adults in the north-east smoke, the figure rises to 21% of adults in routine and manual occupations, 28% of adults in social housing and 41% of adults with serious mental health conditions.

In the north-east, we are fortunate to benefit from the incredible work of our regional tobacco control programme. Fresh was set up in 2005 in response to our region having the country’s highest smoking rates. As a result of dedicated and sustained collaboration and investment from local authorities and the NHS, smoking rates have fallen further and faster in the north-east than anywhere else in the country—13.1% of the adult population now smokes, compared with 29% less than 20 years ago. The north-east is a prime example of what can be achieved with an effective regional tobacco control programme. Fresh is now funded by both the local authorities and the integrated care board, and that regional funding model is repeated in Greater Manchester. I encourage other regions to follow suit.

Children are especially vulnerable to second-hand smoke, which greatly increases their chance of developing a host of illnesses. The Royal College of Physicians has estimated that smoking by parents and carers is responsible for around 5,000 children being admitted to hospital each year, primarily with respiratory conditions. That is why I tabled a private Member’s Bill in 2011, aided by the British Lung Foundation, to ban smoking in cars carrying children. Despite the strong public health case for the measure, it was not initially welcomed by the Government or the Opposition, and it took a long, hard campaign to get it over the line. Four years later, in 2015, legislation banning smoking in cars carrying children was put on the statute book with strong cross-party and public support.

[Gareth Johnson]

How many times has that offence been prosecuted?

[Alex Cunningham]

That is an interesting question. There have been only a handful of prosecutions because the legislation has played an important role in people changing their behaviour. YouGov’s 2008 polling for ASH found that banning smoking in cars was supported by less than half of all smokers. The proportion had risen to 62% by the time of my private Member’s Bill, and to 82% after the ban came into effect. The lesson to be learned is that support has grown significantly over time for the tougher regulation of tobacco. After measures have been put in place, support continues to grow, particularly among smokers. We have come a long way in our attitudes to smoking since I became an MP in 2010. I have enjoyed campaigning on the issue, but I look forward to the Bill becoming law before I step down. Not only will the legislation prevent future generations from acquiring this terrible addiction; it offers the most direct path to making smoking truly obsolete in our society.

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[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

There is clearly a fair amount of agreement in the House about what we are trying to achieve. No one is suggesting that smoking is anything other than very bad for people’s health, and no one is suggesting that we should encourage anyone to smoke. We know that, for instance, it poses specific dangers to children. There is common ground—a common goal—when it comes to where we want to end up with the Bill. However, I believe that a generational ban is the wrong approach. There is a general assumption in the House that we ensure that laws apply equally to all adults, but the Bill turns that general assumption on its head by creating bizarre, absurd circumstances in which people will be unable to enjoy the same rights as others who are a day older than them.

No other country in the world has implemented such provisions. Many have considered doing so—New Zealand, Malaysia and Australia have been mentioned—but all of them have decided not to. Either they have all got it wrong and we have got it right, or that is not the case, and I doubt that it is the case. This is a classic instance of the “nanny knows best” approach to politics, which is incredibly patronising, and will be increasingly patronising, to adults.

One of the absurdities of what is, as I have said, an absurd piece of legislation has not been mentioned so far. The snuffbox by the Principal Doorkeeper’s chair is paid for by him, so that Members of Parliament who wish to partake of the snuff can do so. In future, any MP who enters the House, and who is currently 15 years old or younger, will not be able to do that; indeed, the Doorkeeper will be committing a criminal offence if he or she provides snuff for that MP.

We all want to reduce smoking rates, but this Bill is not the way to do it. The way to do it is through education and the provision of alternatives such as vapes. The Government’s “swap to stop” scheme was brilliant—thousands of people have given up smoking as a consequence of it—and many other Government initiatives have been tremendously effective in helping smokers to quit. I pay tribute to the Government for all those achievements, but we should nevertheless look at what is happening in other countries. It is a shame that my right hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) is no longer in the Chamber. He mentioned Sweden, and it is because Sweden has been enthusiastic about allowing people alternatives to tobacco that it currently has the lowest smoking rate in the world and, moreover, the lowest rate of lung cancer in the world. It is not a coincidence. Although I accept that there are difficulties with making comparisons between different countries, Turkey and Indonesia, where smoking rates are increasing, are two of the countries that have completely banned vaping. In her opening speech, the Secretary of State rightly mentioned that the smoking rate among young people in Australia is currently going up. In Australia, vapes are banned—that is not a coincidence either.

Vaping helps adult smokers to quit and thereby saves lives. We all want the same thing: fewer smokers. In order to achieve that, we need to ensure that our legislation is flexible. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for agreeing that a consultation on flavours will take place, which is very important. I was going to table an amendment to make sure that that happened, but there is no necessity to do so now because of her commitment to the House. Flavours are important, because what often happens when smokers give up smoking and start vaping instead is that, a couple of weeks down the line, they get a bit fed up with the vaping they are carrying out, so they either go back to tobacco or switch to a different flavour. Therefore, having a variety of flavours is very important. I totally concede that having a zingy bubble gum flavour vape is wrong. We should not have any kind of marketing that makes vaping attractive to children, but we should have a choice for adult smokers who wish to switch to vaping.

We have two types of vaping going on in this country at the moment. First, there is the vaping that is being carried out by smokers who want to stop smoking, and who are vaping as a substitute for the tobacco they were previously consuming. Secondly, there is the other kind of vaping: children using it for fun. We need to tackle that robustly, but we do not need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

When carried out by adults, vaping saves lives and relieves the burden on the NHS. If we care about the NHS—I am sure that everybody in this Chamber does—allowing for vaping to take place as an alternative to smoking must be the right way. There is a danger that this House could send out a perception that vaping is just as bad as tobacco. If it does that, many people will think, “What’s the point in vaping? I might as well smoke instead if they are as bad as each other.” They are not as bad as each other. Vaping is considerably safer than consuming tobacco, although we do not want children who are non-smokers to take it up.

Illegal Vapes

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Peter Gibson]

It would not be a Westminster Hall debate without an intervention from the hon. Gentleman. He anticipates two of the points that I am about to come on to in my speech—first, the popping up of these shops; and secondly, the need for licensing. So, I thank him for his intervention.

Legally supplied cigarettes have reached a price that puts them beyond the reach of children’s pocket money. That has been brought about by a raft of measures, including a ban on smaller packets, a ban on advertising, plain packaging, concealed displays and raising the legal age to buy cigarettes to 18. However, we have seen a worrying trend of children taking up the habit of vaping; the latest figures show that some 20% of children have tried vaping.

Those children have taken up the use of a product that is designed to help people to quit smoking, but—this is the important point—they themselves have never smoked. We know that the flavours, packaging and design of vapes are attractive to children, and that vapes are on very visible display in shops, in contrast to the cigarettes that they are designed to replace.

As with the sale of cigarettes, the sale of nicotine-related products is restricted to people over 18, but that restriction is clearly not working. To my mind, many of the measures that we introduced to curtail smoking need to be considered again in addressing this problem.

I have met the parents of children who are addicted to vaping. It is not uncommon to see children vaping in the street and the whole disposable vape industry is visibly responsible for the increase of litter on our streets, which local authorities face huge difficulties in dealing with and which increases the risk of fire in general waste collections.

The Local Government Association is deeply concerned about what to do with the almost 200 million disposable vapes that are thrown away every year in our country, and we should all be concerned about their environmental impact. However, my primary concern is the use and sale of illegal vapes, which do not always comply with our legislation and often have much higher concentrations of nicotine. They are sold with much higher capacities than their legal equivalents. It is estimated that a staggering one out of every three vapes sold in the UK is illicit. They are being sold with no care whatever for the user.

In the north-east, we have seen tragic cases of young children hospitalised as a result of using high-strength illegal vapes. The sale of these products is often concentrated in pop-up mini-markets, which are easily identifiable and distinguishable from reliable and traditional corner shops. Once upon a time criminality hid away, but these operators hide in plain sight. These shops appear quite rapidly, with blocked out windows, vivid lighting and a sparse supply of genuine goods on the shelf and are often, although not always, also selling illegal tobacco products.

I want to put on the record my thanks to Phoebe Abruzzese from The Northern Echo in Darlington for her campaigning journalism on this issue, and I am pleased to be working with her to highlight this problem.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate. He is right to want to see a clampdown on illegal vapes. They are very different from those produced by responsible manufacturers, which help adults quit smoking and thereby save lives. Does he agree that we should continue to encourage adult smokers to vape, and that we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater over this? The responsible attitude is to allow people to use legal vapes while clamping down on the illicit ones that we see too many of.

[Peter Gibson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention; he raises a really important point. It is right that we encourage people to stop smoking and that smokers have an array of products available to help them, but those products must be legal. They must be supplied legally and made available in the right way.

Trading standards in Darlington, which is doing a tremendous job led by Shaun Trevor, has had much success over the past 18 months in targeting these traders. Products with a value of over £300,000 have been seized from some 23 retailers. Among those products were almost 20,000 packets of illegal cigarettes. Their sale would have resulted in a massive loss of revenue to the Exchequer—something that I am sure the Chancellor would be interested to learn about.

Last week, I went to visit a number of my local independent corner shops. They report that their tobacco sales have fallen off a cliff. In one instance, a trader of some 40 years reported that his tobacco sales had fallen from more than £7,000 a week to just £2,000. One the one hand, we can celebrate that as it will partly be the result of some people giving up smoking, but we know that the real underlying cause is that the trade has shifted to illegal sales in newly popped-up competition, which is robbing trade from our legitimate traders. Together with the footfall that tobacco sales bring to those shops and the massive loss in revenue, one retailer I visited estimates that his store is collecting nearly £200,000 less duty and VAT because of the sale of illegal tobacco. That is just one shop in one town. Imagine the scale of that lost revenue to the country as a whole.

I have shared my concerns about children vaping and about the availability of illegal products, but for me the most important aspect of this debate is the organised crime that sits behind the illegal supply and sale of these products. I know at first hand of the collaborative work going on between my local council and police in the sharing of intelligence, and I know that they are acutely aware of the damage caused to our community and the local economy. We have evidence locally that the funding for these shops is rooted in organised crime and money laundering. We know that, besides being supplied with illegal tobacco and vapes, children are being used as mules to fetch and carry the illegal products, which are stored off site rather than on the shop premises, or to act as agents by selling the vapes to their friends in the school playground. The most shocking local case was of a young person being groomed for sex with the enticement of illegal vapes. We should be wide awake to the risks in our community to young people who are exposed to exploitation in this way.

I will conclude by putting to the Minister some suggestions of things that can be done that I believe can help tackle these issues. We need to see a nationwide awareness campaign on illegal vapes for both adults and children. We need to see much-increased awareness in our schools of the safeguarding risks to young people posed by the sale and supply of these products. I would like to see all vape products in plain packaging and out of sight, just like tobacco. We need to fully explore a robust licensing system for both vapes and tobacco. We need greater collaboration on intelligence between our very small trading standards departments and police forces across the country. We need on-the-spot fines, set at punitive rates, to tackle the sale of these illegal vapes and tobaccos, and we need to see swifter premises closure orders.

I am sure that all Members are as concerned as I am about the issues that I have shared, and I have no doubt that more worrying stories will be shared throughout this debate. I look forward to the Minister’s response and to a plan that sees us clamp down on this danger.

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[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Mark. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) for securing the debate and for the powerful way he introduced the topic.

Like the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), I have made no secret of my lack of enthusiasm for vapes—specifically disposable vapes. I have held my own debates on the topic, and I have supported others, including the hon. Lady, so I am pleased to speak today, because we need urgent action on these things.

We have heard about smoking cessation a couple of times during the debate. Smoking cessation is absolutely important, and we should all take it very seriously, but disposable vapes are not risk-free, as has been pointed out. There are other, more useful ways of supporting smoking cessation—for instance, reusable vapes, which are not seen as attractive to young people. However we look at it, and whether they are illicit or not, disposable vapes are harmful, particularly to young people and our environment.

The environmental side of things is what first caused me to become interested in disposable vapes. That was thanks to Laura Young, better known as “Less Waste Laura”, who is a student from my constituency. Laura has worked tirelessly to rid our streets, parks and beaches of the discarded plastic, which is so familiar to us all, and the pollution that has become a torrent in recent years. These apparently disposable vapes are almost never properly disposed of; in fact, the way they are constructed means it is almost impossible to properly dispose of them even if someone wants to, which is quite unlikely, considering that this product is sold on the basis of its easily disposable nature.

It is a great pity—this is embarrassing for it—that the Labour party, propped up by the Tory party on East Renfrewshire Council, is so unwilling to support anything the SNP supports that it has, not once but twice, refused to support a motion to ban disposable vapes locally, putting the council out of step with almost every other local authority in Scotland and with the evidence of the harm that such devices do.

[Gareth Johnson]

Does the hon. Lady not accept that properly and legally produced disposable vapes provide an attractive alternative for adults to stop smoking and thereby save lives? Some companies, although this is not happening a great deal, can now almost fully recycle the components of disposable e-cigarettes. Does she accept that there is a danger that we move from illicit vapes and start targeting those that would be welcome for adult smokers to switch to?

[Kirsten Oswald]

No, I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s proposition at all. That is absolutely wrong-headed. We can see in front of our eyes that these products are so attractive to young people that they are hooking them in—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is mumbling from his chair. If I can finish my speech, I will set out for him that these products are hooking young people in and getting them addicted, and some of these young people then go on to start smoking. That is far from the situation he laid out, and we should take a very serious attitude to these products.

I have spoken about the harms caused by legal vapes to the planet, whether it is plastic, overuse of precious metals or fires. We have heard today about the impact that these substances have on the young people who ingest them, which should be of significant concern to us. Vaping is popular among young people. Since 2021, there has been a more than sevenfold increase in the number of 11 to 17-year-olds vaping and using disposable vapes rather than reusable ones. These devices are colourful and attractive, with snazzy names and fruity flavours. Vaping has risen so rapidly among children that one in five are now using disposable vapes.

We are not speaking about a smoking cessation mechanism. We are speaking about something that health professionals increasingly warn about. They are increasingly worried about a generation of young people who are hooked on nicotine. As the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has said:

“Youth vaping is fast becoming an epidemic”.

Despite all that, and despite the fact that the public would be concerned to know all these things, we have this stream of illicit, and other, vapes on our streets. We know that local shops are the most likely source for young people to come by them, and we have heard quite a lot about that today. There is also the online space, which is a source of significant concern to me. Unregulated and untested products are coming via the online space, and we have no idea what harms will be caused to the young people consuming them.

I met a business owner from my area last week, and she talked me through her concerns about illegal medical products—obviously not proper medical products. She showed me how she was targeted by online accounts pushing these goods to her. She is a responsible professional and she resisted, but let us be clear that there are many and complex routes by which these illicit vapes arrive here, just as there are for illicit medical products. All those routes need to be closed down, and they need to be closed down now. Whatever the disposable vape, it causes harm.

We know that there are significant kinds of harm being caused with the flavours and the colours. We have heard from the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) about the worries that Action on Smoking and Health spoke about. We are hearing more and more about vape use being glamourised online, and when people under the legal age cannot purchase vapes legally, they are purchasing them illegally or purchasing illegal ones.

The public health messaging on this issue is not as clear as it should be. The hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) tried to tell me that vapes would be a perfectly reasonable way to expect adults to support themselves in smoking cessation, but that is not right and that should not be what the public health messaging tells us. We heard from the hon. Member for Darlington that vapes are a gateway to other, sometimes very serious, concerns and to riskier behaviour, such as smoking and substance abuse. He eloquently outlined the even greater and more significant harms that can be caused.

These things are arriving in huge numbers. I am grateful to the Advertising Standards Authority, which met with me after the most recent vape-related debate I spoke in. It is doing significant work trying to uphold the ban on advertising in various places, including on social media, of nicotine-containing cigarettes that are not licensed as medicines. None the less, Members may have seen adverts that would cause them to think that was not the case, and that is part of this torrent and this pushing of vapes, which needs our urgent attention.

Indeed, vapes need attention across the world. Let us be clear that the scale of the problem and the potential harms to young people and the planet should cause us deep worry. I read a really interesting piece by Chris Kirkham from Reuters last month about the owners of Elf Bar, which is a company with roots in China. Elf Bar products are very popular here, and the company is now, according to Reuters, flooding the US with illegal vapes—ones not covered by Food and Drug Administration regulations.

Under-age Vaping

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. As a Greater Manchester MP, I see the problem in my constituency and she will see it in hers. It concerns me greatly, because within our city region there are already communities that have some of the worst health inequalities. A lot of those health inequalities have been exacerbated by a higher than average prevalence of smoking. Even now, as smoking rates have declined, there are still communities in the areas we represent that have an abnormally high number of smokers. I do not want, in tackling smoking and reducing some of the health inequalities that are caused through smoking, to be storing up future problems with a new generation caused as a direct consequence of vaping or, more sinisterly, as a gateway to smoking later on in life. She is absolutely right.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister for giving way; he is making a very good speech. No one in this country has ever been shown to have died from vaping, whereas thousands of people die each year from smoking. Yes, the emphasis should be on stopping children from gaining access to vaping and dissuading adult non-smokers from taking up vaping, but does he agree that we should not lose sight of the benefits of vaping for adult smokers in giving up smoking and therefore leading a healthier lifestyle?

[Andrew Gwynne]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and later in my speech I will discuss the fact that vaping is a really important tool to assist people who want to stop smoking—indeed, Javed Khan, in his smoke-free 2030 review, made it clear that vaping has an important role to play in that respect. We certainly do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but we absolutely should be ensuring that children’s access to vapes is restricted and that the marketing of vapes is not done in way that attracts a new cohort of people who would never have smoked or vaped. While vaping is better for people than smoking, not vaping is better than vaping or smoking, and we do not want to create new problems.

Smokefree 2030 Target

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 20th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Bob Blackman]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It reminds me that 11 years ago I led a debate in this place on introducing standardised packaging for tobacco products. At the time, both the Government and the Opposition said they had no plans to support such a measure. Of course, we now have standardised packaging of tobacco products. I hope we can get standardised packaging of vaping products as well.

The Government recently issued a call for evidence on the best approaches for tackling youth vaping. I look forward to seeing the response. First and foremost, the Government should make disposable vapes, which are the worst things for the economy, much less affordable, by adding a £5 excise tax. That would also make the distribution of those products subject to much more stringent controls, making it easier to prevent illicit and underage sales. It would in particular ban the issuing of free samples to young people.

Will the Minister tell us when the Government’s response to the call for evidence on youth vaping will be published, and whether it will include specific enhanced regulation to address loopholes in the law? I welcome the Minister’s commitment to adapting the tobacco trace and trace system, to strengthen enforcement and to target the illicit market. I particularly welcome the Minister’s commitment to exploring how to share information with local partners about who is registered on the track and trace system, which is critical.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a critical role for trading standards in enforcing measures against illegal vapes, counterfeit tobacco and underage sales? We could greatly secure the environment for the consumer by trading standards enforcing the laws.

[Bob Blackman]

My hon. Friend must have read the next part of my speech. At present, trading standards officers have one arm tied behind their back in the fight against illicit tobacco, due to a lack of options for identifying and cracking down on retailers who repeatedly flout tobacco regulation. We know that retailers who sell illicit tobacco products are much more likely to sell tobacco to children, undermining tobacco-control regulations. They also seek to hook children on the addictive product that kills more than half of long-term users, by giving or selling them vapes in the first place.

Retailers are required to have an economic operator ID before they can trade in tobacco, under the current tobacco tracking and tracing regulations. Through adaptation of that system, local enforcement will easily be able to identify retailers who are breaking the law, and hold them accountable. That is the approach that I recommend in my ten-minute rule Bill, which would introduce a retail licensing system, similar to the one that exists for alcohol. Retail licensing for tobacco was recommended in Dr Khan’s independent review.

The Minister will be pleased to know that that approach has the support of the public and retailers. Survey evidence from ASH, published last autumn, found that more than eight in 10 small tobacco retailers support the introduction of a tobacco licence, backed by mandatory age verification. Will the Minister commit to publishing further detail on his plans to strengthen the track and trace system, before Second Reading of my ten-minute rule Bill on retail licensing in November?

It is undeniable that big tobacco and those representing its interests never cease in their attempts to undermine public policy, not just on tobacco but on vaping. Only last weekend, The Observer revealed that lobbyists connected to big tobacco were funding Facebook campaigns opposing new vaping regulations. Regulations, I think we can all agree, are desperately needed to protect children. It was exceptionally well timed, therefore, that yesterday the Department of Health and Social Care published guidance for all parts of Government on our legal obligations to protect public policy from the commercial and vested interests of the industry—guidance that I very warmly welcome. The Department of Health and Social Care, as custodian of the World Health Organisation framework convention on tobacco control, has been staunch in its support for that treaty and has upheld our legal obligation to strictly limit any engagement with the industry solely to that required for effective regulation of the industry. Will the Minister put it on the record that Government—the Executive, legislature and judiciary—are required to limit interactions not just with tobacco manufacturers but with any organisations or individuals with affiliations to the tobacco industry, including lobbyists or industry trade bodies, such as the UK Vaping Industry Association, which lists big tobacco among its members?

Mr Sharma, it is good to see you in the Chair; thank you for stepping in. When the Government initially announced their Smokefree 2030 ambition, it was described as “extremely challenging”. Four years on, not only has the challenge increased but the need for action has become more urgent. Cancer Research UK estimates that we will miss achieving the ambition by nine years; it will be even longer for the most disadvantaged in society. I am sure that the Minister agrees that that is not acceptable, so I wish to remind him of comments that he made in his previous role as a Minister for levelling up. He said that

“ultimately on public health and on prevention, we need to think extremely radically and really floor it, because otherwise the NHS will just be under humongous pressure for the rest of our lifetimes because of an ageing population.”

The proposals brought forward to date have been radical, but are not yet sufficient. There is nothing on key measures recommended by the APPG and by Dr Khan in last year’s review, which included reinstating funding that was cut for behaviour change campaigns, raising the age of sale, retail licensing, and tougher regulations for tobacco as well as vaping. I hope that when the Minister replies to this debate, he can assure the Chamber that the major conditions strategy will be published this year and will contain further measures—and funding—sufficiently radical to achieve our ambition for a smoke-free future, not just in England but throughout the United Kingdom. I look forward to hearing the contributions of other colleagues on this important matter, and thank you, Mr Sharma, for allowing this important debate to take place today.

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[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you as Chair, Mr Sharma. I commend the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) for securing today’s debate.

Smoking is not a lifestyle choice; it is a lethal addiction that the vast majority of smokers enter into before they reach adulthood. It is also an addiction that is increasingly concentrated among the most disadvantaged in society. The Office for National Statistics recently reported that over a third of smokers are now among the poorest 20% of the population. Lest we forget, that concentration of disadvantage is fuelled by the tobacco industry, the ability of which to maximise its profits by selling lethal and addictive products must be strictly regulated if we are to achieve our Smokefree 2030 ambition and protect the nation’s health.

My constituency, like that of my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham, is in the north-east, which is the most disadvantaged region in the country, as well as having the lowest regional life expectancy and among the highest smoking rates. It gives me absolutely no pleasure to say that. In 2021, 22,000 adults in Gateshead smoked, which cost the NHS £7 million and local authority social care £5.4 million, as well as costing £66 million in lost productivity. Those costs are due entirely to smoking and are entirely preventable.

Tobacco addiction has been levelling down communities across the country for decades and will go on doing so until the Government start to take action to deliver on their Smokefree 2030 ambition for all in society. On average, smokers spend around £2,500 per year on smoking. That is money they can ill afford. The total spend in Gateshead is £55 million—an eye-watering amount that goes up in smoke, with no benefit to the local community. Ending smoking will significantly increase disposable income in poorer communities such as mine, help grow the local economy, and improve the health and wellbeing of our communities.

Members have spoken about the need for investment in stop smoking services, which is indeed vital. The hon. Member for Harrow East spoke passionately at a debate in March about the Smokefree 2030 ambition and the role of support for smokers in achieving that goal. I wholeheartedly agree with him: smokers need to be motivated and supported to quit. But, as we have heard, the public health budget that funds local authority stop smoking services has been cut by 45% in real terms since 2015. That funding desperately needs to be reinstated if smokers are to get the support they need and deserve. The Government have so far failed to make the necessary funding available from the public purse. That is why I support a levy on tobacco manufacturers to pay for measures such as the stop smoking services needed to deliver the Smokefree 2030 ambition. Will the Minister fulfil the prevention Green Paper commitment to consider a “polluter pays” approach to funding tobacco control? That funding is sorely needed if we are to achieve our ambition of a Smokefree 2030.

Another area I want to look at is mental health. More investment is desperately needed to tackle smoking among those with mental health conditions as smoking is the leading cause of significantly reduced life expectancy among people with a mental health condition. Depending on the condition, life expectancy can be reduced by between seven to 25 years and as many as one in three smokers has a diagnosable mental health condition. Smoking is an indirect cause of poor mental health across the whole population through its impacts on physical health, income and employment. It is also a direct cause because it increases the risk of some mental health conditions, such as depression and schizophrenia. Those factors form a cycle whereby smokers are at greater risk of poor mental health and those with poor mental health are at greater risk of becoming heavily addicted to smoking and struggling to stop, further damaging their mental health. Investment is desperately needed to break that cycle. I could say much more on the issue. It is vital that we look at the provisions in the NHS long-term plan. They, on their own, will not reach the much larger group of smokers who need assistance to quit.

The improving access to psychological therapies programme has around 1,690,000 referrals a year and supports people with conditions such as depression and anxiety. The smoking status of clients of IAPT services is not routinely monitored. However, given the high rates of smoking among people with common mental health conditions, it is likely that around one in four clients smokes, which is equivalent to 504,000 smokers a year taking part in the IAPT programme. Pilot projects have shown that IAPT therapists are willing and able to deliver support to quit and that clients value the offer, so extending IAPT to include smoking cessation treatment would be highly cost-effective as it piggybacks on an existing service. But that still requires investment.

Finally, I want to share concerns that others have raised about the increase in youth vaping. Smokers with mental health conditions have been found particularly to benefit from access to e-cigarettes given their high levels of addiction and their barriers to quitting. It is essential that we ensure that adult smokers continue to have that help as a safer alternative to smoking and a means of quitting, but we must drive down the increasing rates of vaping in our children.

[Gareth Johnson]

The hon. Lady is making an interesting speech. There is no doubt that vaping saves lives when smokers convert to vaping. Although we must do everything we can to stop children from accessing vapes and dissuade non-smokers from taking up vaping, does she agree that the last thing we want is to do anything at all that prevents or dissuades smokers from switching to vaping or other alternatives such as heat-not-burn products?

Vaping: Under-18s

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Dr Hudson]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. I thank her for intervening and I welcome her medical expertise in this debate.

I have touched on some of the environmental concerns, and there are also concerns about fires related to disposable vapes. However, at the heart of my speech is the impact that such a frightening level of vape use is having on our young people, even as young as primary age. I urge our policymakers not to underestimate it. There are increasing reports suggesting that the use of vapes has negative effects on heart and lung health, and may be associated with tooth and gum disease. Other issues reported include coughs, shortness of breath and headaches. Nicotine, which these products often contain, is highly addictive with potentially harmful effects on the adolescent brain, which is still developing.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

Enforcement is absolutely vital in this industry, but does my hon. Friend agree that there is a danger of demonising vaping for adult smokers? Vaping is 95% risk free, according to ASH, which he has mentioned, the British Heart Foundation, the British Lung Foundation, Public Health England and so on. It is therefore a vital part of a smoker’s ability to come off tobacco use. It quite literally saves lives, and therefore should be promoted to smokers.

[Dr Hudson]

I totally agree. As I said, the use of vaping to help adults get away from tobacco smoking has significant health benefits, but today we are talking about stamping out its use by people who are not trying to give up smoking. We are trying to protect our young people, but I totally concur with my hon. Friend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O'Brien]

Closely. I am also listening to my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), who has led discussion on the subject through her ten-minute rule Bill. She is right to be concerned about the environmental impact of disposable products. The proportion of young people using those disposable products has gone up from 8% in 2021 to 52% by 2022. Clearly, they are an important part of youth vaping.

[Gareth Johnson]

We have heard a few calls for vaping products to be placed with tobacco products. Does the Minister agree that there is a danger in connecting vaping with tobacco to such a degree? It is not surprising that a disproportionately high number of people in this country believe that vaping is just as bad as smoking. People are put off going from smoking to vaping as a consequence. Should we not separate vaping from smoking wherever possible?

[Neil O'Brien]

My hon. Friend is right, and I will come to that in a moment. The call for evidence that I talked about will be open for the next eight weeks, and we hope that everyone concerned will take the opportunity to share their views and put evidence in, to shape our future approach.

Smoke-free Society by 2030

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I will be very brief, Mr Rosindell. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) on securing this debate and on his excellent speech. I fear that it is going to be incredibly difficult to achieve a smoke-free society by 2030. It could be achievable, however, if we embraced vaping far more than we do at present and if we promoted those products as being 95% risk free, as stated by Public Health England, and as being substantially safer than smoking. It is not risk free and people who do not smoke should not vape, but it is absolutely right that we encourage smokers to take up vaping. There are a variety of different, innovative ways to do that, including my right hon. Friend’s suggestion of inserting in cigarette packets a card encouraging the smoker to use a particular vaping product.

Brexit gives us the opportunity to ensure that vaping regulations pertain to vaping. That is not the case at present: they are lumped together with tobacco products, which creates and radiates the fear that vaping is as dangerous as smoking. Too many people in this country feel that there are greater dangers with vaping than actually is the case. Through Government changes to regulations, we can change that and ensure that people who smoke are made aware of the comparative benefits of vaping. Post Brexit, there is a great opportunity to ensure that that happens.

Covid Security at UK Borders

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con) [V]]

I am pleased to be able to make this speech, because the Opposition motion would have us treat people from countries where there is virtually no covid in the same way as those from countries with very high levels. It makes little sense to me to place people from New Zealand in hotels. Any threat created by their travel, for example, can be dealt with by a period of self-isolation. I applaud the Government’s logical and proportionate approach. Of course, as with all things associated with covid, we need to keep every measure under continuous review, but right now the logical approach is to ban flights from areas of very high covid levels and for hotels to be required where appropriate.

The Opposition motion also lacks logic. The literal wording of the motion has clearly not been thought through. It requires “all arrivals” in the UK to quarantine in a hotel. It actually states:

“That this House calls on the Government to immediately introduce a comprehensive hotel quarantine system for all arrivals into the UK”—

not some, but all arrivals. The shadow Minister said there would be exemptions for hauliers. That does not change what we will actually vote on. The motion provides for no exemptions, so this measure would have to include pilots, air cabin staff, and any engineer working in aviation or in the channel tunnel. The motion would entail all those people, when they arrived in the UK, going into a hotel for 10 days. It mentions no exemptions—not even for people bringing the Pfizer vaccine to the UK from Belgium.

Either the Labour party supports the literal wording of the motion and wants to stop every person coming to the UK whatever the circumstances, or it does not and the motion is just worded for political effect, highlighting the ridiculous nature of Opposition day debates now. It has to be one or the other. We are asked to take Opposition day debates seriously. Labour has tried to change what we are voting on, and only nine of its Back Benchers applied to speak in the debate. It clearly does not take its own debates very seriously.

We therefore cannot support this motion. The current measures are logical and proportionate. I believe it is right that we check why passengers are travelling to avoid unlawful and unnecessary trips. We have been criticised on one occasion for being too strict, and on another for being too lax. This virus is a moving beast and we need to be flexible too.

Anyone can play party politics with this virus, but what is needed is a constructive approach. It is positive that hotels are being used in this way, given that they are not being used very much at the moment. We must also bear in mind the impact on our aviation industry, so I welcome the measures that are being brought in there, but I do not welcome this motion.