Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I have listened very carefully to the speeches from the noble Lords, Lord Murray and Lord Naseby. However, what they cannot avoid is that their amendment, by maintaining the legal sale of tobacco products to persons over the age of 21, will continue the enormous damage to public health and the enormous cost to the National Health Service that is caused by the consumption of this product.

I am not persuaded by the freedom arguments. We ban heroin. We require that people wear seat belts, even if they are over the age of 21 and they may take a different view. If Sir Walter Raleigh were to bring tobacco into this country today for the first time, there is surely no doubt whatever that it would be banned because of its noxious, dangerous character. The Bill contains such detailed provisions relating to legality precisely because this has been a lawful product for so long. I think the Government are quite right in the way they seek to deal with it.

The only other argument of substance presented was from the noble Lord, Lord Murray, relating to illicit tobacco products. But that is an unfortunate consequence of banning any product. We ban cannabis. There is an illicit trade in cannabis, but I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Murray, is a supporter of legalising the sale of cannabis. The enactment of the Bill will do an enormous amount to educate the public of the dangers that this product causes and of the need to ensure that we move forward now to promote public health.

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

My Lords, I want to speak to my interest. About 30 years ago, I was a director of British American Tobacco. I started smoking when I was at school, and I have now been smoking for about 70 years. At the moment, the thought has not crossed my mind that I am going to abandon my enjoyable smoking of small cigars.

Leaving that aside, I recall that when I was at BAT, just as my noble friend’s experience of Gallaher has confirmed, we were desperately anxious to keep our reputation as a company and make sure the dangers of our product were brought to people’s attention and we could protect our reputation. I will not reminisce for too long, but I recall that we lobbied the then Government to make it illegal to sell our products to under-18s. They rejected that idea because of counterlobbying from retailers. We certainly offered no resistance whatever to the widespread publication of the health risks of smoking, which are considerable.

We were often accused of doing dreadful things. People who campaigned against our product decided they had to campaign against the evil organisation that was involved in it. But this was a complete misunderstanding of our attempt to maintain a good reputation. It was, in fact, an extremely well-run company. My opinion is that smoking should not be banned and made illegal if the sale is to adults who are fully informed that they are adding to the risk to their health that motoring and other things already pose to them and decide that the pleasure of smoking involves them taking it on.

I will not repeat all the excellent arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Murray, who put the case perfectly clearly and well—I agree with every word he said. I find the proposition, which was first put forward by my own party towards the end of our last period of office, a quite extraordinary one. It is going to be found that shopkeepers are making an illegal sale if their customer is a day older than the legal limit imposed by Parliament. I assume that in 60 years, somebody like me will be required to go into a shop taking my birth certificate, saying that I am 85 so can legally buy a cigarette, whereas if I was 84 years of age it would be an illegal act to engage in this transaction. I cannot see how shopkeepers are going to comply with the law except by demanding some proof of date of birth and continuing to demand that proof as the legally entitled purchasers steadily grow older and older. I am sure it is well intentioned. It is another attempt to reinforce the already very successful efforts we have made in this country to reduce the incidence of smoking. But it is faintly ridiculous and slightly preposterous, and, given the history of the decline of smoking in this country, it is quite unnecessary.

The most important point that the noble Lord, Lord Murray, makes to those who might be faintly neutral in this debate is that it will stimulate organised illegality. It most undoubtedly will. He made the arguments for that, but I remind the House of the best example in my lifetime. Until about 30 years ago, betting on racehorses was legal only on the course, and there was a firm law saying that you could not place a bet on a horse—it was strictly illegal—unless you were actually at the course.

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[Lord Rennard (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I oppose Amendment 1 and the associated amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, because I believe wholeheartedly that a country free from the harms of tobacco would transform the public health of this nation and prevent huge amounts of human suffering. We heard from the noble Lord about the reversal of the planned policy in New Zealand, but we did not hear an explanation for that. The explanation is quite simple: there was a change of coalition parties following a general election. One of the new coalition parties feared the drop in revenue to the Government as a result of the policy being introduced and a reduction in the prevalence of tobacco smoking, which surely proves the point that that party accepted that such policies as this would be effective.

We have heard about the wonderful, kind-spirited nature of the tobacco industry in caring for young people, but not enough about the many decades of deceit, in which that industry knew full well the links between its products and lung cancer, and covered up what it knew and lied about them, as it lied about tobacco smoking of a second-hand nature. This is not an industry which we can trust for a remote second.

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

May I ask what evidence the noble Lord has for that? I well remember, when I was on the board of BAT, that we acknowledged the health risks. We were accused of somehow denying it, but the people with this bizarre conspiracy theory were never able to produce any examples of our denying it, because we did not, and we did not oppose warnings and labels on packages. It is just part of the mythology of the more extreme fringe of well-intentioned anti-tobacco lobbyists.

[Lord Rennard (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, with respect, I am not part of any extreme fringe, and the views I have enunciated are shared almost entirely by the medical profession in this country. For decades, the tobacco companies had evidence that tobacco was linked to lung cancer, yet they kept denying until it was proven by showing the number of people with lung cancer who smoked and the number of people with lung cancer who did not. The industry hid that as it fought tooth and nail against such things as plain packaging with many bogus arguments. This is the most deceitful industry in the world.

We have heard about the cliff edge problem, but it is one that we have now. At 17 years and 364 days, you may not buy tobacco, but you can on your 18th birthday. With these amendments, that would change to being able to buy tobacco on your 21st birthday, but not after 20 years and 364 days on this planet.

My experience of being orphaned at 16, and finding my mother, a heavy smoker, dead in her bed as a result of hypertensive heart disease, with smoking obviously a key factor in her death, has driven me, ever since then, to support people trying to quit—that is most smokers, in my experience—and to prevent the tobacco industry promoting addiction to its lethal products. The Bill proposes a world-leading policy of which we should be proud, and we should not make it less effective, as proposed by many amendments in this group.

Raising the age at which someone can legally be sold a cigarette works in terms of reducing tobacco consumption. It may not be 100% effective, but that is not a reason to try to make it less effective. We know that raising the age of sale in England from 16 to 18 in 2007 reduced smoking rates among 16 and 17 year-olds by 30%. In the US, when the age of sale was increased from 18 to 21, the chance of a person in that age group taking up smoking fell by 39%.

The tobacco industry employs the most deceitful and dangerous lobbyists in the world. Their role is to try to protect its enormous profits and persuade more people—in particular young people—to take up the deadly habit in order to replace the 50% of its consumers whose lives are shortened by smoking tobacco.

One argument we hear from opponents of tobacco control legislation is that it represents a so-called nanny state. This is a term that I feel is really used only in the media. The phrase does not resonate with the public, who are highly supportive of tobacco control legislation. I hear laughter, but polling shows that 68% of the public support the smoke-free generation. The Chief Medical Officer has been clear that there is no freedom in addiction. Many people start smoking as children and become addicted almost immediately. Two out of three people who try just one cigarette go on to become daily smokers, and three-quarters of smokers say that they would never have started if they had the choice again.

It is also important to be clear what this policy does and does not do. The rising age of sale does not remove any current adult’s ability to buy tobacco; it simply phases in a high minimum age of purchase for future generations. That is a proportionate approach. By contrast, accepting these amendments would mean that those aged 18 to 20 who already smoke would suddenly be unable to buy tobacco legally—a far more intrusive step.

Smoking remains one of the greatest preventable burdens on our public services and our economy. It is responsible for up to 75,000 GP appointments every year. It costs the country approximately £27.6 billion in lost economic productivity. It costs the NHS almost £2 billion annually and local authorities nearly £4 billion a year in social care costs. That is money we do not have, and which could and should be spent on improving health, not managing preventable harm. The number of people—

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[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I will briefly sum up for the Front Bench on this interesting group of amendments. Our position is that we support this generational change and welcome the Government bringing it forward. This is not party-political; these ideas come from across the House, and we welcome them.

From our point of view, changing the age of sale to 21 would be tinkering at the edges and would not bring about the change that we all know we need. Nobody who has ever smoked a cigarette or been a smoker would wish otherwise. Imagine for a moment that, today, we were not considering this ban but contemplating introducing cigarettes for the first time. Nobody with a modicum of common sense would ever contemplate introducing cigarettes and allowing corporate companies to sell products that kill half their users. We all need to change this. My own father died of emphysema, and I am sure there is hardly anyone in this House who has not been impacted by tobacco.

This might be one of the most important things that any of us in the House do in our lifetime. It is hard to see another piece of legislation having such a beneficial impact on preventing harm and misery for people in society and helping them to lead healthier and better lives.

We see no insurmountable problem in this legislation. Yes, it is new and novel, and there will be teething problems—I cannot say there will not be—but they are all surmountable. Age verification and ID are commonly used, we need to look after our small retailers and look at how this change will be implemented, and there are other views on the EU question, but this is essential and it needs to be done. We have had conversations about freedom of choice, but we would not allow any young person to pick up a loaded revolver with two chambers and one bullet and give them the freedom of choice to spin it, put it against their head and pull the trigger.

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

Does the noble Earl not agree that we would save many lives if we passed a law saying that nobody should be allowed to drive a motor car unless there is a man waving a stick walking in advance of them? Similarly, if we banned electric bicycles, we would prevent a great deal of injuries and possible deaths. We all have to face these kinds of judgments as part of the human condition and living in a society.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

With the greatest of respect, there are degrees of risk. There is no electric bike or motor vehicle that we have allowed that kills 50% of people who get on a bike or in a car. The noble Lord is comparing apples with pears. The dangers of smoking are known and proven, and are far greater than anything else.

To conclude, we welcome this generational ban. There are particular issues that need to be looked at and the Bill will need to be regularly reviewed, but we will come to amendments on that. This is the most important thing that we must do. It is essential that we make progress to improve the public health of people in this country.