Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th October 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)]

My Lords, very briefly, I support the ambition of the amendments in this group, particularly my noble friend Lord Bethell’s amendment on tobacco extinction 2040, which is the level of ambition that we should be looking for. The Government are to be applauded for this measure, but we need not just a direction of travel but a destination, which this provides. I also very much agree that the end-point legislation that we have seen on asbestos and leaded petrol are examples of two very successful approaches that we could replicate here.

I also support the amendments in the names of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham and the noble Baronesses, Lady Northover and Lady Grey-Thompson, from whom we have just heard. It is very important that we seek to tackle those areas that have the highest deprivation and suffer most from smoking. These amendments seek to do just that. I also agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, on the need for a clear communications strategy. That is central and should be led by the department, as she so rightly said.

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I want briefly to offer a slightly different perspective.

I understand the intent behind the Bill and my noble friend Lord Bethell’s Amendment 4 in this group. However, I believe that this amendment and the Bill as a whole lack some nuance in separating cigarettes from cigars and other tobacco products, which I will hereafter refer to as OTPs. If this were the cigarettes and vapes Bill, I would not have much issue with it, but there is a vast difference in mortality impact between cigar smokers and cigarette smokers. Cigars are not inhaled and are made from natural tobacco, while cigarettes are inhaled, are habitual, are used with high frequency and are often made with additives and chemicals.

I implore noble Lords and the Government to recognise this difference. The reason why is that we risk destroying a 500 year-old business with products that are made by artisans and are often, or almost exclusively, sold by independent family retailers who do not stock or sell cigarettes because cigars and OTPs are the only products that they sell. I draw attention to subsection (3)(b) of the new clause proposed by my noble friend’s Amendment 4, which refers to

“supporting tobacco retailers and businesses in transitioning away from tobacco product sales”.

If that said, “cigarette sales”, I would have no issue with it. If you are a large retailer such as Tesco, you can easily put something else in that shelf space; if you are a family business that sells only cigars, however, the impact of this measure is that you will go out of business.

By including cigars and OTPs in this amendment, we risk putting these family-owned, responsible traders out of business for a very negligible health gain; we also risk losing tourism and tax revenue at the same time. So can my noble friend and the Minister look again at separating cigarettes from cigars and OTPs, both in the Bill in general and in this amendment specifically?