Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Johnson of Lainston Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Udny-Lister (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to a number of the amendments laid in my name, starting with Amendments 24 and 25. Noble Lords will note that Amendment 24 seeks to establish a national register of tobacco and vape retailers. The reason I am pushing this so strongly is that the national register would strengthen traceability and support our trading standards officers and, importantly, could become a mechanism to strengthen consumer confidence and public reporting of rogue traders, by providing the general public with the means to distinguish legitimate retailers from rogue operators.

As for Amendment 25, noble Lords will hopefully understand the significant challenges that small businesses in this country are facing at this time. Yet here we are, through the Bill, finding yet more ways to strangle our small, legitimate traders with more red tape and more bureaucracy. I, like several people, I am sure, have heard directly from small retailers that many of them do not even bother to report people who carry out smash and grab thefts to the police, due to the time it takes out of their working day.

With these themes in mind, we should be mindful of passing legislation that places new and undue burdens on these small businesses. If we get this wrong, I fear that this legislation unamended would push many small and currently legally trading businesses into the hands of criminal enterprises that are fuelling illicit tobacco and vape trading across the UK. That is why, through Amendment 25, I am asking for the creation of a single digital portal for licence applications and renewals. This digital portal would lessen the burden on businesses, while also enabling greater oversight from enforcement agencies, all the while reducing the risk of administrative errors.

Amendment 31 would enable licensing authorities to suspend or revoke alcohol licences in cases where tobacco or vape licence conditions are persistently breached. Beyond the fact that, in breaching tobacco and vape licensing requirements, the person would fail to meet the definition of a “fit and proper person”, if the Bill is to succeed, it must be based on meaningful economic consequences that hurt and impact illicit trading. Alcohol represents a very significant proportion of convenience store turnover. Linking the two regimes creates a deterrent and uses existing powers under the Licensing Act 2003. If everybody is serious and genuine in their endeavours to protect children through this legislation, we must close this enforcement gap and send a message to those who breach tobacco and vape conditions by deeming them unfit to sell alcohol.

Finally, Amendment 44 seeks to ensure fairness and avoid regulatory arbitrage by ensuring that there is consistency across England and Wales. I seek your Lordships’ consent to apply the same alcohol licence linkage principle in Wales to that which I have proposed for England. That principle is that serious and persistent breaches of tobacco retail conditions should carry real commercial consequences, hitting rogue traders in a way that seeks to gravely disrupt and deter rogue trading.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

My Lords, we have had a very valuable debate so far on the practicalities of a generational ban on smoking. I have been particularly intrigued by the journey we have taken. In that journey, a number of people have come to me, and I thank them for the enormous amount of information and support we have received from the specialist cigar industry. I was particularly delighted, noble Lords may be interested to hear, that my noble friend Lord Parkinson alerted me to a brand of cigars that sadly no longer exists called the House of Lords Cigar Range. I am sure we could sell that in the gift shop if things changed.

I also thank the Minister for her assurances over sampling rooms. I know this was debated, but I would be grateful for further clarification relating to her correct assertion that plain packaging will be difficult for specialist tobacconists to comply with, and thus extra care will be taken to ensure that they can carry on their business within the law, and that their specific needs will be met, as they are already in relation to the display of tobacco products.

However, these amendments, to which I have added my name, go further in protecting this important if niche industry of specialist tobacconists. The purveyors of these handmade, hand-rolled cigars, as my noble friend Lord Lindsay said, employ hundreds of people. They are largely family-owned or small businesses. They have been trading in some cases for hundreds of years and, importantly, provide delight to thousands of tourists and enthusiasts every day.

Regarding compliance with local licensing regulations, I do not believe that these shops have ever had any form of enforcement or issue around their compliance. I believe their behaviour to be exemplary. If we do not acknowledge the difference of these specialist tobacco shops but simply lump them in with the hordes of vape shops that are a blight on our high streets, we will end up in the worse situation that is causing the sorts of problems that we see today and that have just been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Johnson of Lainston Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 24th February 2026 Lords Chamber

I believe in this passionately, and I cannot think of any reason why the Government would resist this amendment, apart from the “not invented here” type of reason. So, given that I won over the Minister on one matter earlier today—she heard me proudly just now move an amendment formally, which of course I had never done before—can I persuade her to come on board with this one as well? If she does not pick it up in exactly this form today, can she give an undertaking, which I am sure the whole House would welcome, that she will come back at Third Reading with something that has a similar effect? I beg to move.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I am never quite sure whether I should declare an interest in this debate as someone who has smoked the occasional cigar, but on this set of amendments I declare an interest in that I have teenage children. I see their actions, which chime very much with what the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has just discussed.

We are in danger of creating a two-tier system—we do this across the board, and I am afraid we in this House are guilty of it—whereby we have excess intense regulation, which affects law-abiding citizens and consumers, and we focus on that, feeling that we have done our job and can sit back and relax, having stopped smoking, drinking or whatever it may be. But the reality is that we simply end up creating a second and entirely unregulated market.

I saw the same documentaries that my noble friend saw and was surprised, but not by the clandestine nature of organisations and illegal groups of pirates supplying illegal cigarettes and vape products under the counter or under the table in a pub—these were shops that were well advertised. In fact, I was quite impressed with some of the branding. Some of them were chains; they have become multinational corporations with headquarters, running an effective illegal system that pays no taxes. Clearly, as these documentaries showed, they had other issues, such as money laundering and very bad employment systems.

In conversations with the Minister, I have been encouraged by the realisation of this two-tier issue. It is not simply in the physical sense; it is also online. The teenagers I speak to say they have never actually bought a legal packet of cigarettes. It would not occur to them: at £20 a packet, they would be better off taking up cigars. Instead, they buy everything online, where there are no age checks. They can usually get hold of somebody else’s credit card, and it is delivered to the house. I find it very alarming that we will spend our time in these debates, and the Government will spend a huge amount of effort on a so-called ban of smoking and nicotine products, while at the same time allowing an illegal market to flourish.

From conversations with the Minister, which I found extremely helpful, I am aware that online sales are hard to regulate because of how enforcement happens at the local level: there is no one authority, although specific authorities will take leads in certain areas. There does not seem to be enough money or focus on this important issue. I am saying this because I care about the retailer and about the end ambition, in some measure, of this overall government initiative. It would be extraordinary if we focused all our efforts on a great sledgehammer to crush legal, law-abiding and decent retailers who are trying to do their job, and law-abiding consumers, without realising that we are creating another monster that needs to be tamed.

[Lord Udny-Lister (Con)]

I shall talk about the two amendments in my name. First, the Bill does not provide a deterrent; the proposed fixed penalty of £200 is nothing to those involved in this illicit trading and organised criminal activity. It is obvious that the unscrupulous retailers will simply absorb the costs and just continue with what they are doing.

It is worth mentioning at this point—and I have seen this—that when people are selling illegal tobacco it is not under the counter. You can have a nice card with all the different brands laid out for you to pick and choose from. It is very professional: a serious bit of criminality out there. I might add that I do not smoke, but I have seen it with others. That is why I am seeking through this amendment support to introduce a stepped penalty regime, escalating for repeat offenders and enabling referral to national and enforcement bodies where organised criminality may be involved. If we want to stand any chance of cutting down this illicit trade and the sale of tobacco and vapes, enforcement must have real teeth. Without a stepped penalty regime and referral powers, the Bill and the generational ban will be nothing more than symbolic.

Amendment 63 is on the points I have just made about having a more robust and stepped approach to penalty notices. I want to strengthen enforcement further by introducing a new statutory referral duty where a fixed penalty notice is issued. If the Bill does not confront the organised criminal network, it will just continue. We want local authorities to issue fixed penalties, and then to refer the matter to the National Crime Agency and relevant police forces and to share intelligence, which is key. It is further my intention that this amendment place a statutory duty on the NCA and police to investigate whether organised crime, excise or VAT evasion is at scale or other serious offences are involved.

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Taken together, these amendments are tightly targeted, proportionate and evidence-based. They are rooted in a simple proposition that good regulation should be proportionate to risk, that distinctions long recognised in law should not be erased without evidence and that, in pursuing public health objectives, we should remain attentive to regulatory fairness and common sense. I beg to move.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for her highly engaged approach to these issues facing small specialist tobacconists in the niche handmade, hand-rolled cigar industry. I also appreciated the assistance of her officials at the Department of Health, who have been sitting through a very long debate and must be wondering when it is going to end; I think this is the last group. They demonstrated a high level of understanding of cigars, their impact on health and the effects this Bill could have on the people involved in the specialist industry. I really do appreciate that. We have had a hugely successful, open dialogue around what is a very important issue.

I believe from my conversations with the Government that they do not want to destroy this important cottage industry of mainly small family-owned firms—which, I might add, attract a huge amount of tourism to this country and are world class in their standards of service and compliance. They sell a product which is not associated with childhood smoking, and they are not at risk of contributing to the remorseless rise of vapes, snuses and other nicotine delivery products. Wonderful shops like Davidoff, Fox, Sautters and Cgars, to name a few, employ hundreds of people and give satisfaction and happiness to thousands more.

It is very important that we accept the amendments proposed by my noble friend Lord Lindsay to protect these stores, especially those in the cluster of St James’s Street. I know we will come on to this later, but I would particularly welcome comments from the Minister on guidance to local authorities in this area, which reflects a number of the points in these amendments, as well.

The issues around packaging are also surprisingly important to the industry. We are not asking for anything other than a commitment to the continuation of existing legislation, which protects how speciality tobacconists display cigar products and can trade new and, importantly, vintage cigars. These products have to be stored and distributed in cedar or cedar-lined wooden boxes, which cannot be changed at source. It is important for noble Lords to understand this; they have to be transported in a certain way, in a certain type of box. It is not simply about moving them into some other type of packaging; and the packaging cannot be changed at source, since they predominantly come from important trading partners such as Cuba or the Dominican Republic, which do not have the capacity to change the packaging to enable us to have plain packaging.

By the way, the boxing and labelling system also helps ensure authenticity. This follows the discussion we had about counterfeiting earlier.

It is also important to recognise that these boxes and how the cigars are packaged are a far cry from packaging that advertises or that is targeted at children. It should be noted that health warnings are already applied to all these boxes. I stress that we are not looking for a carve-out or loophole with these amendments; we are looking simply for the continuation of a sensible policy to allow a niche industry of speciality tobacconists, with important trading partners, to exist and continue its trade as planned. This fits in with the express quotes from the Minister that, in effect, preserving the status quo as it stands today and rolling it forward is part of the Government’s agenda. We respect that and find it enormously helpful.

There is overwhelming evidence that going back on this original legal commitment would mean the end of the specialist cigar industry, so if we introduced plain packaging, it would be devastating for this important area of our economy and would have no benefit to the overall plan of making Britain smoke-free either.

I went to inspect the offices of Hunters & Frankau, which is the main importer of Cuban cigars, to see how a ban on ordinary box packaging could be implemented. If your Lordships saw the hundreds, if not thousands, of product lines in this Indiana Jones-like warehouse—I must say, when I had a chance to tour those storerooms, it was a very happy moment for me—your Lordships would see that it is totally impractical to bring in some type of plain packaging, given the way these authentic handmade products are sourced and distributed.

Canada and Australia have been quoted as having brought these measures into place. They are very different markets, so I do not think they are comparable in reality. In actuality, it has led to the almost total collapse of the handmade cigar industry as a result of the reduction of lines from many hundreds down to a few tens. The effect has not been on large multinationals or big tobacco; it has been the closure of many small businesses. Family-owned tobacconists and specialty suppliers have closed as a result. Needless to say, the consumer also suffers.

Finally, I would be grateful to hear confirmation that the Government have no plans to go back on previous legislation that allowed for a very small number of sampling rooms in this country—I believe the number is fewer than 30. These are not to be confused with so-called cigar lounges, of which there are many, which are predominantly outdoor areas, albeit with some type of heating and sometimes roofing. The investment in these humidors, which is what they are, with sampling rooms attached, has been significant. Several major hotels have integrated them into their business model. They are part of the supply chain of handmade premium cigars and to disestablish them would cause significant unnecessary harm.

I reassure noble Lords that at no point will these actions create a loophole for big tobacco. I am very aware that that has happened in the past, with flavourings, cigarillos and so on. Protecting these characteristics will not see an increase in youth smoking. I think we are all agreed on that. No one I have met, even those who are most fanatical about this Bill—some people are, and I do not disrespect that—wants to see an end to our specialist tobacconist industry today.

These are small, family-owned businesses, which behave impeccably, are drivers of tourism, create income for the Exchequer and behave extremely effectively in providing a niche community with cigars. To have clear commitments about these important matters from the Minister at the Dispatch Box would allow the industry to continue to be a highly responsible part of British retail. It would allow these small, family-owned stores to continue to drive footfall and income for this country. It would be a fair way to treat the adult, free-choosing, occasional cigar smoker into the future too.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, as we have already heard, the amendments in this group seek to carve out exemptions for specialist tobacconists, particularly when it comes to cigars. I will focus primarily on Amendments 126, 127, 147 and 192. I begin by focusing on what cigars actually are. They are often described—and we have heard them described—as luxury or artisanal goods, but they are, first of all, carcinogenic tobacco products that are harmful to human health.

I support the Government’s approach, as the Bill stands, to comprehensive tobacco control regulation that ensures that future generations do not become addicted to any form of tobacco. We have heard arguments that their use is infrequent and primarily among those over the age of 25. Indeed, the absolute numbers show that the majority of cigar smokers are over 25, but that reflects population size. In reality, among smokers—this is a really important point—the younger someone is, the more likely they are to be smoking cigars. Toxic influencers such as Andrew Tate actively promote cigar use to a young, predominantly male audience, linking cigars with power, wealth and success. We know how quickly this kind of influence can spread and be taken up if we leave loopholes for it.

As we have already heard, cigars have traditionally benefited from carve-outs of regulation on things such as pack size, flavours and packaging. Were we to change that now it would open the door to future innovations, as some of the proponents of these amendments have already acknowledged, with, for example, cigarillos. Action on Smoking and Health data shows that these are popular among young people who smoke: 35% of 11 to 17 year-olds have tried them in 2024 and 2025. We must not leave space in the Bill for innovation by the merchants of death, which I am afraid these amendments do.

Although I understand the intention behind the amendments that refer to plain packaging, I do not support them. The suggestion is that plain packaging will be fatal to the industry. I note that New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Ireland and Uruguay all apply standardised packaging to all tobacco products, including cigars. Data from Canada shows that, since that has come in, there has been only a very minor drop in the sale of cigars, in line with traditional long-term trends.

It is also important to note that the power to introduce plain packaging for cigars is not new. It already exists under regulations introduced in 2015 by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition and implemented by a subsequent Conservative Government. The Government issued a call for evidence on this in November 2024.

Finally, I will touch very briefly on smoke-free places and cigar lounges. I do not support Amendment 192. Yes, the customers may choose to be in that space, but the staff may not have a realistic practical choice about being there; it may be the only job they can get. We do not want workers exposed to second-hand smoke under those kinds of conditions.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Johnson of Lainston Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 17th November 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I beg the noble Baroness’s pardon, but I will still make my point about what she said about flavours. She was not describing the flavours; she does not know what the flavours are. She never bought them or consumed them as far as I imagine. She is talking about the descriptors—the rather lurid descriptors—just as my amendment is saying. That is what the Government should focus on, rather than flavours, which is what the Bill refers to. That is a digression back to an earlier group.

I simply want to say that the Government are in a state of tremendous confusion. They want us to have the information, but they do not want us to have too much information. What they have is a regime that is astonishingly oppressive and amazingly draconian, and which really ought not to stand as it does.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

My Lords, I will briefly follow my noble friend’s comments. We are in danger, with an understandable zealotry to extinguish all types of access to all types of tobacco-related products, of missing the reality of the point that there are millions of people in this country who could be occasional smokers and/or smokers who, like my noble friend and like the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, are keen to move from smoking cigarettes to other alternatives which are frankly better. It is often the perfect that becomes the enemy of the good; my recommendation is that the Government try to avoid that being the case.

The point here is that we should not have a zealotry-based attempt to ban something because an individual does not like it—a natural and understandable prejudice. The point must be about public health and giving people longer, happier lives and being practical about how to apply the laws to ensure that they function effectively. These amendments illustrate the opportunity for the Government to have a proper consultation to work out how they can ensure we do not end up, as my noble friend Lord Moylan might suggest, with an NHS-approved vape. It would be similar to those spectacles that you got on the NHS when I was a child; you could have either tortoiseshell or black. That strikes me as exactly what we will end up with in this scenario.

We should be proud of ourselves if we move to a regime where many people use vapes as a practical alternative to smoking and as a route to the ultimate cessation of smoking cigarettes. That should be the aim, and I am extremely concerned that, through the meticulousness and overfocus on a desire for perfection and completeness, we will end up causing the exact opposite effect and not increasing people’s health outcomes. Surely the Committee and the Minister would suggest that that should be the priority, and we need some common sense to prevail in this discussion.

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One reason why these exemption amendments are important is that not everyone in the worlds of retail, vaping and so on are evilly trying to sucker children according to this horribly misanthropic description that is being put out. It is not their sole purpose in life to destroy children’s lives via vaping. It is a perfectly legitimate activity and, as it happens, it has been a boon to public health. But, apart from anything else, not everything is always gauged by public health. In this instance, vaping passes the test and therefore should be given much more support. The way that the people who work in those shops talk to people is informed and interesting and, if you are interested in the details, the science, the chemistry and so on, that is the place to go.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to the amendments relating to penalties around advertising. As is often the case with legislation—many of us on this side were Government Ministers, too—the catch-all is extremely complex and rather dangerous. I agree that trying to prosecute someone who “has reason to suspect” that an advertisement may have been created for some type of tobacco-related product seems wholly reasonable. I note that, on page 66, internet services are included, which effectively means that anyone who runs an internet company where there is any advert for some type of tobacco product that could be seen by someone in the UK will go to prison for two years. I do not know whether we want to let some of the great tech bros of the world know that they should start planning. The good news is that we are so overcrowded that it will take years before we process them. But this is the sort of legislation—

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[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I apologise for delaying the Committee. I was not having a cigar, as was suggested; I just got caught in the slow lane in the Lobby.

I shall come briefly to a conclusion. I ask the Minister for some clarification around the reality of how these proposals will be brought into play. I do not wish to speak on behalf of my fellow Peers but, clearly, there is a broad understanding across the Committee that we will end any form of advertising or promotion, except in specialist areas. I was pleased to see, and am grateful for, the carve-outs for specialist tobacconists, but we must ensure that these are proportionate and realistic; I assume that it is not the Government’s intention to impose a two-year prison sentence on someone who inadvertently passes on an advert for tobacco products or whatever it may be.

The “Internet services” clause needs serious consideration because, like all these laws that try to catch the provider, be it the telephone company, the internet service provider or whatever, from my experience, having sat where the Minister is, they are largely impractical. It is better to think practically about what these service providers can do, what sort of expectations we should be holding them to and how they can practically try to minimise the proliferation of adverts for tobacco products.

My final question to the Minister is, how can I receive my information as a legitimate enjoyer of an occasional cigar? How will I be given information online, which is how many people purchase their tobacco products perfectly legally? The Minister said that she is not looking to take action retrospectively on people who now enjoy a legal pastime but to bring in a smoke-free generation, but how will that conflict with my rights? How will I receive information? Can I receive the information that I want to receive in a way that enables me to distinguish easily between products, which requires some type of brand point, online, by email or through the websites of the suppliers? How is that going to work in practice? It is all very well to say that we do not want to have advertising. The reality is that it is perfectly reasonable for me to receive good information. I am sure that the Committee would want to make sure that that was safely delivered and appropriate rather than using the wrong type of legislation and a catch-all or a sledgehammer in order to try to crack this nut.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will address just two amendments in this group. The first is Amendment 171 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, who powerfully and clearly introduced it as a probing amendment to the Government while very handily timing her intervention to remind me that it is in this group and that I have attached my name to it. I thank the noble Baroness for that.

We might say that there are different sides in this Committee, but everyone has agreed that adult smokers need to be able to get the information they need that this is an effective way to stop smoking. That is what this amendment does, and I do not think I need to say anymore on that.

I want to address briefly Amendment 172A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, which is about restrictions on brand sharing. It is important to highlight why this amendment should not be part of the Bill. The process of brand stretching or brand sharing is something that we have seen the tobacco companies doing a great deal of. Mysteriously, expensive leather jackets, fancy sunglasses or even stationery suddenly start to bear various branding aspects—I will get to what those aspects are in a second—that just happen to echo that of a certain form of cigarettes. Governments very often find themselves playing a whack-a-mole game: if you try to ban this, then something slightly different appears and so on.

I particularly want to highlight the guidelines for implementation of Article 13 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control because this amendment very clearly goes against what that says. It notes that there needs to be an effective ban on all forms of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. I think it is worth quoting this because it highlights the ways in which the WHO is trying to catch everything because it has to try to catch everything:

“Promotional effects, both direct and indirect, may be brought about by the use of words, designs, images, sounds and colours, including brand names … or schemes of colours associated with tobacco products, manufacturers or importers, or by the use of a part or parts of words, designs, images and colours”.


The Government need all the powers they can possibly have to stop the merchants of death sneaking round into little gaps in the legislation.

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[Lord Strathcarron (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, on the first day of this Committee, there was wide agreement that this Bill was about public health in general and about preventing young people starting to smoke in particular. Amendment 180, against which I shall speak, addresses neither of these objectives. As we have heard, the amendment is based on the oft-repeated shibboleth that all tobacco is dangerous, but that is as nonsensical and unscientific as saying that all water is drinkable. Neither proposition stands up to even the most basic inquiry: with water, it all depends on where it comes from, and, with tobacco, it all depends on what it is done with.

I am sure that, after reading Hansard on day four of this Committee, the noble Lords who were not here and who support this amendment will have learned that the tobacco used in handmade cigars is a totally different product to the tobacco used in mass-produced cigarettes. It is smoked by a much more elderly cohort of users and is handmade as an artisanal product by cottage industries in friendly, foreign-aid-supported Caribbean countries, which are, in turn, the very opposite of what most people refer to as the tobacco industry. They will also have learned that cigars are not inhaled, are not addictive and are smoked only occasionally at best; and that, as such, there is absolutely no evidence at all that handmade cigars pose any danger to public health. In fact, it is quite the opposite if we refer to the US health studies already mentioned in Committee, there being no UK equivalent.

Turning to the second objective of this Bill—to discourage young people from starting to smoke—again, there is absolutely no evidence, either statistical, anecdotal or commonsensical, that young people take up smoking cigarettes after smoking a cigar. So one is left wondering: what is the point of this amendment?

I turn now to its specifics, bearing in mind the call for proportionality here. There are only 25 sampling rooms in the UK. Access to them is usually by appointment and they are certainly open only to the tobacconist’s cigar aficionado customers; under no circumstances are they open to the general public. I know of only one of these places. It is on the roof of a shop that has a tin roof in case it rains but is otherwise open on all four sides; I have heard that others have powerful extractor fans, which is the norm. I cannot see any possible danger to the consenting adults sampling cigars in these circumstances or to anyone passing by, by which time the smoke will have long since disappeared into the greater good.

Sampling cigars is very different to sampling, say, a piece of cheese or a piece of chocolate. A cigar takes half an hour to smoke, and it changes throughout that half hour; therefore, it is necessary for the whole cigar to be smoked. That is in the tobacconist’s interest because, at the end of the sample smoke, the customer may well buy a box of 25 cigars, which could cost, on average, about £750. Methinks that noble Lords supporting this amendment are not familiar with what they hope to ban.

On day four of this Committee, in referring to the question of a health threat from smoking cigars, many noble Lords from all Benches—or, like me, from none—emphasised the need for evidence before legislation and pointed out that, in this case, there is none. Many argued that, ergo, cigars should continue to be exempted from it. Many also referred to the lack of any impact assessment and so to the unintentional, possibly terminal, damage that would be done to the related retail and hospitality sectors. Whether intentionally or unintentionally—it is not clear—this amendment hits right at the heart of these sectors for no evidential benefit. In the absence of any evidence that there is a problem that needs legislation—and in the spirit of, “If no harm’s being done, let us live and let live”—I hope that noble Lords will agree that this amendment is quite simply not needed.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I rise to speak in favour of the first amendment, proposed by my noble friends, and against the second amendment: Amendment 180.

On actors and their ability to smoke on set, in my view, this is something that needs further refining. I ask the Minister to go back slightly on the previous amendments discussed, but intertwined with those is this question: what is an offence and what is not an offence? If I were to be playing myself, as I may be now, would I be able to light a cigar in an authentic fashion in order to prove that point? Where are we talking about these regulations being relevant and effective? How far do the regulations intend to go when people are posting on social media, which is a far cry from the adverts of the 1970s promoting the joys of smoking? If they put themselves on social media smoking a cigar and talking about its delights, is that advertising the genre, as the Minister said it was? Would that be a criminal offence? If that is the case, we are going to find ourselves in extreme difficulty, aside from the absurd attacks on our liberty.

I am afraid that I will also speak very firmly against Amendment 180, with the greatest of respect to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey of Wall Heath. She made a strong case for how she saw these processes, but the reality is that this is an exemption temporarily used by premises to enable people to sample tobacco. The idea that this is something that somehow Parliament should be focusing on is a little bizarre when there is so much going on in the world. The anti-smoking lobby has found somebody somewhere somehow smoking a cigar, and the entire machine has focused its gaze, like the great Eye of Sauron, on this activity that is, at worst, fringe and, at best, quite relevant in ensuring that people can legitimately engage in the trade and sale of occasional cigar smoking, which we have established has no factual health consequences at all, regardless of the desire of many who want to see the end of smoking and a smoke-free generation. I disagree with that fundamentally but can see the point of it; this is contradictory to that point. It is important that, as legislators, we understand the facts and take a fact-based approach to the way we legislate.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Johnson of Lainston Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 13th November 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords—

[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.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Johnson of Lainston Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th November 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)]

My Lords, in relation to this group, it is essential that trading standards have the resources they need. Although the government pledge of an additional £10 million is welcome, I feel it is probably not going to be enough. It is worth bearing in mind that trading standards are supportive of the Bill, and that is good news.

I understand the desire of my noble friend Lord Lansley to push the idea of the money being ring-fenced, as it were, for trading standards. As he acknowledged, there are dangers in that approach; we can think of overzealous traffic wardens and the criticisms that they have in relation to raising money that is ring-fenced for specific purposes, and there may be a danger of that happening here too. Still, I quite understand the desire to press for additional finance for trading standards, and I hope the Minister will say something on that in response because I think that is needed.

On Amendment 74, it seems eminently sensible to have a stepped approach to fines for offenders so that it is a proportionate response and first offenders do not have such a high fine as others. I am wholly supportive of that, and I hope the Minister is listening in that regard too.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendments from my noble friends Lord Udny-Lister and Lord Lansley. I do not know whether any noble Lords in this Committee saw the news item, a few weeks ago, when the BBC went around looking not for under-the-counter illegal cigarette sales but for shops, well advertised with bright neon lights on the front, selling illegal vapes and illegal cigarettes. The stories of people of old going to the pub and having cigarettes passed under the table are now simply not the case; they are freely available. I have heard of people who have never bought a packet of legal cigarettes.

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All our amendments are tightly limited in scope but significant in impact. They do not challenge the Bill’s core aims; they merely recognise that not all tobacco products pose the same risks or merit the same regulatory approach. The inclusion of handmade cigars, pipe tobacco and snuff in the generational ban is not supported by evidence, and nor has it been justified by a proper impact assessment. The economic harm would be real, while the health benefits would be negligible. These amendments propose a more intelligent, proportionate and evidence-based approach. I beg to move.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak in favour of this group of amendments, especially my noble friend Lord’s Lindsay’s excellent amendments— I commend him on his first-class speech to the Committee—and those amendments in my name, relating to the need for an impact assessment relating to hand-rolled cigars and handmade artisanal cigars, and the need to differentiate the occasionally smoked cigar and its concomitant industry from cigarettes and vapes and the issues that cigarettes and vapes clearly present. Please do not be under any illusion that I am trying to stop the control of cigarettes and vapes—I have been particularly vociferous in the importance of regulating their sale—but it is important to try to differentiate between cigars and the rest of the tobacco industry.

Noble Lords may think it slightly bizarre that we should make special reference to a certain type of product that is undoubtedly smoked. I am sure many noble Lords will simply close their ears and let their gaze drift off, as if they were smoking a delicious cigar, assuming that everything should be lumped together: ban smoking, ban all tobacco, end of. I declare that I once owned a cigar fan site—if anyone ever visited, I hope they enjoyed it—and I have smoked an occasional cigar. I think I am a better man for it. It is called freedom, and I enjoy every one.

There is a strong argument to be made to give additional consideration to the world of handmade, hand-rolled cigars as well. I strongly believe that the Bill is a direct contradiction to the freedom of choice by consenting adults. Worse, it is looking to destroy a community that benefits this country both financially and socially. For all the evidence about the iniquities of vapes and cigarettes, which I do not deny, I have seen nothing—my noble friend just raised this point—about the risks to health and society of occasional fine cigar consumption; apologies if I have missed it.

In fact, in a fractious age of division, it is around cigar clubs—people coming together of their own free will to enjoy an occasional cigar—that we see a reversal, not an accumulation, of social problems. I declare a further interest in that in my village, we gather every Friday to enjoy a cigar, to meet and to commune. In an age when we need to be brought together as a community and a nation, it is through cigars—bizarrely, but importantly—that we achieve this. How can we support measures that drive us apart when we need the exact opposite? All I ask is that we assess the facts, if noble Lords can allow for that.

This amendment asks that we ask who is smoking cigars. The demographic is almost totally advanced, as we have heard; in fact, I am probably a relatively youthful smoker of cigars at 51 years of age. The audience is 1% of the total. There is literally no risk to new smokers or children. The average price is between £20 and £30, putting them totally out of reach of minors and into the hands only of aficionados. A proper report will bear this out.

We should also assess the important contrast between cigarettes and cigars; they are totally different, and I find it personally offensive to be grouped into the simple category of “smoker”, huddled outside glass office blocks or furtively vaping into one’s sleeve. You have to actually take your time with a cigar. Those Members of the Committee who have not enjoyed one should understand that it takes at least an hour to enjoy a proper cigar; you have to toast the foot, turning it slowly—ideally using a splint or a match—and then you puff at it gently, relishing, savouring and enjoying it while reflecting that it is an act of a free and happy person.

They are artisanally crafted, derived from a specific place—where, by the way, we wish to trade. Honduras, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and, of course, Cuba are all countries with which this Government have made it a priority to increase trade. It is an all-natural product, not filled with chemicals. It is vegan compliant and fully biodegradable, which should please the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, who wishes to reduce pollution—I cannot see her in her usual place, so that joke is lost on her.

We should carefully consider the loss to our domestic economy too. It is an industry made up almost entirely of small and micro-businesses, as we have heard. They are mostly family owned. From Hunters & Frankau, the main Cuban importer, to the incredible Sahakian-owned Davidoff, via Fox’s and Cigars.com, all contribute to a legal and important industry, employing nearly 800 people and generating nearly £100 million in taxes. We should be aware that these specialist retailer characteristics are well established as exceptions and are protected under the 2002 Act and the tobacco and promotion regulations. I am not asking noble Lords or the Minister to do anything out of the ordinary; I am simply asking for consistency in establishing the basic facts.

I did some research over the past few days on their importance to our economy—not by smoking copious cigars to see how delicious they were, I assure you, but by visiting the shops down St James’s Street. It turns out that hundreds of people a week come to London, including non-smokers who have never smoked a cigar their lives, simply to visit these stores. They go into Davidoff’s to meet Mr Sahakian, or Fox’s, because they want to see our heritage. These icons of our culture, beacons of our heritage, are vital to tourism in London. Dismember these totems at your peril.

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[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)]

Forgive me, but this is exactly why we need a proper impact study. In 2023, a different deal was done to supply cigars, and the prices have gone up significantly. Numbers and actual overall sales volumes are totally different, so it is misleading to introduce the idea that, just because the sales have gone up, the numbers have gone up. It is a directly inverse correlation because all of the prices have gone up. The UCL study shows that the big products that are moving are not tobacco products. Snus is a nicotine-based product, and shisha has gone up hugely, but that is not the same. It is important to be clear about these things. I urge the Minister to be very clear about the granularity of these figures because, otherwise, we end up in the wrong place.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

It is a very interesting statistic that 2.4% of 14 to 16 year-olds have tried cigars in the last 30 days. That does not sound quite right; maybe it did not come out right. I would be grateful if we could have clarification on that piece of data.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

We can bandy all sorts of statistics around, but my noble friend is right that it is important to be absolutely accurate. I say to him that my reference was to sales of other tobacco products, which is a broader reference than to just cigars; I am happy to clarify that. I will also be pleased to write to the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, to be crystal-clear and to add anything else that I can in respect of the statistics.

The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, talked about the tobacco industry being incredibly—this is not a direct quote—innovative. He said that the industry is likely to adjust its business model as it has done before—for example, when the menthol flavour ban was introduced. That legislation did not cover cigars so, in response, as the noble Lord said, the industry produced cigarettes in a tobacco wrap, which are available in branded menthol packs of 10. Now, in the United States, a whole new category of small cigars has emerged to exploit the tax advantages over cigarettes, so I listen to the point that the noble Lord makes about the creativity and determination of the industry. I just ask noble Lords to hold that point in their head when we are talking about loopholes.

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I urge the Minister, who I know is fair minded and open to debate, to heed these warnings, listen to the experts and consult on the product scope of the generational ban so that unintended mistakes, as we have heard, are not made in the name of public health. I beg to move.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I shall speak to my Amendments 135A and 136A, as noble Lords would imagine. I will be brief. I hope these will meet a sympathetic ear from the Minister, who has oozed reasonableness from every pore during this debate. The specific amendment relates to Northern Ireland but—I am afraid my timings were off in terms of tabling the amendments—I hope it would actually cover all specialist tobacco stores, which naturally, because of their nature, are often concentrated in one single street.

It is absolutely right and sensible that there should be a density measure for tobacco-supplying shops in the UK regarding where they are located and so on, but we have some historic shops down St James’s Street that, if the council had to follow the letter of the law, might have to close—or some stipulation might result in that. That would be totally contrary to the Minister’s ambitions, particularly when she has rightly stated that the whole principle around the Bill is not to affect the status quo for people who are already smoking cigars, or whatever it may be.

Specifically in Northern Ireland, there is a famous tobacconist called Miss Morans, which has already been mentioned. I read a delightful and heartwarming story that her portrait was given by the Northern Ireland Executive to the peoples of America and hangs in the White House, or certainly did until quite recently. That must be a good sign that they are encouraging our trade. But this is a very serious point.

I would like there to be not exceptionalism but some guidance that makes clear that these existing speciality shops, which are naturally in a cluster, should have some elasticity around how the density regulations are interpreted.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 114A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, and shall speak to my Amendment 114C on the socioeconomic impact of the generational ban on the retail sector.

I consider the noble Lord’s amendment to be an important one, calling for consultation and a review of the impact of a generational sales ban for tobacco products on retailers, manufacturers and consumers. The noble Lord has concentrated on heated tobacco, but there is a broader question here about what kind of evidence is being used and what kind of consultation there has been on the practicality, enforceability and efficacy of this policy, which is the core of the Bill.

We need that evidence, because my dread about the Bill is that at the moment it is evidence free, or it makes too many evidence-free assumptions. My fear is that the Government—and in fact the previous Government, so I am not sectarian in my criticism—have failed to ask whether a tobacco control policy that adopts an aggressive prohibitionist approach towards consumers is the most effective means of achieving its stated aims. That is not me using the phrase “aggressive prohibitionist approach”, by the way; I am quoting a document produced by trading standards of Wales that went on to advise the Welsh Government to

“examine closely the reasons why this health measure was unsuccessful in New Zealand and repealed in February 2024”.

In fact, the New Zealand Government revoked their planned generational smoking ban, first because, once they had scrutinised their own plans and done their own cost-benefit analysis, they were concerned about the impact of similar legislation to this on the cost of living crisis—and secondly, they were worried that it would trigger the emergence of a booming black market.

The lack of evidence for the efficacy of the policy in this Bill is admitted in its own impact assessment, which recognises the “uncertainty” over the impact of the policy and that there are no international case studies to follow. If there are no international case studies to follow, that means there is a danger that we will make mistakes. In fact, international experiments should give us pause, because a similar ban was rejected by the Attorney-General in Malaysia, which ruled it unconstitutional on the basis that it would have denied Malaysians equal treatment before the law and would lead to age discrimination.

All of the evidence that we have on what the Welsh trading standards memo labelled an “aggressive prohibitionist approach” is alarming. South Africa, which temporarily banned tobacco products during Covid-19, found that criminals filled the void and supplied the demands of 93% of South African smokers, who switched to purchasing illegal tobacco through criminal channels. I mention this because I know that it has become a bit of a mantra for the Minister and supporters of this Bill to dismiss concerns about the black market as a big tobacco talking point. In the briefings that we have been sent, I have noticed that the glib dismissal of genuine concerns about a black market is actually a talking point being put forward by ASH and anti-smoking lobbyists. I appreciate that everyone is planning the future, but give me a break. After all, it was only last year that HMRC and Border Force’s new strategy on illegal tobacco admitted that,

“no matter how much we strengthen our current strategy, supply will always find a way to enter the market where a demand for it exists”.

That brings me on to what is happening with retail and my amendment. There is obviously a clear link between the regulation of tobacco and the serious organised crime groups that are exploiting difficulties in accessing tobacco for certain groups. A recent BBC investigation that has already been referred to—I commend it as good journalism, by the way; I wish that there were more of it—exposed an already well-established network of pop-up high street shops, including barber shops but also retail shops. They are often run in plain sight by human trafficking gangs, using illegal asylum seekers to man them; they are all trading in illegal unregulated cigarettes and vapes; and they are openly targeting the young. We need to be sure that this Bill does not supercharge the growth of an alternative black market retail arena, because that is already a huge social problem in many of our towns around the country.

One thing that was made obvious by the BBC documentary was that this was happening in front of police and local council officials. People just go in and buy from these shops. We do not want to make that any worse. The trend could be—this is what we have to worry about—that law-abiding and compliant retailers will have to compete with increasing numbers of openly flagrant black market purveyors of tobacco products of one sort or another.

My concern here is that, at the moment, we are absolutely clear that we want the UK to empower the private sector to drive economic growth and recovery. I know that this Government care passionately about the retail sector, especially small shopkeepers and retailers—in part of another Bill, they are passing a special law to protect them from assault—but the reason why I have asked for an impact assessment and a cost-benefit analysis for the retail sector is because I fear that there will be unintended consequences with the introduction of this generational smoking ban.

I want to emphasise why I have used the word “prohibition” so much and to contrast it slightly with the way in which the emphasis in most of our discussions has been on prohibiting the young from accessing cigarettes, in particular, and even vapes. The problem with the generational smoking ban is that the people who are banned or prohibited from purchasing it grow up and, for the rest of their lives, when they are adults, they are victims of a prohibition that will affect them. The people who will have to enforce that prohibition are often shopkeepers, at the heart of their communities, who will be asked to police adults and say to them, “No, you can’t buy this legal product because it would be illegal for me to sell it to you”.

Not enough attention has been given to the amount of money that these shopkeepers will lose, which is projected to be in excess of £26 million for retailers. This is at a time when retail profitability is already suffering significant headwinds for a wide range of different reasons. So I would like the Minister to consider a special consideration for the retail sector—particularly small independent shopkeepers, given what will happen if they become mired in difficulties because of the unintended consequences of this Bill. I ask her to consider what impact that will have not just on their socioeconomic livelihoods but on the communities that they serve so admirably.