Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Debate between Lord Lansley and Lord Strathcarron

Report stage
Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I am very glad to follow my noble friend, although I fear that, after his poetry, I will be much more prosaic. I will speak to Amendment 21A, moved by my noble friend Lord Lindsay. I want to talk in particular about the implementation of the enforcement and licensing scheme in relation to vaping and nicotine products.

In Committee, we discussed how the Government might implement the registration and licensing scheme, and the regulation of vaping and nicotine products, in co-operation with industry. I am grateful to the Minister for our subsequent discussion and for her letter. However, while the letter followed up the analogy we used in the debate with the role of the Portman Group on the regulation of alcohol products, it referred to the wrong bit of what the Portman Group does. She referred to the voluntary aspects in relation to advertising and sponsorship, whereas the correct analogy is with what it does in relation to the naming, packaging and protection code.

In essence, what that does is ensure that where products which are intended, as determined by the adjudication panel, to appeal to children are put on the market, it is able to notify retailers, who ensure that the product is not stocked. In the Bill, in relation to vaping and nicotine products, as the Minister will be aware, there is intended to be a tighter regime than is the case in relation to alcohol products. That still lends itself to the co-regulatory solution, not because the industry is looking for a voluntary solution but because it is looking for a more proportionate and effective solution.

In particular, I want to make it clear that if there is a register of products, and Clause 94 says there will be, there will then have to be somebody who makes a judgment on whether a product that is registered is compliant with the requirement of not being intended to be attractive to children. The essence of what we are setting out to do is to avoid children accessing or being attracted to vapes.

The scheme in this Bill needs somebody to do a job like that of the adjudication panel. Through the licensing that is in the clause, it is available for conditions to be attached to licences for retailers to make it clear that if there is an adverse adjudication in relation to a product that is registered, it would not be stocked by the retailer. This is not voluntary; it seems to be intended to be watertight, but somebody somewhere has to make an adjudication on whether the naming, packaging or promotion of a product, although it may be compliant with the legislation, is none the less intended to be attractive to children.

As the Minister will know, a series of judgments over time will inevitably have to be made. The least proportionate approach is for there to be a constant effort on the part of the Government to establish in regulations what is and is not permissible. It is much better to have a process, as the Portman Group does, by which an adjudication panel arrives at a quick and effective solution.

I am asking the Minister that we continue the debate which he has kindly entered into with me and that officials use the time which my noble friend is looking for in Amendment 21A to ensure that we have an implementable solution which the vaping industry, and the retailing industry in particular, can be confident in and can put in place before commencement of those provisions.

[Lord Strathcarron (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group. If there is to be a retail licensing scheme, it needs to be more robust, fairer and more enforceable than currently envisaged. It needs to respect and reward retailers who are already complying with the law, which is the point behind Amendments 23, 30, 43, 45, 114 and 115 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, and other noble Lords, and identify and punish those who are operating illicitly and illegally, which is the point behind Amendments 31 and 34 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister.

The amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, proposes that existing, compliant and currently exempted specialist tobacconists selling handmade Caribbean cigars be automatically included in the new retail licensing scheme. This tiny number of about 120 micro-businesses, many of them multigenerational, already face the prospect of the damage done to their business by the proposed packaging regulations, and, albeit in many years to come, as their customers are almost exclusively into early or late middle age, the prospect of competing with illicit sales as a consequence of the generational ban part of the Bill.

As they are the very model of compliant, law-abiding specialist retailers, would it not be only fair at least to give them the certainty that they would automatically be included in the retail licensing scheme? Would it not lessen the burden and cost of the new licensing regime itself if it automatically granted licences to those 120 responsible businesses with a proven track record of being good actors in the tobacco area? The Minister has already said that she is not in the business of putting small businesses out of business, so I hope the Government look favourably on these amendments, which would give them an easy way of keeping at least some of these businesses in business.

Amendments 31 and 44 recognise the reality that many tobacco products are sold from premises that not only sell alcohol but derive most of their business from it. As drafted, there would be two separate licensing regimes—one for alcohol and the other for tobacco products. Would alcohol retailers not be far more circumspect about selling illicit tobacco products if, by doing so, they risked losing their alcohol licence and therefore their main source of income? Would trading standards officers and local authorities not find it much easier to enforce one combined licence than two separate ones? Would illicit products’ supply chains not be more easily disrupted if they lost their sales outlets through an unrelated alcohol penalty? Finally on these amendments—here I cross over to the previous amendments—would it not be fairer for existing specialist tobacconists if the bad actors were discouraged from unfairly competing with the good actors by having their alcohol licence removed and thus their businesses seriously affected?