Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th November 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, these amendments seek to mandate further consultations on measures in the Bill. Such things always sound very reasonable. However, it seems to us that the Government either have already consulted or intend to consult where needed. I would be more sympathetic if the consultation here was with public health experts, but the focus is particularly on those who would be selling tobacco. It is clearly very welcome—and it is something of a change from previous debates on tobacco—to hear from so many speakers in other groups that there is now wide- spread acceptance of the terrible damage tobacco does. I certainly welcome that.

One thing the industry is expert at is spreading alarm through the retail sector; they have done it at every stage of tobacco control. It is usually, “This measure will kill pubs or small shops”, and when that does not happen, they say, “Of course the last lot of regulation did not kill these areas, but this lot will”. However, I have no doubt that the alarm they create would feed back into such consultation.

There is a risk of overestimating the importance of tobacco to the retail sector and underestimating its impact on the wider economy. Tobacco is bad for the UK economy. Referring back to the points made by the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, about evidence, there is plenty of evidence showing the impact of smoking. People who get ill from smoking do not need only healthcare, tobacco-induced illness means time off work, less productivity and suffering smoke-related lost earnings and unemployment. Smokers are more likely to die while still of working age. Smoking costs society in England at least £43 billion a year, which is far more than the £6.8 billion raised through tobacco taxes. Hopefully, that addresses some of the cost-benefit analysis that has just been referred to.

Even for retailers that sell tobacco products, tobacco is not a good deal and is certainly not essential for business vitality. Footfall from tobacco sales has decreased, I am pleased to say, by nearly 40% in the small retail outlets compared with less than a decade ago. We also know that the illicit trade, which needs to be tackled, has declined dramatically by almost 90% since 2000. Tobacco is very profitable for manufacturers, but less so for retailers. The Government need to work closely with the retail sector to ensure clear communication, engage with the public and support enforcement agencies to address any breaches in the law.

If there is to be more consultation, for my part, it needs to focus on those organisations which have to cope with those who have been damaged by tobacco: those in public health. As I say, however, we feel that we do not need to add this selective group of consultees.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly to my noble friend’s Amendment 114A. First, I apologise profusely for not being here in time to speak to my amendments in the last group. I feel doubly guilty about that because I am going to pick up on something the Minister said in answer to the fact I was not here.

With regard to heated tobacco products, I believe the Minister said that they are harmful. However, there is no conclusive evidence of this; as my noble friend Lord Jackson pointed out, they are a cessation product and therefore ought to be materially less harmful. The fact is that the WHO also acknowledges—or rather assumes—that they will be harmful, but it does not have any conclusive evidence to that point. Can the Minister elaborate a little on where that evidence comes from?

As regards Amendment 114C, I think we should continue to conduct impact assessments. I reject the Liberal argument, which seems, as far as I can ascertain, to be that you should not have a consultation with people you do not like because you might not like their answers. That does not strike me as much of a consultation.

I have little else to say, but I apologise again, particularly for picking up on the Minister, who did not have to answer my amendments—that is a bit of a cheap shot, and I apologise.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, in Amendment 114A, my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough rightly highlighted the need for any regulations in this part of the Bill to be underpinned by evidence drawn from the real-world experience of retailers, manufacturers and consumers. It is a point very well made, and I hope that, even if the Minister has an issue about consulting tobacco manufacturers, which I expect she will say she does, she will see the good sense of consulting others in the supply chain to make sure that the regulations stand the best chance of being fit for purpose and avoid unintended adverse consequences.

My noble friend Lord Jackson focused much of his speech on heated tobacco, as did my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom just now. One of the other main concerns about regulation, which we have already touched on in an earlier debate, is the cost of the licence fee for a small business alongside the administrative burden for existing businesses to transition across to the new system. It is important that local authorities allow enough time for applications to be considered and processed and for the operational challenges faced by retailers implementing the system to be addressed. Both retailers and consumers need to be made aware of the new regulatory regime well before it goes live.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, amplified that proposal in her Amendment 114C by focusing specifically on the socioeconomic impact of the generational ban on retailers. She is absolutely right to be concerned about that, but I would like to talk about a different strand of the argument from that which she focused on.

In the consultation exercise conducted two years ago by the last Government, the Association of Convenience Stores, which represents more than 50,000 retail outlets across the UK, did not object to the generational ban as a policy. However, when the current Government published this Bill, shop owners expressed immediate concern about the powers contained in it around the licensing system. The biggest worry for them is the power given to a local authority to take a decision to refuse the granting of a licence to sell tobacco and vapes based on the density of other businesses operating in a specific area, or because of that business’s proximity to a school.

We debated this issue briefly last week, but the worry persists on what the effect of these provisions will be. First and foremost, how will this affect existing businesses? Might a well-established retailer selling tobacco and vapes suddenly find that it can no longer do so? Might a new business wishing to set up in a particular area be denied that ability? The ACS has rightly asked what the evidential framework will be for deciding that the density of outlets is too high. How will the threshold be set, and how can fairness be achieved between businesses in an urban area compared to those located in rural areas? Will small shops be treated in the same way as large shops? We simply do not have answers to those questions—and they are questions that are particularly pertinent to small, family-run businesses operating on sometimes tight margins. When will guidance be published to provide the answers? If the Minister cannot reply in detail today, I shall be very grateful if she would do so in writing between now and Report.

Finally, my noble friend Lord Johnson of Lainston has raised an important issue around the need for transitional provisions covering specialist tobacconists located in Northern Ireland. We will be debating specialist tobacconists more broadly in a later group of amendments, and I do not propose to anticipate that debate now. However, in the light of what my noble friend has said, it would be helpful to hear from the Minister whether she agrees that there is a strong case for what are commonly called grandfather rights for these particular specialist outlets.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey of Wall Heath, but I am afraid I have some philosophical reservations about aspects of the Bill, in particular about the proportionality in the relationship between the individual and the state. I believe that individuals should be free to make choices for themselves, and that, of course, includes bad choices. Nevertheless, it is incumbent on all of us to ensure that individuals are armed with as much information as possible to encourage them to make good choices, so I accept that the Bill has at its heart good aims and intentions that I broadly support. Who could realistically argue against reducing harms for young people? There is no argument that some vaping products deliberately target young people, which, if nothing else is, is immoral.

While acknowledging this and speaking solely on the subject of the sale of tobacco, like the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, I do not think that writing a law where those born at one minute to midnight on 31 December 2008 have more freedoms than those born two minutes later makes any sense at all. Surely it would be far better to introduce a much higher age limit before individuals can legally make that choice, while increasing education and incentives to help them make a good choice. I accept that that would negatively impact a small group of people who are currently smoking legally. I also acknowledge the apparent illogicality of making this argument, as the Government intend to legislate to allow someone born on 1 January 2009 to vote in public elections. If they can make that informed decision, then maybe for the sake of consistency, we should argue for lower legal age limits across the board.

I also have some practical concerns about how the Bill would be enforced, and others have also made this case. What actually happens in a few years’ time, when two young men visit a corner shop late at night and decline to provide age verification to the only staff member working? If the shopkeeper hands over the tobacco, they will commit an offence. If they do not, what might they face? Perhaps it might be rather more than my noble friend Lord Blencathra’s choice language. The Labour Party has a proud tradition of standing against harassment of and violence against retail workers—indeed, it has made it clear that it would like that to be an aggravated offence—so does it make sense to create conditions that seem highly likely to increase precisely that behaviour? I thought that was described very eloquently by my noble friend Lord Moylan. Some will argue that this will encourage smaller shops to cease selling tobacco and vaping products, and that is obviously a good thing, but history and current events teach us what happens when there is an absence of a product for which there is considerable demand or when that product becomes prohibitively expensive. What happens is, of course, that organised crime spots an opportunity.

Prohibition is the most obvious example of the former, and that did not work, although it did help the Mafia establish solid roots in the United States. A more current example is provided by the enormous wealth of the drug cartels. On the subject of the cost, we need only to look at Australia, already mentioned by my noble friend Lord Naseby, where a packet of cigarettes costs more than $50 and where a vicious gang war has broken out to control what 9Network news describes as a booming black market. This is not, to use the word in the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Birmingham, a zombie argument but a factual one. One in five cigarettes sold in Australia is apparently supplied by a criminal syndicate. This gang war is so vicious that it has led to a spate of fire-bombings of in excess of 200 small shops.

As my noble friends Lord Naseby and Lord Blencathra and the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, pointed out, criminal activity is already a problem here. I looked at it from the bottom up, and a cursory survey of recent BBC News stories indicates that, for example, trading standards and police raids on only 50 stores in Devon and Cornwall yielded £186,000-worth of illegal product in March. In Northamptonshire, 30 shops in the north of the county yielded £394,000-worth. In Grimsby and Cleethorpes, 90,000 cigarettes, 20 kg of rolling tobacco and 4,800 vapes were seized in April. I commend the agencies for their efforts, but that is sure to be only the tip of a much larger iceberg because, again, the zombie objection makes no allowance for the fact that organised criminals are not stupid. I cannot see how writing laws that will inevitably encourage criminal activity can ever be justified.

The fact is that demand will always be satisfied, so it is surely much more effective to tackle the demand side of the equation. We should educate, incentivise and encourage. We should not place unnecessary burdens on small businesses and, in particular, on small shopkeepers who are having a hard time of it at the moment for all sorts of other reasons. We should not place individuals in those shops at personal risk because in 2034 they are unable to judge whether a 25 year-old was born on or before 1 January 2009.

A smoke-free future is obviously in everyone’s interest, and I say that as an unrepentant smoker, but so would be an alcohol-free future, a drug-free future and probably a cream bun-free future. These are noble aspirations, but in practice they are not going to happen. This aspect of the Bill as written will cause more problems than it solves. As this is St George’s Day, we should channel that spirit and slay the right dragon, which in this case is demand.

Covid-19: Update

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, one of the very few positives to come out of the pandemic is that the spotlight has shone on the superb life sciences sector in this country. For example, 47% of all global genomic sequencing is conducted in the UK. Could my noble friend the Minister elaborate on any future collaboration plans between the Government and the sector and how we intend to continue to grow our world-leading position in this space?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My noble friend is entirely right: life sciences is a huge national strength. It was a quiet industry that people did not speak of much; now it is centre stage. Post Brexit, the role of the MHRA, as one of the world’s leading regulators, is something of which we can be enormously proud as a country. It is also making a lot of businesses think that the UK should very much be the focus of their investment, going forward. BEIS and the DHSC are working together very closely, through the Office for Life Sciences, to ensure that the message is heard loud and clear, around the world, that Britain is the right place to invest.

Health: Brain Tumours

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, £40 million was announced in May 2018 for brain tumour research. To date, £9.3 million has been committed and £5.5 million will be committed from April 2018 to 2023. At this stage, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, alluded to, the allocation of budget is not the issue. Making sure that the pipeline of applicable research is in place is our challenge. That is why we have worked well with interested parties to put together a plan for trying to ginger along the basic science necessary to get those research projects activated.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, in 2019, my 22-year-old son, Charlie, was diagnosed with a germinoma, which is a rare form of brain tumour. He was referred for proton-beam therapy at the Christie Hospital in Manchester by the excellent Dr Jeremy Rees of the National Hospital in Queen Square. First, I thank the Government for spending the vast amount of money required to establish this capability in the UK, which, I am pleased to say, I think has been successful. Is the second facility at UCLH still on track to come on stream in 2021? Perhaps the Minister might reflect on the clinical expertise that has developed over the last year since the establishment of the facility at the Christie Hospital.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, it is fantastic news that my noble friend’s son has benefited so well from our considerable investment in proton-beam therapy. I wish both him and his son good luck on behalf of all noble Lords. I am not aware of any current plans to open a PBT site in Birmingham, but I can reassure him that the UCLH site in London is due to open this year and we look forward to that very much indeed. It was hoping to open in 2020 but plans were impacted by the pandemic. As with any ground-breaking technology, clinical expertise in PBT will continue to increase as our hard-working frontline radiological staff treat more and more patients.