Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Udny-Lister (Con)]

My Lords, while I am on my feet moving Amendment 149, I will also talk about the other amendments in my name. We must prevent an indiscriminate or blanket prohibition without proper scrutiny and consultation. I fear that, without these safeguards and measures, and with the approach being taken, years of success in smoking cessation will be reversed rapidly.

Further still, in the drafting of this Bill it is apparent that advertising is being looked at as merely a commercial persuasion. I would argue that this is wrong. We are forgetting that advertising is a channel of product differentiation and risk communication. We must therefore provide manufacturers with the opportunities to communicate factual and regulated information regarding relative risks and cessation pathways. Otherwise, we will be creating a system in which misinformation will flood the gap.

We must not allow a blanket prohibition on advertising vapes, nicotine pouches and heated tobacco products without consultation. To do so would be an affront to our business community and contrary to the way that things should be done. As already raised in Committee, half of all smokers now wrongly believe that vaping is as harmful as smoking. If communication is prohibited through an advertising ban, how do we correct misinformation such as this? How do we promote public health outcomes?

The impact assessment acknowledges potential unintended consequences for smoking cessation. These unintended consequences must be rooted out and the only way to achieve that at this stage is through wider and effective consultation. The amendments I have put forward all seek to prevent harm reduction being undermined, and on that basis I hope to gain support.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 168 is in my name. I will also speak briefly to my Amendment 196, which is in the next group, but the subject matter is broadly similar. I am very grateful to my noble friends Lord Brady of Altrincham and Lord Naseby and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, for signing these amendments.

These amendments, taken together, would serve the purpose of providing safeguards and guarantees for the hospitality sector within the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. I should be clear that they would not tie the hands of government in any way. They would not create carve-outs or specific loopholes, with the exception of a very narrow exemption in Amendment 168. They merely propose a requirement to consult specifically with the hospitality, retail and entertainment industries before making regulations in these areas.

I ask noble Lords, when thinking about these amendments, to consider the broader burdens currently faced by the hospitality industry. It is well known that the sector has been exposed to a number of challenges as a result of government policy in recent months and some aspects of this Bill have the potential to substantially add to these challenges. It is worth looking at the broader context, because the hospitality sector contributes £93 billion to the UK economy each year. It is the third-largest employer, with 3.5 million people employed in the sector. Since the 2024 Budget, over 89,000 jobs have been lost, which accounts for roughly 53% of all job losses in the economy. That is before the impact of the Employment Rights Act, which 49% of business leaders have said will make them less likely to hire new staff.

On business rates reforms, pubs have been granted a limited stay of execution, but, in the wider hospitality sector, the estimate is that it will cost the industry an additional £150 million, or the equivalent of about 12,500 jobs. The beer tax in the 2025 Budget has forced up the price of a pint by effectively eliminating the profit margin on beer through the alcohol hike of 3.55% from last month. That is all before the increases to national insurance, which have driven up operating costs across the board, as well as sky-high energy prices. This is an industry that is under considerable existential pressure.

It is important to reiterate these facts in light of the briefings from many of the public health charities that have been campaigning on this Bill. They claim that these amendments are not necessary. But every single UK hospitality industry association, including UK Hospitality, the British Beer and Pub Association and the Night Time Industries Association, has warned about the damages this Bill could do to the sector. These amendments are therefore needed because the industry has said that it has absolutely no more capacity to absorb additional costs.

While the Government have said that it is not their intention to legislate for smoke-free and vape-free places for the hospitality industry as it is not the right time, that statement carries the clear implication that they might choose to do so in the future. To be clear, these amendments would not stop the Government legislating in this area. They would merely require that they guarantee consultation, with an impact assessment, before doing so. Why the guarantee? It is because too often we see sectors with concerns around this area being dismissed for having vested interests—we have heard many arguments this evening around the same subject—and the Government heeding only the submissions of organisations that tell them what they want to hear. In view of this, we suggest that these amendments and safeguards are extremely important.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Udny-Lister (Con)]

My Lords, it is really hard to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, when she gives a speech like that. Amendments 193, 194, 197 and 198 hope to address the powers to designate vape-free and heated tobacco-free places. The argument, really, is that it is all a bit over the top. There is limited evidence of harm from passive vaping compared with that of inhaling second-hand smoke. It is my fear that, as currently drafted, the Bill could inadvertently force ex-smokers to have relapses if they are using alternatives alongside smokers. That is what is going to happen. They are all going to be pushed into the same area, and that, I suggest, is the worst of all outcomes.

I further push the point that age-gated venues should be able to retain the discretion that they already have. Our hospitality and pub sectors need these safeguards.

Of course I agree with everybody that we must protect children but, in doing so, we must not inadvertently drive adults back to cigarettes and destroy our pubs in the process. That, I am afraid, is exactly what we run the risk of doing.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I shall be super-brief, because I spoke broadly on my Amendment 196 in the previous group when I made the case—it is not hyperbole—that the hospitality sector faces an existential issue. I agree with all my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister’s words on this.

My Amendment 196 is extremely straightforward: it insists on a consultation if any regulations are made under Clauses 135 to 138 in relation to designating a place smoke-free or vape-free. Please consider the interests of the hospitality sector, which, as I highlighted in the previous group, is responsible for so much activity and employment in our economy.

I just finish by saying that I am shocked beyond compare that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox—she and I have been in this House for the same time—has only just noticed that the Liberals are illiberal.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 24th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, for the first time in my life, I will publicly disagree with my noble friend Lord Clarke. I will speak briefly but very strongly against this group of amendments, which would simply defeat the object of the Bill: to introduce a generational ban and achieve over time a smoke-free country.

Less than two years ago, a generational ban was the policy of a Conservative Government, and the then Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, described it as one of his proudest initiatives. In that Parliament, on a free vote, the vast majority of Conservative Members of Parliament supported the Bill, as did 28 out of the 30 members of the Cabinet. All the arguments that we have heard this afternoon were put forward at that time, listened to and discounted. In this Parliament, the measure passed with a majority of 415 to 47, so it is fair to say that the Bill has broad cross-party support, and it is popular outside. It has a clear objective of reducing the burdens of smoking on the economy and the NHS.

I will leave it to others to deal with the argument about illicit tobacco and the Windsor Framework; I just want to tackle the libertarian argument, following the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I listened to all the libertarian arguments when a Conservative Government made it compulsory for motorcyclists to wear crash helmets. We heard the arguments about well-informed adults being aware of the risks. Nobody would now reverse that piece of legislation. We heard the same arguments on compulsory seat belts. Both those measures were introduced by a Conservative Government. We heard the same arguments about smoking on public transport, on trains and in pubs. Yes, there is a libertarian argument, but in my view there is a much broader benefit in moving to a smoke-free country.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak in favour of the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth. I will concentrate on one narrow area—one of the practical aspects of this generational ban—which, as my noble friend Lord Clarke highlighted, is the inevitable difficulty of age verification in stores. I am sure the Minister will soon argue that age verification is a well-established practice and therefore should present no particular difficulty, but the implications of the Bill in a few years’ time are profound, as my noble friend noted.

Judging the difference between an 18 year-old and a 40 year-old by eye is not especially difficult—although at this point I note that there are a number of Peers on the Government Benches who regularly claim that even that is impossible in the case of asylum seekers. But how is a shopkeeper supposed to judge the precise age of someone who is apparently 40 years old in a few years’ time? Is he 40? Is he 39? Is he 40 in 364 days? I am sure that we will soon hear the argument that the point is actually somewhat moot, because that 40 year- old born after the 1 January 2009 will have never smoked or shown any desire to smoke because of the Bill. But that is simply not a credible argument. As my noble friend Lord Murray noted, the generational ban is a de facto prohibition, and one does not need to be a dedicated student of history to know that prohibition of any kind has never worked. Indeed, it serves to make whatever is being prohibited more desirable, more glamorous and more edgy. Plenty of people will still choose to smoke.

In effect, the state will therefore be asking shopkeepers to both comply with and police the law at the same time. To put some statistics around this, the Association of Convenience Stores represents 50,000 local shops, petrol forecourt sites and independent retailers across all locations. Last year, it reported that there were 57,000 incidents of violence against people working in convenience stores. Some 87% of store workers reported verbal abuse and 44% reported hate-motivated abuse. The top three triggers of this violence epidemic were encountering shop thieves, enforcing age restriction policies and refusing to serve intoxicated customers. Does the Minister think this will get any better when the shopkeeper has to ask two middle-aged men for their passports—or, indeed, an 85 year-old for his birth certificate?

Today, I read that the British Retail Consortium has reported that there were 1,600 incidents of violence and abuse per day in shops in the year 2024-25. That is down from the previous year, but it is still a staggering number. It is welcome that the Crime and Policing Bill will make assaulting a retail worker an aggravated offence, but that is, I contend, highly unlikely to make any difference at all to the number of incidents around age verification, which are inevitable. I am sure the Minister will also refer to the increase in police numbers and neighbourhood policing officers due by 2029. That is also welcome, of course, but I note that the previous Government bequeathed more police officers than ever before in this country, and that did not have a noticeable impact. The simple fact is that this measure will inevitably cause more trouble, and the Government will be unable to do much about that. It is ludicrous to pass a law that will provoke the breaking of other laws.

My noble friend Lord Murray’s amendments would achieve the Government’s aims without causing this needless aggravation. The Government’s own impact assessment states that a one-off increase in the age of sale to 21 would be just as effective in the short term at reducing smoking rates, compared with a generational smoking ban. The Government should change tack and accept my noble friend Lord Murray’s amendments.

[Lord Rennard (Non-Afl)]

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

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

Brain Tumours: Causes and Treatment

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I want to convey to the noble Lord our ambition in this area. I completely accept the point he makes—although not all of them—about the challenge of diagnosing rarer cancers, including brain tumours. Research is absolutely vital. Last September, we announced new research funding opportunities, bringing the brain cancer research community together, because we want to drive step change for patients in the way the noble Lord seeks. Funding decisions will arise from this call, and announcements are expected imminently.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, my son survived a brain tumour, but he was lucky, because in the UK between 40% and 60% of brain tumour diagnoses happen after the patient has arrived at A&E, having often been misdiagnosed—to follow on from the noble Lord’s question—earlier. That is a much worse outcome than many for other cancers. As the Minister said, brain tumour cancers are the leading killer of people under the age of 40. Will she therefore commit to a public awareness campaign to explain some of the difficult symptoms the noble Lord just identified, and the seriousness of brain tumours? Such awareness is sadly lacking among the public.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I take the point the noble Lord makes, and I am sorry to hear of his son’s—and of course his family’s—experience. One of the things we are working on is increasing public awareness of brain cancer research opportunities. That is not quite the same as the point the noble Lord made, but extending that through the NIHR’s “Be Part of Research” initiative is important. The national cancer plan will give us the opportunity to review what communications and campaigns we run with the public. That will be a good opportunity to consider the point he makes.

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.