Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans her Department has to assess the impact of regulation of vape (a) flavours, (b) packaging and product presentation and (c) point of sale displays on (i) quit rates of smokers and (ii) relapse rates of smokers who have switched to vaping.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The health advice on vaping is clear, if you don’t smoke, don’t vape, and children should never vape. However, youth vaping has tripled in the last three years, and one in five children have now used a vape.
The Tobacco and Vapes Bill will crack down on youth vaping by providing powers to regulate flavours, displays, and packaging for vapes and nicotine pouches. It will ban free vape samples being given to children, and introduce an age of sale for non-nicotine vapes.
In doing this, we must strike the right balance between reducing the appeal of vapes to children while ensuring vapes remain attractive and available to adult smokers as a quit aid. This will be carefully considered in the development of any specific restrictions, and further consultation will take place before introducing any regulations. As stated in Parliament during the second reading of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, we intend to hold the consultation on the regulations before the end of this Parliament, if practicable. We will also undertake an impact assessment to consider the potential impact of these regulations on smokers as well as other groups.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of her legislative proposals on vaping on trends in the level of (a) smokers who will quit and (b) ex-smokers who will relapse.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The health advice on vaping is clear, if you don’t smoke, don’t vape, and children should never vape. However, youth vaping has tripled in the last three years, and one in five children have now used a vape.
The Tobacco and Vapes Bill will crack down on youth vaping by providing powers to regulate flavours, displays, and packaging for vapes and nicotine pouches. It will ban free vape samples being given to children, and introduce an age of sale for non-nicotine vapes.
In doing this, we must strike the right balance between reducing the appeal of vapes to children while ensuring vapes remain attractive and available to adult smokers as a quit aid. This will be carefully considered in the development of any specific restrictions, and further consultation will take place before introducing any regulations. As stated in Parliament during the second reading of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, we intend to hold the consultation on the regulations before the end of this Parliament, if practicable. We will also undertake an impact assessment to consider the potential impact of these regulations on smokers as well as other groups.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 1 March to Question 13992 on Electronic Cigarettes: Smuggling, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of the proposal to ban disposable vapes on the number of illicit vapes in circulation in (a) 2025, (b) 2026 and (c) 2027.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
As confirmed previously on 29 January, a ban on the supply and sale of disposable vapes was announced as part of the government’s response to its consultation on smoking and vaping. Defra has since published draft regulations outlining the scope and enforcement provisions for a supply ban in England along with a draft impact assessment. Final regulations and impact assessment will be published in due course. We continue to engage with relevant organisations on how best to support enforcement of a ban when it comes into force as well as exploring the potential for a future import ban.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will publish a breakdown of the allocation of £3million government funding for Operation Joseph.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Operation Joseph was established to enforce the rules on vaping, and tackle illicit vapes and underage sales. It supplements work being undertaken by local authorities using existing local government funding. The £3 million of funding has been allocated over two years, from 2023/24 to 2024/25. A grant was provided to the National Trading Standards to commission specific areas of work, and to support local authorities. The following table shows the budget of each work area as of February 2024, as well as the total allocated:
Work Area | Budget |
Business Education | £88,800 |
Professional Training and Upskilling | £164,400 |
Intelligence and Data | £500,000 |
Supporting storage and disposal costs for local authority seizures | £600,000 |
Online test purchasing and website takedowns | £80,000 |
Market Surveillance and testing of vaping products | £140,000 |
Tackling the import of illegal vapes | £1,087,000 |
Programme Governance Communications and Evaluation | £281,000 |
Contingency | £58,800 |
Total Allocated | £3,000,000 |
Note: The figures shown are based on allocations in February 2024, and may be subject to change.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many non-compliant disposable vaping products have been seized through Operation Joseph.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Data on the number of illicit vapes seized through Operation Joseph in the financial year 2023 to 2024 will be published shortly.
Operation Joseph has identified that in the year before the Operation, 2.1 million illicit vapes were seized across England by Trading Standards from 2022 to 2023.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate her Department has made of the number of adult vapers that may return to tobacco products as a result of the disposable vapes ban.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The health advice on vaping is clear, vaping can play a role in helping adult smokers to quit, but if you don’t smoke, don’t vape, and children should never vape. However, youth vaping has tripled in the last three years, and one in five children have now used a vape. We know that disposable vapes have played a significant role in this rise, with 69% of 11 to 17-year-olds who vape now using disposables, compared to just 7% in 2021. Disposable vapes also cause significant environmental harm, with five million disposable vapes thrown away every week.
To protect children and the environment, the Government has taken the decision to ban the sale and supply of disposable vapes.
The Impact Assessment on the disposable vape ban, published by the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs on 11 March 2024, states that it is difficult to quantify the number of people switching either between different types of vapes, disposable to reusable, switching from vaping to smoking cigarettes, or stopping vaping or smoking altogether, as a result of a ban on disposable vapes.
However, reusable and refillable vapes will still be available for adult smokers to use as a quit aid and as a more affordable option than smoking. Therefore, it will not be necessary for adult vapers to return to tobacco products because refillable vapes will remain easily available to them, at a small cost relative to most tobacco products.