Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, coming so far down the list in your Lordships’ debate—the number of speakers demonstrating the strength of feeling on the issue on all sides of the House, mostly slanted in the direction of seeking to do more to take on big tobacco—I am seeking not to repeat what has already been said, but rather, to highlight a couple of issues that I expect to pick up in Committee.

However, first, I will answer the question of the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey of Didcot, not currently in his place, about what the Bill is for—or rather, what the Green Party thinks it should be for. The Bill should aim to sound the death knell of big tobacco: the merchants of death who have preyed on vulnerable people, particularly children, hooking them for life. Their products have shortened lives, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Birmingham, pointed out, at great financial and personal cost to those individuals, while providing spectacular profits for those companies. As regulation has sought to restrict their indefensible trade, they have twisted and turned, lobbied and wrestled, dodged and shapeshifted into new and harmful forms.

One of those forms is nicotine pouches, as the noble Earl, Lord Howe, highlighted. This issue was brought home to me on 9 September 2024; I know that because I documented what I saw on social media. At Manchester Piccadilly station, a giant yellow booth almost blocked the entrance. It was surrounded by a group of smiling young people, welcoming and warm, seeking to hand out such pouches to random passers-by. The company’s name is Velo, and a little research uncovered that it is owned by British American Tobacco. Well, shame on you, British American Tobacco, for peddling to young people, at random, a dangerous and addictive poison. You are besmirching the good name of our country by your actions.

Of course, those actions are taking place around the world. Our focus today has been on the UK, but I ask the Minister—I will understand if she chooses to write to me later—what steps the Government are taking to stop British-based and British-linked companies continuing their immoral peddling around the world. The UK was known back in the age of the opium wars as a narco-state; we surely do not want to be one today. I am going to see whether it is possible to address this issue in Committee.

The World Health Organization estimates that there are 1.25 billion adult tobacco users around the world. So, about one in five adults worldwide consume tobacco, which is an improvement on the figure for 2000, when one in three did so. But that is not on track to meet the global goal of a 30% reduction from the 2010 baseline. Why? Let us take a clue from the slogan for this year’s World No Tobacco Day, which is 31 May. The slogan is:

“Protecting children from tobacco industry interference”.


My final point picks up an issue raised powerfully by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, about the deceptive, deceitful behaviour of the industry and its regular indulging in healthwashing, greenwashing and astroturfing—all the techniques of well-funded dodgy public relations. On the subject I am about to raise, the industry even took a shot at me. The email to me came from [e-mail] via parliament.uk, and was signed “Mariana”—first name only, no company name, no other identification. It asked me to back an amendment to bring in a ban on plastic filters on cigarettes.

In my reference to this, I am drawing on the great work of Action on Smoking and Health to highlight the fact that cigarette filters offer no health benefits. They were introduced by the tobacco industry not to protect health but to create the illusion of a safer cigarette. They have rightly been called the deadliest fraud in human history. These filters are made from single-use plastics and are an environmental disaster. In the UK they account for two-thirds of all littered items and cost councils £40 million a year to clean up. But so-called biodegradable filters are still toxic, break down only under certain conditions and provide a false sense that there is some kind of eco-responsibility so you do not have to worry about the problem. They give tobacco companies the chance to continue their greenwashing and healthwashing. The real solution is simple: ban all cigarette filters. I hope the Government will consider bringing in such a ban.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 3rd November 2025 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

33: After Clause 16, insert the following new Clause—
“Prohibition on supply of cigarette filters in England and Wales(1) The Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers must make regulations having the effect of prohibiting the supply of cigarette filters or cigarettes containing cigarette filters, whether by way of sale or not, in the course of a business.(2) Subsections (6), (8), (9), (10), (10A), (10B), (10C) and (10D) of section 140 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 apply to regulations under this section as they apply to regulations under that section.(3) The notice required under section 140(6)(b) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 as applied by subsection (2) in relation to the regulations mentioned in subsection (1) must be published no later than the end of the period of 12 months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.(4) In this section—“cigarette filter” means a filter which is intended for use in a cigarette, whether as part of a ready made cigarette or to be used with hand rolling tobacco or other substances to be smoked in a cigarette.(5) Regulations under this section are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause requires the Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers to make regulations which would prohibit the supply of cigarette filters or cigarettes containing cigarette filters.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 33 in my name, I will also speak to the related amendments in this group.

Amendment 33 has a very simple aim: to ban filters on cigarettes. I must start by saying that this is healthwashing. Filters on cigarettes have no health benefits. They were developed by the tobacco industry in the 1960s as a response to growing public concern over the link between smoking and lung cancer. An exposed internal note from the tobacco manufacturer Philip Morris stated that they are “an effective advertising gimmick”. They were deliberately developed to turn from white to brown in order to increase the perception that they filter the cigarette smoke; in reality, smokers simply inhale more deeply, drawing more smoke through the cigarette butt and even further into their lungs. The more recent trend of white filter tips, as compared to the older orange ones, reinforces this message with consumers. The evidence shows that young people, in particular, perceive cigarette packs with references to filters as containing cigarettes that are significantly less harmful than those contained by packs without such references.

Yet this is still not widely known. Look at the communications power of these merchants of death versus the health messages—of course, the merchants of death have a lot more money to put into the messages they are putting out. I acknowledge the support provided to me by Action on Smoking and Health in bringing forward this amendment; noble Lords who have received its briefing may well have noted that it strongly backs this amendment. Only one in four adults realise that filters do not protect smokers, so 75% of people still think that, because the filter is allowed to be there, it is sending a message of health: “There must be some health benefit, surely, or else why would the Government allow it?” That is my Amendment 33.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I worry that this group of amendments indicates that, in the name of public health, state overreach can get completely carried away with itself. I ask that we take a step back and consider the state’s ability to interfere in the manufacture and R&D of legal products, which is completely disruptive to those products’ manufacture and design; if the state is going to do that, there needs to be a very good reason.

I want to look at some of the reasons that we have heard in relation to either a ban on or alteration of the use of filters. There seems to be some confusion as to whether this is an environmentalist issue or a public health issue. Is it litter, or is it plastic? What is it? This is a debate about tobacco and vaping, so let me concentrate on that. There is an idea that one in four adults does not know that filters are not healthy. As a long-standing smoker, I have to say that, while there are arguments about filters, I have never heard a smoker say, “I use a filter because they’re healthy”. There are a whole range of discussions about the use of filters—

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the noble Baroness for giving way. By way of correction, in case I was not clear, 75% of smokers do not know that filters do not have any health benefits; the stat is the other way round.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

The point I am making is that it is true that the majority of smokers do not sit around and discuss whether filters have a benefit to their health. I am quite sure that, had you asked me in that survey, I would not have had a clue. You would then say that I was being conned into using a filter. However, I would be indifferent because that is not the basis on which people smoke, either with or without filters. I am particularly bemused by the idea that, as a woman, if I saw a white filter, I would immediately think “purity” and be forced to smoke a white-filtered cigarette. I mean, goodness me—have we all gone mad?

I want to talk also about the idea of health warnings on actual cigarettes, which, again, is completely disruptive to product design and so on. It is completely petty. Sometimes, I feel as though the public health people have done everything and anything they possibly can and have run out of things to do, so they are now down to the narrowest possible thing: the cigarette itself.

It is interesting that this idea is aimed especially at young people who might be given one cigarette at a party; and that people seem to be saying that, if only such people saw that written warning, it would be enough to stop them. Were we ever young? Were we ever at a party? Did we ever read anything on the side of a cigarette that stopped us? The point I am making is that, as it happens, the majority of young people know that smoking is bad for you; many young people even give adults like me lectures on how smoking is bad for you. The idea of a written warning is not, I think, very helpful.

I just wonder what the health warning would say. Would it say, “Tobacco kills you”? What is it going to say? I have had an idea. Public perceptions on the difference between smoking and vaping are at their all-time worst. Only a minority of current adult smokers—29%—are able to recognise accurately that vaping is less harmful than smoking. So I have an idea: if we are going to have a message on the side of individual cigarettes, perhaps we could say, “Vaping is cheaper and less harmful than smoking”. That is a good message. Why do we not say that? We could even say, “Vaping is good for you”. The point I am making is that that is not where we should be putting messages; we have heard confused messages in this Committee so far.

My final thought is on the success of Canada and Australia in dealing with smoking, which has been cited and thrown into the conversation. Let us look at what is actually happening and today’s front-page headlines in Australia. The only success of Canada and Australia has been the huge growth of a black market in cigarettes and vapes. It is a disaster. Many people in public health are now saying, “Maybe we went too far”. So, before we start emulating them, maybe we should take different lessons. The front page of the Australian newspaper The Age today is about the fact that people are panicking about what they have inadvertently done. This group of amendments is the kind of thing that could lead us in completely the wrong direction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I will gladly add to the brief points that I am going to make to the noble Lord. I was just about to turn to international comparisons. Sometimes, I feel the answer is “How long is a piece of string?” However, quite seriously, we constantly keep international comparisons under review because we are keen to learn and see. The challenge, which I will come on to, is to draw exact comparisons, for a range of reasons, including on what we are already doing.

On the point about international comparisons, it is important that we recognise that the UK already has some of the most stringent regulations in the world on tobacco packaging, which already emphasise health harms. This includes the requirement for plain packaging and graphic picture warnings on the outside of cigarette packets. As I have already referred to and noble Lords have discussed, we have announced that we will be introducing pack inserts to cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco. I understand the motivation for these amendments, but we do not plan to introduce dissuasive cigarettes at this time. We will continue to monitor the evidence.

We are implementing many of the recommendations of the Khan review. This point was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. For example, we are majoring on the smoke-free generation policy, which is a major shift. Not only are we implementing many of these recommendations but we continue to keep them under review.

My noble friend Lady Ramsey asked about targets. Again, they will be kept under review. Unsurprisingly, our real target is delivering the Bill and designing the regulations so that they work. Some of this is also about where we can make the greatest impact in the quickest way, which is why we are focusing on the inserts rather than looking for additional things to do at this stage.

I hope that this is of some interest and reassurance to noble Lords and that they will feel able not to press their amendments.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this rich, full and powerful debate. The political breadth around this Committee showing concern and calling for more government action is notable. I thank the Minister for her contribution and her full answers.

I specifically want to address the questions raised by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, about so-called biodegradable filters. I understand why the noble Earl thought the figures for these and plastic filters sounded similar; that is because the figures are similar. I can quote to the noble Earl an article on this area from Waste Management in 2018 titled, “Comparison of cellulose vs. plastic cigarette filter decomposition under distinct disposal environments”. That basically comes up with plastic filters taking 7.5 to 14 years to disappear and biodegradable ones taking 2.3 to 13 years, so the figures are similar. The Government are drawing on similar figures.

The Minister said both types are harmful to the environment and the natural world. There I will point to a study published in Environmental Pollution in 2020 titled, “Smoked cigarette butt leachate impacts survival and behaviour of freshwater invertebrates”. I have now referenced all the evidence in that space that the noble Earl might like to go away and look at.

This has been a hugely rich debate. I thank in particular the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, for giving us the irony story of the day about tobacco companies being concerned about toxic ink on their products. I think we probably should have a cartoonist in the Room at this point. We have had a great deal of consensus across the Committee about the need for action; the one stand-out different position was taken by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. However, I do not share her concern about the welfare of cigarette manufacturers or the purity of their product design. Like the noble Lords, Lord Crisp and Lord Bourne, I think public health should be a matter of government policy, and I am delighted to have signed the noble Lord’s amendment in the planning Bill later so we will be back together on that one.

I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey, who very bravely brought before us two family tragedies to illustrate that, in the end, we are talking here about human lives, people’s parents, people’s children and the suffering that comes from the merchants of death. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, brought his medical expertise, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, cited an important academic study that I hope the Minister will take a good look at in terms of action.

The response from the Minister to the noble Lord, Lord Young, was that the Government could regulate. I am afraid that what we would like to hear and what these amendments are seeking is for the Government to take action. I suggest that “could” is not good enough in these circumstances. It is worth saying that we are not talking about an either/or here. I am sure everyone very much welcomes the smoking cessation efforts that the Minister referred to, but people will continue to smoke, and we want to reduce the health and environmental harms that result.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Young, made an important point about cigarettes being close to your eyes and the small print. I point out that most of the people we are targeting here are young people who will not, as I do, have to get the bifocals at exactly the right line to be able to read seven-point print. I think that covers all that has been said here.

One thing I will add is that the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, referred to my amendment and others as probing amendments. I am afraid that is not my intention. I am obviously going to withdraw the amendment now, but I have full intentions of bringing it back. I hope the Minister might be open to discussions beforehand. In your Lordships’ House we have medical experts and people with real expertise, and we might be able to tease out some of the issues raised today in terms of the health damage being done by filters. What would it be like if we got rid of filters?

My final point, in responding to the Minister, is about the limited evidence of the harm of filters. We have strong evidence, established over decades, that there is no health benefit from filters. In the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, we are seeking to follow the leadership of Australia and Canada in putting markings on individual cigarettes, but perhaps we could be the leaders in banning filters. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 33 withdrawn.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th November 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to the four amendments in this group that are in my name—Amendments 78, 86, 88 and 89. Particularly perceptive Members of our Grand Committee will remember that, when they looked at the third Marshalled List, the Minister had signed my Amendment 89. I understood at the time that she had signed it not for the same reason that I tabled it—as we discovered at the last sitting of the Committee, the Minister did not move a whole set of government amendments. We will doubtless return to those issues later.

My amendments are all of a piece. The object is to dive into Clause 38 and remove those parts that relate to money that is received through fines for licensing offences from the hands of the Consolidated Fund to put it into the hands of the local weights and measures authorities or—as we might get to, in due course—the relevant authority, which is the trading standards enforcement authority. My proposition is a terribly simple one: we should prioritise the receipt of resources not only from fixed penalty notices but from the fines imposed for licensing offences and they should be made available to local authorities with trading standards responsible for enforcement.

The background is probably well known to Members of the Grand Committee. Trading standards is operating with substantially fewer members of staff than it did a decade ago. The Local Government Association has warned that trading standards may be unable to fulfil its statutory duties and the Association of Chief Trading Standards Officers has warned of a growing gap between its statutory duties and the available resources.

Happily, today we meet with a realisation that this has not inhibited trading standards departments across the country from taking effective action together with the leadership of the National Crime Agency, which reported 2,700 premises—barber shops, vape shops and other trading establishments—operating illegally. Where vaping is concerned, which is our interest here, these are being used as a route for the sale of illegal vapes—without paying the appropriate duty or doing so in due course—including to minors, which is of particular concern for many noble Lords. There is also the employment of staff who are not properly able to work in this country.

A wide range of these issues requires enforcement. My purpose is to try to ensure that the resources that are clearly coming into the system are devoted to trading standards. We know, or at least it is estimated, that trading standards enforcement costs over the next five years will total something like £140 million. We know that the Government have provided a grant of £10 million to support trading standards. There clearly will be an income to local authorities from the fines relating to licensing to the extent that they will be able to recover their direct costs, as well as from the fixed penalty notices. We do not have an authoritative estimate of what that sum will be. If the Minister has a clear estimate of what the sums accruing to local authorities will be, it will give an opportunity to see how much of that £140 million cost over five years is likely to be met from penalties and fines.

This issue was debated in the other place and the Government, as is their wont, resisted the idea that money should be paid to local authorities from these fines, instead of being paid into the Consolidated Fund, because, as the Government put it, they did not want to create a perceived conflict of interest such that the enforcement authorities seemed to have an interest in pursuing fines. We should think of it the other way round. We want enforcement authorities to do their job properly. With these amendments, I am testing the proposition that the Government should increase the support for trading standards officers. If they find a provision that makes the revenue from fines to local authorities too much to bear, I should be supportive of a commitment by the Government—if not at this stage, then later—to assess the gap between the revenue that results from the fines and penalty notices and the costs to local authorities and to meet that gap by Exchequer grant, once they know what the Consolidated Fund revenues from these fines may be.

In addition to that request in principle to the Government, I have been looking at the impact assessment, which says in paragraph 1401:

“A new burdens assessment will be completed to assess costs to local authorities ahead of the Bill being introduced”,


particularly in relation to the enforcement of the new powers relating to vapes. I cannot find the burdens assessment—my research may be inadequate—but what does it say are the costs that need to be met by local government? That too should be something that we assess: to what extent is local government going to receive fixed penalty notices or fines that enable it to meet those costs? We do not want to be constantly adding statutory duties to local authorities without the corresponding resources.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I have attached my name to Amendment 81 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, from whom we have not yet heard—but that is the way the order works. I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

I am slightly torn because the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has just put forward a strong case. There are indeed huge problems with the funding of trading standards. I go to a recent report in the Financial Times in which the chief executive of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute said that the underfunding of trading standards has left consumers open to rogue traders and fake goods. There is a huge problem there and, as the noble Lord said, the Government’s own impact assessment says this measure is going to increase the burden and they are already hopelessly overburdened.

However, Amendment 81 goes in a different direction, towards public health initiatives to be determined by local authorities. Either of these has a strong case. I prefer the public health case, because public health is something that I am gravely concerned about. There is a real logic to the money going from where damage is being done to public health towards dealing with damage done by illegal activity.

I talked about how much trading standards is suffering. We all know that public health in the UK is in a terribly parlous state; when we compare ourselves with other countries that we might consider similar to ourselves, we are doing much worse in public health. I suspect that the Minister will get up and say, “Yes, but in February this year we gave £200 million to public health”, but that is to go towards smoking cessation programmes —which are very relevant to the Bill—along with addiction recovery, family and school nurses, sexual health clinics, local health protection services and public health support for local NHS services, and £200 million does not sound like quite so much when I read that list out.

There is a real logic to making sure that this is not just a small drop of money going into the ocean—the Treasury—and that the money goes to where the damage has been done, to public health. Trading standards would still be better than the money going straight into the Treasury. These are simple, logical ways to make sure that we stick some plasters on to some of the crises that are affecting our communities.

[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.