Tobacco and Related Products (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023

Baroness Merron Excerpts

Monday 24th July 2023 Grand Committee

My final point is on the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, about whether we are going to see a landscape in which there is divergence across the piece. We are dealing with a small segment of the market today but I can easily imagine that the European Union might get its act together and regulate vaping much more aggressively and quickly than we do. It is potentially a much bigger deal if we have one regime for vaping in Northern Ireland and a different regime for vaping in Great Britain. It seems to me that that would be much more unsustainable and create all kinds of issues around cross-border smuggling and people moving products around so, again, it will be interesting to hear from the Minister where the Government’s thinking is in terms of convergence, which seems entirely sensible around the whole range of nicotine delivery products, versus divergence, where we end up with different rules on vaping, combusted tobacco products and these heated tobacco products. If we end up with divergence across all these fields, we are potentially walking ourselves into trouble.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I start by thanking the Minister for introducing these regulations, which we welcome, and expressing my appreciation for the way he set out their application, the summary of which is that, from October, it will be illegal in Northern Ireland to produce or sell heated tobacco products that have what is called a “characterising flavour”. As the Minister explained, this change is happening because of the requirements of the Windsor Framework and in response to a policy change implemented by the EU—more of that later.

With regard to heated tobacco products, unsurprisingly, some in the tobacco industry have claimed that they are less harmful than conventional smoking. Has the Minister had time to review the analysis by the University of Bath, which has shown that most of the studies referred to in order to back up said claim were either affiliated with or funded by the tobacco industry? Surely that raises a considerable flag. Conversely, the European Respiratory Society has pointed to independent research showing that heated tobacco products emit substantial levels of toxicity as well as other irritant substances. Although the use of these harmful products is said to be very low in Northern Ireland, they are increasingly being marketed, without evidence, as a healthier alternative to smoking.

On that point, I would like to pursue the questions that have been asked by noble Lords in the course of this debate about whether there are plans to adopt similar legislation here so that there is parity between England and Northern Ireland; and whether there have been discussions with the other devolved Administrations in order to ensure that there is parity in legislation and, therefore, not the problems across borders that have been described. The noble Lord, Lord Dodds, explored this matter extremely well. I was particularly taken with the obvious practical example that somebody can purchase a product here and take it to Northern Ireland. What is the implication of that? That is going to happen all the time; it is just a fact. I am sure that all noble Lords will be interested to hear the Minister’s response on that.

Have the Government made any assessment of the prevalence of heated tobacco product use across the rest of the United Kingdom, principally in England, along with the wider health implications of such use? Perhaps the Minister could also outline what action his department is taking to combat the increased marketing of such products—marketing that is often underpinned by spurious tobacco industry-backed research, as I referred to earlier.

As was spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and the noble Lord, Lord Allan, can the Minister set out how the Government will assist Northern Ireland in the implementation of the ban, particularly given the possibility of illegal importation from England? It certainly seems strange—this point has come out in the debate—that, following the implementation of the draft regulations, there will be more stringent legislation in place to clamp down on heated tobacco products in Northern Ireland than in the rest of the United Kingdom. Can the Minister assist us in trying to understand how that will help? Are the Government considering implementing a ban on these products in their tobacco control plan, which was promised by the end of 2021? That leads me to the question of when—indeed, whether—we will ever see it published?

I want briefly to highlight concerns in relation to children and young people in particular. I note that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee referred to the fact that it was in the light of increased sales volumes among under-25s that the EU amended its legislation on heated tobacco products. In this regard, the Health and Social Care Committee in the other place recently took evidence from not only health experts but the industry. It made for interesting reading. The committee heard evidence that the topic of conversation for young people in the playground was often the different flavours that they were trying, such as

“Gummy Bear, Slushy and … Unicorn Milk and Unicorn Frappé”.

This was also referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Allan. These are different flavourings that are clearly not aimed at an adult audience. While we are talking about vanilla and other flavours in heated tobacco products, does the Minister agree that it will not be long before we see them being extended to products that are deliberately constructed to be attractive to children to get them to take up smoking? What is the strategy to deal with this?

It is absolutely crucial, in dealing with tobacco control and ensuring that we reduce harm to the health of people of all ages, that we look ahead. I hope that these regulations and the debate around them, including noble Lords’ contributions, will again alert the Minister to the need to anticipate future developments in tobacco products, not just in Northern Ireland but across the whole of the United Kingdom.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I thank noble Lords for their contributions. As ever, they showed that there are interesting intricacies in every part of health; it is one of my key learnings over the past nine or 10 months that I have been in this role.

I want to clear up one thing. I admit that there was a bit of confusion on my part, as well. As the noble Lord, Lord Allan, said, we are not talking about vapes here—we are talking about heated tobacco. There is a heated tobacco stick, which basically heats to temperatures lower than that of a cigarette and releases an aerosol. I am sorry if noble Lords knew that already, but I thought that was worth clarifying. Because of that, this product is used by a very small number of people. It is estimated that less than 0.5% of smokers use this product; if you apply that to the population, it is 0.065%. I hope that this gives some sort of clarification behind our decision, when we talk about whether we did an impact assessment, because we are talking about very small numbers being involved here.