Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Library, to ASH, to Professor Theresa Marteau of Cambridge University and to the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, for which I am an ambassador.

It has been a privilege to listen to reflections across the House from those noble Lords who have helped steer the country along over recent years on this important legislative journey to help save lives and improve the nation’s health. I express my gratitude to my noble friend the Minister for taking up the baton or the cudgels—I do not know which of those my noble friend thinks she has taken up.

My professional interest in helping people stop smoking began over 20 years ago when I became chair of Lambeth Primary Care Trust just across the river. Smoking was the main cause of preventable ill health and health inequalities, resulting in poor quality of life and premature mortality. The then Labour Government required local primary health services to provide support and advice to smokers wanting to quit, as well as prevention activities to stop youngsters taking up smoking, to tackle underage and counterfeit tobacco sales and to promote smoke-free environments to minimise the effects of second-hand smoke, as so eloquently described by the noble Baroness a few minutes ago. Over three years, smoking in Lambeth fell from 35% to 28%, with more than 9,000 smokers quitting and a decline in cancer and circulatory disease.

But my personal interest in stopping smoking, as for many others in this Chamber, dates to much longer ago than that, when as a child I sat in the back of our family car, travelling weekends up and down the M6 motorway between the Midlands and Lancashire to visit family. The car filled with my dad’s cigarette and sometimes pipe smoke. I loathed it, as did my younger sister. Neither of us has ever smoked, and we longed for our father to give up. He tried and tried, which in the 1970s seemed to consist of him eating a lot of Polo mints and other sweets, and it failed, no matter how hard he tried. He had started smoking when he was 12, picking up the ends of his older brother’s cigarettes and soon becoming a committed smoker. He died far too soon, in 1990, of lung cancer, and then my older sister also died of it, sadly, in 2018. So, as a result of both personal and professional experience, I cheer every development that prevents or reduces people’s use of tobacco and dependence on it.

The Bill provides the opportunity for a huge step forward, a big next step, seeking to prevent today’s children ever becoming smokers by making it illegal to sell them tobacco for the whole of their lives. Tobacco manufacturers and their supporters argue that this is a matter of civil liberties. They ask why today’s children should not be free to choose to smoke when they turn 18. The plain answer is that smoking is an addiction and the only free choice is that first cigarette, as I saw at first hand. Two out of three people who try one cigarette become daily smokers, and on average it takes 30 attempts to quit, which is why implementing this Bill has the potential to prevent hundreds of thousands of cases of serious illness and tens of thousands of premature deaths. Even this is not enough for the tobacco lobby, which likes to claim that the tax take from smoking is greater than the cost to the NHS. It conveniently ignores the huge cost of time off work, which far exceeds the income generated.

Moving now to vaping, I am delighted to see the provisions in the Bill to put the necessary regulations in place because while vapes may be helpful for smokers wanting to quit, they are harmful to non-smokers and, in particular, to children by introducing them to a world of nicotine and addiction. Some studies have suggested the possibility of vaping acting as a gateway to smoking, and while others have simply suggested correlation rather than causation, why would we want to take a chance on our children’s health?

As well as the well-established health concerns around vaping, there is the risk that some vapes can pose for people with severe allergies. Many people are not aware that vapes can cause a severe allergic reaction, but in 2019 a 16 year-old boy from Nottingham suffered potentially life-threatening lung failure after a suspected allergic reaction while vaping, in a case which doctors say highlights the potential dangers of young people using e-cigarettes. The evidence linking vape smoke and allergic reactions is still emerging, but we know that propylene glycol, one of the two ingredients in most e-liquids, is a known allergen. As we continue to learn more about the effects of vaping, it is vital that people have a clear understanding of the risks and that labelling law keeps up when it comes to highlighting allergens. I would be grateful if the Minister were willing to meet me and the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation in the near future to discuss these concerns in greater depth.

For all these reasons, I am delighted to support the passage of the Bill.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 3rd November 2025 Grand Committee

I want to say a brief word about filters because I support Amendment 33 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. Filters of any kind are of no benefit whatever. In fact, as the noble Baroness said, they are all a fraud—one of many fraudulent devices that originate from the tobacco industry as it tries to hide the evil it does. They make people feel that smoking with a filter is somehow safer. It is not. One manufacturer of filters, Greenbutts, has run a large lobbying campaign to get rival products banned. All filters should be banned. None of them do any good. They all mislead smokers, who think that they reduce harm. We should ban them all and not allow any one company to benefit from people who smoke tobacco.

[Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish to speak in support of Amendments 141 and 143, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard.

This Bill is a world-leading piece of public health legislation. It is comprehensive in the powers it takes to regulate tobacco products; flexible; and, we hope, future-proof. This subject is dear to my heart because my father died of lung cancer, having been a lifelong smoker since he started at the age of 12; my older sister died at 67, also of lung cancer. So smoking has had a profound effect on my family, as it has for so many across the Committee.

The flagship policy of raising the age of sale every year is, as we know, projected to reduce smoking rates among 14 to 30 year-olds to zero by 2050. That is an extraordinary achievement in our sights. However, there is a real risk that the Bill’s very success may lead to the perception that the job is done. We must not be complacent. Instead, we should ensure that we use the powers in this Bill to continue pressing every lever available in the fight against tobacco. I just mention that my father told me that, when he was 12, he was not looking at packets of cigarettes but was being offered single cigarettes.

One such opportunity for us lies in the introduction of health warnings on individual cigarettes, as the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and others have recommended in these amendments. As the noble Lord outlined, this measure has already been implemented in Canada; it represents a practical and, potentially, powerful next step. As the noble Lord said, we know that the design of cigarettes affects how they are perceived; and that this can act as a form of marketing. Research shows that slim or thin cigarettes tend to be more appealing to women, while using white paper for cigarettes implies cleanliness and purity. Studies have also shown that the little golden ribbon that marks the start of the filter means that a cigarette is perceived as being more attractive, of a higher quality and better tasting than those without.

Evidence from Canada, which the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, mentioned, has shown that cigarettes without health warnings are perceived as less harmful than those carrying them. Dissuasive—a word I have only recently learned—cigarettes help, therefore, to align consumer perception more closely with the reality of the serious harms caused by smoking. Alongside printed warnings, it may also be worth exploring whether changes in cigarette colour and removing that little gold band could enhance this further.

I anticipate that my noble friend the Minister may say that the powers to introduce dissuasive cigarettes already exist in the Bill; and that a specific amendment is therefore unnecessary. I accept that point. However, I know that noble Lords are keen to hear more from the Government about how the range of powers in this Bill may be used in future; this feels like a fruitful area. A mechanism for outlining this could be publishing a five-year tobacco strategy, setting out how and when the Government intend to use the Tobacco and Vapes Bill and what targets are being set for future smoking prevalence. This will provide welcome clarity and vision, although I understand that my noble friend the Minister has already ruled out publicly publishing a strategy.

New data on smoking prevalence are due to be published tomorrow. I hope that they bring the good news that smoking rates continue to fall. Let us be clear, however, that this does not happen by chance: continued progress requires vigilance, ambition and creativity.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I have never smoked. Having said that, I was for some 15 years in marketing and advertising. I do not think that the proposal here is at all practical. Cigarettes are very narrow so to read something in six-point type—which is what we are talking about—will be difficult and will have next to no effect at all. We have proper health warnings on the pack itself. We should concentrate on those and do more work on how well they are being communicated; that may take us further forward. Amendments 141 and 143 are, frankly, for the birds.