Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Seventh sitting)

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th May 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Preet Kaur Gill]

Let me touch briefly on new clause 12, on the consultation on pack inserts. The Government committed to consulting on regulations a year ago, and the Department for Health and Social Care consultation closed on 10 October 2023. However, a response has still not been published, despite Government principles stating that it should have been published within 12 weeks, or that an explanation should have been provided for why that was not possible. Will the Minister please promise that the response will be published soon, so that we can get on with putting the regulations in place with the full information to hand?

Our new clause 12 would require the Secretary of State to publish the response within three months, which is more than generous, given the delays to date. That would then pave the way for the real prize—the real purpose of clause 58—which is to allow us to introduce stronger and more detailed quit messaging in tobacco products, so that more smokers kick the habit for good.

On average, smokers take 30 attempts to quit smoking before quitting for good, so it is essential to do everything possible to motivate them to attempt to quit. There is sufficient evidence from Canada, where tobacco pack inserts have been mandatory since 2000, that they can help to motivate smokers to quit. That is why we tabled amendments 18 and 19, which I would like to be considered together. They would require the Secretary of State to make regulations within six months to require tobacco companies to include information in their products to dispel the myth that smoking relieves stress and anxiety.

I am passionate about this issue. In my maiden speech, I vowed to campaign to improve the mental health of the young people of this nation and now, in Mental Health Awareness Week, we have the opportunity through this Bill to do something that could make a real difference. In the evidence sessions the other week, we heard a passionate and moving testimony from Mark Rowland of the Mental Health Foundation that convinced me all the more that taking this action is the right thing to do.

Smoking doubles the risk of people developing depression, more than one in two people with severe mental health conditions smoke, and the life expectancy of those with mental health conditions is reduced. The issues that our young people and children face with their mental health are well known to everyone present, and smoking simply exacerbates those issues. Yet a 2022 survey found that over 40% of smokers in England cite stress relief as a reason why they smoke. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, the myth that smoking reduces stress and anxiety persists, in all its utter perversity.

This has not happened by accident. It is a myth that has been manufactured and spread by the tobacco industry. Powerful companies have commissioned research and fed it into the public domain, to create the impression that smoking has medicinal properties. It does not. We see all the time, in any gritty noir TV show or film, the stressed protagonist busily drawing on a cigarette before they face their demons. We can see how, if we do not confront such imagery head-on, it serves only to reinforce the myth.

The amendments seek to send a clear message that smoking does not relieve stress or anxiety and actually exacerbates them. The feeling that someone gets when they take a drag on a cigarette is not a real health benefit; it is a temporary relief from the withdrawal from the addiction that makes them feel worse in the first place. That is what is so insidious about this whole dynamic: it preys on the anxious, the depressed and the vulnerable.

As I have said, more than one in two people with severe mental health conditions smoke, yet whereas almost everyone understands the link between smoking and cancer, the link with mental health conditions is much less well understood. As the CEO of the Mental Health Foundation told us, it was not until 2008 that smoke-free policies were made mandatory in mental health settings. A third of mental health professionals had reservations about those policies, not understanding the link, but the evidence we have now is strong: people with mental health problems are likely to feel much calmer and more positive and to have a better quality of life after giving up smoking. Evidence suggests that stopping smoking is as effective as taking antidepressants.

As the Committee will be aware, we already face a mental health crisis in this country, with a quarter of our health burden being a result of mental ill health. We should take any opportunity to reduce that burden, so I urge the Minister to accept the amendment so that we can rid society of this insidious myth for good.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Sir Gary. I rise to speak in favour of the measures that I and other colleagues on the Committee have proposed.

Amendments 22 and 23 are essential consequential amendments that seek to introduce markings on cigarette papers and to define cigarette papers so that that is clear in the law. I am interested in the Minister’s view of our proposals. We seek to make sure that health warnings can be put literally on to the cigarettes and other tobacco products themselves, rather than just on the packs.

New clause 5 is intended to look at mandatory health warnings on cigarettes and rolling papers, and at the regulations that would need to be rolled out and consulted on among tobacco manufacturers. It would enable us to have a consultation, rather than to change the law immediately.

Our proposal is not new. It was first proposed by the all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health, of which I am the chairman, in our 2021 report and recommendations to the Government. Importantly, our recommendation was endorsed by Javed Khan in his 2022 report. It is one recommendation that has not, thus far, been included in the Bill.

This is not even a novel policy. My noble Friend in the other place, Lord Young of Cookham, first proposed cigarette warnings when he was a Health Minister in Margaret Thatcher’s Government—a great Government at the time. His statement at the 1979 world conference on tobacco and health bears repeating. He said:

“The solution to many of today’s medical problems will not be found in the research laboratories of our hospitals, but in our Parliaments. For the prospective patient, the answer may not be cure by incision at the operating table, but prevention by decision at the Cabinet table…Historically, a nation would look to its doctors for better health. Now they should look to their Members of Parliament.”

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, the national medical director of NHS England, echoed Lord Young’s comments when he said to this Committee that the legislation we are considering is “possibly the most important” piece of legislation since Parliament passed the National Health Service Act 1946, which led to the formation of the NHS on 5 July 1948. In his view, the legislation that we are considering is

“one of the most important—possibly the most important—pieces of legislation since the passage of that Act.”––[Official Report, Tobacco and Vapes Public Bill Committee, 1 May 2024; c. 89, Q129.]

This year, my noble Friend in the other House, Lord Young, will have been in Parliament for 50 years—50 years in which he has fought long and hard to end the blight that smoking leaves on society. It would be a just tribute to his efforts if the Government committed to implement this policy, which he first called for more than 30 years ago. Tobacco manufacturers already print on to cigarette papers, so it would be cheap and easy to implement.

New clause 4, on mandatory health information inside tobacco products, would commit the Government to consult again on draft regulations to require mandatory pack inserts containing health information such as quit messaging. Pack inserts were first proposed by the all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health in our 2021 report, that recommendation was also endorsed by Javed Khan in 2022, and the Government consulted on their introduction in a consultation that closed on 10 October 2023.

I am sure my right hon. Friend the Minister will be well aware that the Government’s own guidelines state:

“Government responses to consultations should be published in a timely fashion”,

which is defined as

“within 12 weeks of the consultation”,

or they should

“provide an explanation why this is not possible.”

It is disappointing that, more than seven months after the consultation closed, the Government have still not published their response or given a reason for not doing so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Blackman]

I rise to speak to amendment 21, which I tabled with other hon. Members. It seeks to regulate vaping product standards and is vital to the Bill. The amendment allows for changes to other features of vaping or nicotine products, as set out in regulation 36 of the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016, which at the moment do not distinguish between the differences among brands, such as capacity of refills, cartridges or pods, and nicotine delivery. My amendment would ensure that the Secretary of State has powers to revise generic product requirements, as set out in regulation 36 of the TRPR.

Importantly, my measure would be permissive, rather than a requirement. The wording of clause 63(1)(f) as drafted limits revision to features that “distinguish between different brands”, and could potentially exclude revision to generic standards such as capacity of refills, cartridges and pods, and nicotine delivery. The standards in the TRPR were developed for e-cigarettes only in the EU tobacco products directive back in 2013. Vaping and nicotine products have evolved considerably over the past 11 years, and they will continue to evolve, so it is vital that the Secretary of State has powers to revise the standards.

The change I propose is not to the intent of the clause; it is merely a clarification to ensure that there is no risk of limiting the powers of the Secretary of State only to characteristics that are brand-specific. Will the Minister, in her response, either accept amendment 21 or to come back with further consequential amendments, which will ensure that the Secretary of State has the powers that we know will be needed, because the industry will evolve and change its products. The industry will look at the Bill when it becomes an Act, and the risk is that we will have to come back and look at this again.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

New clause 10 would provide powers to the Secretary of State to amend regulations 36 and 38 of the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016. As has been remarked several times in our debates, one of the biggest risks to the success of this legislation in achieving a smoke-free future and tackling youth vaping is that, if the Bill is not tightly worded, vexatious tobacco companies could find loopholes and workarounds. We have been discussing those with the failure of the flavours ban; the same goes for vapes.

To reiterate, Labour is ready to come down like a ton of bricks on any company that would attempt to profit at the expense of our children’s health. We know that the business model of tobacco and, let us face it, of vape companies is addiction. That is not to say that vapes are anywhere near as destructive and harmful as tobacco, but they are not good for us, and if we do not smoke, we should not vape.

The clauses on product requirements provide powers to the Secretary of State to create regulations for the retail packaging of vaping and nicotine products, as well as other product requirements, and they are, at face value, welcome. For a long time, we have been saying that we need to come down hard on those companies blatantly marketing nicotine addiction to children. I have seen egregious examples of that. It is not just the bright colours and pick-and-mix flavours. We heard in evidence from the NASUWT about vapes designed to look like USB sticks or highlighter pens so that they can easily fool teachers in schools. E-liquids available on the market called Candy King look like sherbet dip. I was sent one example from trading standards that really turned my stomach: a vape it seized that was shaped like a sippy cup. That is why we have long been calling for the standardisation of vape product requirements, to remove the risk that products can be designed to appeal to children. At a minimum, the regulations should allow for bright colouring and child-appealing imagery and product names to be removed.

The one thing that companies have shown time and again, however, is that they are agile. They are able to innovate faster than Government have been able to keep up, often to harmful ends. My concern with clauses 61 and 63, which new clause 10 seeks to address, is that the powers provided are limited. In clause 61(3), the wording specifies that the regulations that the Secretary of State may create may include provisions about

“features of the packaging of vaping products or nicotine products which could be used to distinguish between different brands of the product”.

The same phrase is used about other product requirements in clause 63(1)(f). My concern is that such a caveat could exclude revision to generic standards, such as capacity of refills, cartridges or pods, and nicotine delivery.

As I mentioned, we have heard how part of the issue with the use of vapes is their tactility. They are discreet and can easily be hidden, and all evidence I have received about the concurrent disposable proposals that are being worked on by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is that there will be little change. The leading producers will be able to meet those new requirements with a few minor adjustments to their products, such as attaching a USB port. I appreciate from his amendment that the hon. Member for Harrow East has similar concerns. I therefore think we should include provisions for other requirements to be introduced for these products that would have an impact on their use by children, while maintaining their viability as an attractive stop-smoking aid.

I include in new clause 10 powers to amend regulation 38 of the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016, as well as regulation 36 on general product requirements, as they cover a range of miscellaneous presentational issues such as misleading or harmful claims that the product has certain health or lifestyle benefits, or attempts to mimic other items. I note, for example, that the current regulations specify that vapes cannot look like a food or cosmetic product, but that does not include looking like stationery, which was an issue identified in evidence by the NASUWT. Conversely, those regulations specify that a product cannot make any environmental claims where it may, in fact, be beneficial to do so to encourage greater use of reusable features once the regulations on single-use vapes come into effect.

Simply put, the purpose of the new clause is to give greater flexibility to Ministers to design regulations that can respond to problems as they arise and so that those powers are not limited to the aesthetic features of packaging or the products themselves, but can prohibit product claims and other characteristics that may appeal to children. My concern is that the legislation as drafted would not achieve that, particularly as we are dealing with regulations that were designed for vapes but which, through the Bill, could be extended to a host of as yet less understood nicotine products. We therefore need that flexibility.

--- Later in debate ---

[Preet Kaur Gill]

I thank the Minister for her explanation of the clause. As I have already outlined, we are very concerned about the explosion in under-age vaping in recent years, with youth use trebling in the past two years alone. I think I speak for everyone in the Labour party when I say that we have been very concerned about some of the products appearing on our local shop shelves, which are obviously marketed to children.

I do not want to lump the whole of the industry in together, but some of these companies are clearly linked to big tobacco and have used big tobacco-style tactics to target youngsters. They see the way things are going with smoking and have sought to addict a new generation through vapes and other products. We therefore support the clause, which will allow us to stop products with flavours mimicking popular sweets or with bizarre names like “unicorn shake” from sucking young people and other vulnerable non-smokers in. I am afraid to say that the Government have been asleep at the wheel on this issue, and there has been a bit of a free-for-all as a result. I was flabbergasted to learn from the MHRA that something like 600,000 different vaping products have gone through the notification process and can legally be sold in the UK now.

All that said, I do appreciate the genuine and legitimate concern from people who have used vapes to help them quit smoking that, in seeking to course correct, the Government could go too far in the other direction and take away the flavours that they enjoy and feel have helped them stay off cigarettes. I appreciate that my hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside has raised concerns to that effect, and I want to reassure her that we are committed to consulting on this issue before introducing regulations, so that we can get the balance right.

I have mentioned on previous clauses that when it comes to tobacco regulation, some of the restrictions on flavours have been among the least successful of any regulations brought in by successive Governments in recent decades. In the disappointment of the menthol ban is the cautionary tale that implementing these regulations will take thought and care. Similarly, the quagmire that the Food and Drug Administration in the US has sunk into is something we should obviously seek to avoid. I wonder if the Minister could therefore comment on what lessons she has drawn from the US, where the blanket ban on flavours has seen only a few dozen products approved for legal sale in three years, while illegal products remain widely available in stores.

The key issue we need to crack is what the best way is of dealing with flavours—is it descriptors, ingredients or the characterising flavour itself? On the latter point, I have already mentioned the menthol ban. Can the Minister please set out her view on how to proceed, given that the Bill leaves the specifics of how to implement restrictions on flavours quite open, including how the flavour of a product is to be determined. Has she conducted a systematic review of how Governments in other jurisdictions have sought to tackle this? Given our desire to protect the use of vapes as a smoking cessation aid, can she set out how restrictive she thinks regulations on flavours should be? Would she go as far as Canada in banning all fruit flavours, for instance? Given that the powers in the clause may be some of the trickiest to implement, I would be grateful if she could devote time in her response to answering these questions.

[Bob Blackman]

I rise in support of clause 62, noting the two amendments proposed by a Member not on the Committee that would have removed the power of the Secretary of State to deal with flavours. I consider it vital that the Secretary of State can make regulations about flavours of vaping products and nicotine products. As has been said, this is a much-needed power to help curb youth vaping.

The chief medical officer Sir Chris Whitty spoke very strongly when giving evidence to the Committee. He said:

“We are strongly supportive of Ministers in all four nations having the power to regulate flavours…We know that otherwise the vape industry will use this to essentially drive a coach and horses through the aims of the Bill, which is to make products less attractive to children”.––[Official Report, Tobacco and Vapes Public Bill Committee, 1 May 2024; c. 74, Q103.]

Indeed, literally overnight Action on Smoking and Health has published data showing that youth vaping has stabilised. That is the good news. The bad news is that 7.6% of 11 to 17-year-olds regularly vape. That is above the pre-pandemic level of 4.4%, so it has almost doubled since then. Young people are being encouraged to become addicted to vaping and will potentially go on to even more harmful products.

Exposure to marketing is also up. Some 55% of young people are exposed to vaping in shops, where vapes are on full display, and nearly a third are exposed to vaping online, so we need to take action. The measures in the Bill, particularly in this clause, will make starting to vape far less attractive to young people. That is why it is essential that it remains part of the Bill. I hope that as the Bill progresses we can resist further proposals that might seek to remove this measure from the Bill.

[Kirsten Oswald]

The clause is important. We have had discussions here and listened to experts in numerous sessions, which should give us a real opportunity to pause and consider why the measure is necessary. We know the incredible damage that smoking does to far too many lives and the importance of assisting people to stop smoking. Vaping can certainly be an important and helpful part of smoking cessation—that must be acknowledged.

I find it difficult, though, to imagine that many people successfully stop smoking by using a hot pink disposable pocket-money costing vape in “candy floss unicorn” flavour. That is not what those are for nor what they are aimed at. Action to deal with flavourings, as well as names and descriptions and so on, is essential. We are more than able to deal with smoking cessation and the importance of supporting that at the same time as dealing with the harms of vaping. I would be interested if the Minister could tell us about lessons from elsewhere about how that has successfully been done.

It is important to reiterate the significant numbers of youths who vape: 7.6% of 11 to 17-year-olds currently vape. That is not those who have tried vaping. For those who have tried vaping, the numbers are significantly higher and they are absolutely targeted by marketing. Even those numbers—which, as the mother of teenagers, certainly will give me further grey hair—are partly because of the exposure to marketing. We know that wherever we are and whichever shop we go into, we see attractive displays of vapes, and the flavours are a part of those displays. More than half of young people have felt exposed to that kind of marketing in shops, and nearly a third online. The Minister will not be surprised to hear me remind the Committee that people are also exposed to the advertising when they go to watch their favourite sports teams. That is wholly unacceptable and indefensible.

I support the clause, although I think more could be done, but that will come up in our later conversations.