Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Third sitting)

Caroline Johnson Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 1st May 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Trudy Harrison]

Q Thank you both for powerfully and poignantly outlining the preventable impacts of smoking-related disease and illness on adults. I want to ask about pregnant women. In Cumbria, 12.3% of women at the point of giving birth say that they are smoking. Given the evidence-based proof, why is that still the case? I am left asking why we have we left it so long to have these conversations and bring the Bill forward.

I would like to understand the power of addiction to be able to make the point that this is a pro-choice Bill. It will give women more choice against that addiction that they are enduring at the most important point of their lives, when they are unable to make that choice for themselves.

Kate Brintworth: I absolutely agree with you. As I have said, pregnant women go to extraordinary lengths to protect themselves and their babies. They change what they eat and drink and how they behave in myriad ways to ensure that they are doing the right thing, yet it has proven very difficult to shift the figures you describe—I think nationally it is a little over 7% of women who are still smoking. That is a poignant demonstrator of just how difficult it is and how addictive nicotine is, when all women want to do is the right thing for their children. That is why all the chief nursing and midwifery officers across the four countries are united in support of the Bill, as our medical colleagues are, because we see the damage wrought across families and generations. We are 100% behind it.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis: It is important to re-emphasise the point made repeatedly by the chief medical officer for England: smoking and nicotine addiction takes away choice. When you are addicted, you do not have the choice to simply stop doing something. It is an addiction. It is a set of products that removes choice, and in removing that choice, people are killed.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

Q I want to ask you about vaping, particularly among children and pregnant women. First, to Kate, are you aware of any research into which chemicals from vaping may be transported from the mother’s blood through the placenta and into the baby, and whether that has any effect, or is the research too early to be able to tell us that information? For Professor Stephen Powis, could you tell me what research NHS England is supporting into the effects of vaping on children?

Kate Brintworth: The information that we have so far suggests, as it does across all areas of healthcare, that vaping is safer than smoking. What we do not have is the long-term data that we have on smoking to give us the confidence to describe the harms clearly. That is something that we need to keep observing and understanding so that we can give people the best-quality information.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis: NHS England is not a primary funder of research but we are an evidence-based organisation, as I described earlier, particularly on the use of vaping for smoking cessation. We are very keen that the evidence base, particularly on vaping, is expanded. We would support research in terms of calling for it to be undertaken but also in terms of supporting the NHS as a delivery mechanism for the context in which that research is done.

We very much want to support further research because, as you know as a paediatrician, this is an area where the evidence base is emerging but there is more to do. It is not as complete as the evidence base for smoking. It is really important, even with the passage of this Bill, that that evidence base grows and that we in the NHS support the generation of further evidence where we can.

[The Chair]

Thank you. That is a good point at which to say that this session has ended and to thank our witnesses for all the information they have provided.

Examination of Witnesses

Professor Kamila Hawthorne and Professor Steve Turner gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

I call Dr Caroline Johnson.

[Dr Johnson]

As a declaration of interest, I am an NHS consultant paediatrician and a member of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.

[The Chair]

Thank you. I call Preet Kaur Gill.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

I call Dr Caroline Johnson—you have all been so kind to one another, we are now ahead of time.

[Dr Johnson]

Q Professor Turner, Dr Helen Stewart from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health gave evidence last summer to the Health and Social Care Committee, of which I am a member. She talked about some of the passive effects of vaping on children, such as in the toilets on school premises, where many children had been vaping in an enclosed environment, and children with asthma and other lung conditions were frightened to go into those toilets because their conditions were triggered by being in the presence of second-hand vaping.

Do children breathe in second-hand chemicals when they are proximal to adults vaping, or in an enclosed environment? If they do, what effect does that have on children’s lungs? Would you, or the royal college, support a ban on vaping in public places in a similar way that we currently ban smoking?

Professor Turner: I think that vaping in schools and school toilets is a big problem. First, it means that fire engines come out and that disrupts school. As you say, there are some children whose asthma will get set off by exposure to vapes, for example. So I think that it is a big problem, and you have already heard from schools. We are still not sure what components of the exhaled second-hand vape, if you will, are causing symptoms, but, as you described, that happens.

On your third question about banning vaping in public spaces, I would not have an opinion on that. If they are being used by people who are nicotine-addicted to help to come off their nicotine addictions, I would not be unhappy with that. Most of the second-hand vape is water vapour, but if you walk behind somebody who is vaping, you can tell what the taste is, so there are chemicals in there. I think that banning them in public spaces, at this point in time, is something that I would not have a strong opinion on.

Professor Hawthorne: I think we are on a journey, over the years, towards stopping smoking as a nation, so this Bill looks like a great step forward. I think that it is a landmark suggestion, and now that New Zealand has backtracked, I think we will be ahead of the game.

Professor Turner: And we have a proud record of doing this, from a legislative point of view.

Professor Hawthorne: Also, to some extent, sometimes, when you make a big step—which this is—you then might want to stop and wait, consolidate, check and gather more data before you make the next step.

[The Chair]

If there are no further questions, I thank the witnesses for their evidence. That brings the morning’s session to an end. The Committee will meet again at 2 pm this afternoon, here in the Boothroyd Room, to continue taking oral evidence.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned.—(Aaron Bell.)