Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Caroline Johnson Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend makes absolutely the right point. There are double standards in this debate. My view is that it is absolutely right that we protect the under-18s from these potential dangers before they have full decision-making capability, but we should allow adults to exercise that freedom. It seems to me that the medical establishment, the national health service and others working in the health industry have unfortunately been captured by this gender ideology, which is preventing them from seeing the truth of what is happening. That is why the Cass report is welcome. If only the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) had shown the same level of interest in dealing with the issue of young people and puberty blockers that he has shown in pursuing his crusade against smoking—he was not saying this a few years ago.

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

As my right hon. Friend will know, I was in the Chamber on that Friday listening to the filibustering, and was unable to contribute to the important debate on puberty blockers. I support her Bill and am grateful for the Cass report.

In reality, there are some products that are banned for adults—things such as cocaine and heroin—so society as a whole has made a choice that some products must be banned for adults as well as children. It is about where we draw the line. My right hon. Friend said that people should be able to do whatever they want as adults, but in fact unless we want to liberalise laws on drugs and allow people to have heroin, cocaine and everything else—perhaps she does—a line has to be drawn somewhere, and it is just a case of where.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I certainly do not support the liberalisation of those drugs. We know that people who become addicted to heroin and cocaine are a huge danger to other people and to their families; it destroys society. That is not the level of danger that tobacco poses, so those are very different scenarios.

I will come to my conclusion, because I know that a lot of people want to speak in the debate. What I ask is that Members do not just follow the instructions of the health lobby. We have heard about what the chief medical officer says. I know from being a Government Minister that there are often schemes pushed by officials and civil servants because, fundamentally, there is a belief that government knows best. I want Members of Parliament to think not just about what happens if we ban smoking for people who are over the age of 18, but about the implications for shopkeepers who have to identify whether people are the right age. Will it mean that people have to carry ID into shops with them into their 40s? What are the practical implications? It is a very dangerous precedent to start saying that some adults can have the freedom to smoke and some cannot. That is a fundamental problem. It is fundamentally unconservative, it is unliberal and I will not be supporting the Bill.

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[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

I am pleased to speak here today in favour of the Bill, part 2 of which specifically relates to Scotland, because smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in both Scotland and the UK. We know that, so we are surely duty bound to act and prevent harms. To be clear from the outset, I want us to help people to stop smoking. Smoking cessation, as well as preventing future harm, requires our action.

Dr Ian Walker, executive director of policy at Cancer Research UK, has correctly pointed out that nothing will have a bigger impact on reducing the number of preventable deaths in the UK then ending smoking. I will not go into detail about the terrible reality of the health impacts of smoking. We have heard about them already today, particularly powerfully from those who have worked directly in the medical environment. We have seen significant successes where we have acted on smoking in the past. I remember when the ban on smoking in indoor public spaces came into effect in Scotland, a first in the UK. It was a bit controversial, but not for long. It has undoubtedly hugely improved our environment and, importantly, our health outcomes. We have seen an important decrease in the numbers of smokers, but let us be real—there are still far too many lives being destroyed by smoking.

I am very glad that Scotland has been in front of the curve on these issues, whether that be with the indoor ban, the overhaul of tobacco sale and display, the ambitious goal of a smoke-free Scotland by 2034 or an issue that I have often spoken about here, the consultation on disposable vapes. The direction of travel is welcome. The SNP welcomes the collaborative step towards creating a smoke-free generation. It is not just us—the public are looking for action too. Action on Smoking and Health tells us that the largest poll of public opinion conducted to date—over 13,000 adults were polled—found 69% in support, including over half of all current smokers.

I watched with some despair—a little bit like I watched some of the proceedings in the House today—media interviews this morning where the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) said some of the things she repeated here in the Chamber. She said:

“I don’t know why this legislation is being brought forward”.

I would have thought that was pretty obvious really, but let me help her with that: it is to stop people dying. She then said, as she has again during the debate, that this is “unconservative” legislation. To be fair, I know absolutely nothing about being a Conservative and I am very much OK with that, but what a bizarre statement. Surely regardless of our varying political views, we can look at the health impacts of smoking and say they is not the future we want, and not the damage, harm and heartbreak we want for future generations.

Let us be clear that any arguments put forward about personal choice or personal freedom make no sense at all when we are talking about children and a highly addictive substance. Smoking is not a free choice; it is an addiction. Nicotine is a horribly addictive substance. That is why this is a positive and necessary move, and one widely welcomed, including by Asthma and Lung UK. That organisation points to the significant harm to future generations if we do not act now, and highlights the enormous cost to the NHS if we do not take this preventative action when we have the opportunity to do so.

Scottish Government Public Health Minister Jenni Minto MSP has welcomed the Bill, pointing out that Scotland has been a world leader on a range of tobacco control measures. While there has been a steady reduction in the proportion of people smoking, we know it still damages lives and kills more than 8,000 people a year in Scotland. If we do not act, we know perfectly well what the impact of that inaction will be.

We also know that smoking causes and exacerbates health inequalities, which is exactly why we need to have a tobacco-free Scotland. Indeed, Mark Rowland, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, points out:

“Smoking harms disproportionally affect those with poor mental health and stopping smoking has been shown to be as effective as anti-depressants. The Tobacco and Vapes Bill is a once in a generation opportunity to prevent the known mental and physical harms that smoking causes and regulate commercial interests from undermining the health of future generations.”

Asthma and Lung UK notes that the harms of tobacco are not equally distributed. In fact, smoking is responsible for half of the difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest in society. That generational nature of tobacco addiction means that children born today to parents who smoke are four times as likely to take up smoking themselves and to find it harder to quit. So the impact of smoking in terms of generational inequality and harm is clear and known, and we should aim to change that.

I am grateful to Asthma and Lung UK, and to the many other groups that sent me briefing materials. The breadth and range of organisations, including many medical and health groups, that have been in touch to urge me to support improvements in health and to stop future generations becoming addicted to tobacco, is very interesting and speaks to the wide spectrum of those determined to stop this harm, including, as we have heard, a majority of the public and retailers.

I would like to spend a little time talking about vapes, particularly disposable vapes. To nobody’s surprise, I am going to be positive in my support for any and all measures to arrest the tidal wave of children vaping, which should absolutely chill us all. The health impacts on children are terrifying, and that is only the ones we know about. My view is very firmly that all disposable vapes should be banned now, immediately. We should deal with the utmost urgency with the significant harms these devices are causing to our environment and to eye-watering numbers of children. Which of us can seriously say they are confident it is not their children? Members are deluding themselves if they believe that is the case.

[Dr Caroline Johnson]

As the hon. Lady knows, as we worked on this subject together, I brought forward a ten-minute rule Bill to ban disposable vapes last year. The measures in that Bill do not form part of the legislation today, because this is health legislation, but the banning of disposable vapes forms part of a statutory instrument that has been brought forward as environmental legislation. Does she welcome that?

[Kirsten Oswald]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s intervention. As she knows, it is important for us to look at disposable vapes in the round, including their devastating environmental effects as well as the terrible impacts they have on the health of our young people. Whichever angle we look from, these are devices of which we have no need and that we should get rid of as soon as possible, before they cause any more harm.

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[Sir Jake Berry]

My hon. Friend is quite right. That is the legal position under the law in this country if we have capacity, no matter how bad the decisions we make. Constituents have contacted me about elderly relatives who are making poor financial decisions, but because they have capacity they are free to make those decisions, albeit bad ones in some cases.

[Dr Caroline Johnson]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Jake Berry]

I will not. I have given way once and want to stick to my time. I will not support the Bill, because I believe in freedom.

My second point is about mandate. The Prime Minister does not have a mandate to bring forward this legislation, and no Labour or Liberal Democrat MPs—in fact, no MPs in the House—have a mandate to vote for it, because it was not in our manifestos. We are just months away from a general election. If people believe that this measure is so important, they should put it in their manifestos. The Conservative party could put it in our manifesto and let people vote for it.

The powers that we have in this House of Commons are not ours; they are lent to us by our constituents between general elections. We are quite rightly getting to the point where we have to return those powers to our constituents and try to persuade them that we have done a good enough job to get them back. Before we start giving away their freedoms and liberties, let us at least give them the opportunity to have a say.

There is one addiction in this country that I am even more concerned about than the addiction to nicotine: the addiction of the Government to telling people what to do. I want to live in a free society where I am free to make both good and bad decisions. As people go through the Aye Lobby to support the Bill this evening—I shall be going through the No Lobby—I ask them to cast their mind back to the last time we were all washed through the Aye Lobby together on a wave of health and science and righteous hope to keep people safe, which was during the covid pandemic.

I am proud of furlough and all sorts of things, but I regret closing schools. It was the wrong thing to do, but I was washed along on that wave. I opposed some of the covid proposals. People should look back to that and think, “That was the last time we took people’s freedoms away from them. Did we always get it right?” In my view, the answer is no. We got lots of things right, but we also made lots of mistakes. As people march through the Lobby, they should think about whether in fact they urgently need to support the Bill or whether it should wait until after a general election—we may have a different Government then, if polls are to be believed—when the British public will have at least had the question put to them.

The addiction of our Government to telling us what to do goes beyond whether we should smoke. During covid, they determined who we could go to bed with, whether we could sit in the park and read a newspaper, and whether we could go to work. We are now told how we can heat our homes and whether we can drive an older diesel car in London. Unfortunately, we live in a country where those freedoms—those freedoms that are not free—are being eroded every single year of our lives. That is not something that I am comfortable with, and it is not something that I am prepared to support.

There are good bits to the Bill, but we cannot allow the fact that good bits of legislation have been annexed to this terrible legislation, which in my view will not work, to force us to support it. The Government could bring in the vaping measures on their own, and I would support them. I just do not support the creeping ban on tobacco. When people reach the age of 18 in a free society, they must be free to choose for themselves.

I will finish with this. If Members find themselves in the No Lobby tonight—I hope I will see a few colleagues in there—they should keep in their mind that freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it. In my view, by voting no tonight, we defend the freedoms of our constituents and our country. It is the right thing to do, and I look forward to seeing as many colleagues in there as possible.

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

I rise in support of the Government’s Bill. One of the first speakers this afternoon was my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans), who talked about his first job in respiratory medicine. My first job as a doctor was in adult respiratory medicine, too, and I spent a lot of time looking after patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, intermittent claudication and lung cancer, and that taught me that smoking causes not just premature death, but substantial, debilitating, miserable disability that can go on for many years. I therefore support the Government in doing all they can to reduce the number of smokers.

Some people have talked today about the freedom for an adult to choose to do what they want, but we already make changes to what adults can do. We already restrict their freedoms. For example, we tell adults that they must put a seatbelt on when they get in the car. They must wear a helmet when they ride a motorcycle. They cannot drink alcohol before they get in a car, and they cannot drive down the motorway at 150 mph. So we already make restrictions for people’s safety on that basis.

I do think that gradually increasing the age is inelegant, as my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, put it, and will be challenging to enforce. But the alternative—to ban smoking outright—would be difficult, because it is an addictive substance. If we banned an addictive substance overnight, we would criminalise those already addicted. By doing it in advance and gradually increasing the age, we will instead not criminalise people for being addicted, because they will not get addicted in the first place, at least in principle.

I want to focus most of my remarks on vaping. I have been campaigning on vaping for some time, because I am concerned about the snowballing number of children who are addicted to it. Indeed, last year I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill to try to ban disposable vapes, which have been the most attractive vapes to children and cause the most environmental damage. At the time, 1.3 million vapes a week were being used—it is now up to 5 million. They are almost impossible to recycle in practice because the lithium batteries are difficult to recycle, and the nicotine gets soaked into the plastic, which makes that difficult to recycle as well.

I understand the need for adults to have something to help them stop smoking, but vapes are not just a stop-smoking device; we should look at them as an alternative addiction. Earlier in my campaigning, when I spoke to the industry, I said, “What is it with all these flavours?” I was told, “Well, the thing is, if someone tries to stop smoking using nicotine gum, they use the nicotine gum—or something—as a stop-smoking device. So they go from smoking, to gum, to nothing. If we give them vapes that taste of tobacco or are bland, they go from smoking, to vaping, to nothing. If we give them cherry cola-flavoured vapes, they go from smoking, to vaping cherry cola, to vaping mango and to vaping blueberry. They remain one of our customers and continue to use our product.” The industry is trying to create a new generation of addicts to make itself billions of pounds.

I can understand why the industry wants to make the money, but the way it is doing so is, in my view, immoral. In particular, its marketing of these things at children is immoral. A grown-up may wish to have a cherry cola-flavoured vape, but he or she does not need to have a unicorn milkshake-flavoured cherry vape shaped like SpongeBob SquarePants. That is why the flavours are important, and I welcome the Government’s measures to deal with flavours, colours, shapes and packaging.

What are the risks of vaping? As others have said, education is really important on that. For our children, in the short term, its powerful addiction causes problems with concentration, with some having to leave lessons because they cannot cope until the end of a double lesson without vaping. In some cases, as we have heard, it causes chest symptoms and can cause collapse. In the long term, the simple answer is that we just do not know.

A recent University College London study showed that DNA methylation—modification of DNA—occurs in people who vape. Does that show that vaping causes cancer? No, it does not. Time will tell us that, but it suggests at least that it might. That is why we must be extremely careful with our children. Adolescents will always experiment with substances because it is in the nature of adolescence to experiment with boundaries, but we need to ensure that we take as much care of them as we possibly can.

In particular, I welcome clause 10, which will allow the provisions to be extended to other nicotine products. The industry is making billions of pounds, and it will continue trying to flex to try to keep people addicted to nicotine. We can see that today. A search on the internet shows that Tesco is selling 20 nicotine pouches for £6.50. Those tiny pouches of up to 12 mg of nicotine—about 10 cigarettes-worth—are placed under a person’s gums and will release those 10 cigarettes of nicotine over an hour. They are sold in flavours called “Ice Cool”, Bergamot Wildberry”, “Mocha” and “Elderflower”. Does the House see a pattern here? That will be the next thing, and that is why I welcome the clause, which will allow the Government to reflect, if they want, on new forms of nicotine use.

I have some questions for the Minister. The Health Act 2006 prevents smoking in enclosed public spaces, on public transport and in certain other areas. Why has that not been extended to vaping? Also, as I was walking through Westminster the other day, I saw a big red Transport for London bus advertising vaping—something I have written to Sadiq Khan about. I wonder whether the Government plan to extend vaping regulations not just to what the package looks like but to the advertising itself.

[Kirsten Oswald]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Johnson]

I will not, because I have only a minute left.

The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) mentioned the advertising at Blackburn Rovers; again, sports advertising while children are watching is not helpful.

I have a final question for the Minister. Given that this is urgent, we are seeing so many children starting vaping and we want to stop people smoking as soon as possible, why are we waiting to bring in the regulations? Why not bring them in to affect children more quickly?