Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Earl of Lindsay Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Lindsay (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley.

I declare two somewhat different interests. One is as president of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, in which role I welcome the additional £10 million for enforcement that the Minister mentioned. The other, though, is as a cigar lover, and it is in the latter capacity that I am speaking today.

I support any and all efforts to discourage young people from taking up cigarette smoking, but I am disappointed about the inclusion in the Bill of cigars and pipe tobacco, which the Government themselves do not consider to be a significant public health concern. These products differ markedly from cigarettes and rolling tobacco in their consumer base, their usage patterns and their risk profiles. Representing less than 2% of the UK tobacco market, the consumption of handmade cigars is statistically insignificant, leading the ONS to cease data collection in 2016 and the DHSC to ignore it in its 2023 adult smoking habits report.

More pertinently, cigar usage is not prevalent among the 18 to 24 age group, primarily due to its higher cost. The evidence indicates that cigars and tobacco are predominantly used by an older demographic, with 78% of cigar smokers being 35 or older and the average age of a cigar smoker being 52. Usage patterns also diverge significantly, with cigar consumption being occasional, driven by appreciation rather than by nicotine addiction and limited by price and availability.

The most compelling fact is that there is no evidence suggesting that cigars act as a gateway product to cigarette smoking. The lack of data linking cigars to youth uptake of tobacco products, addiction or significant public health harms explains why previous legislation has consistently differentiated cigars from cigarettes in respect of packaging and other requirements. The inclusion of cigars and pipe tobacco in this Bill is therefore at odds with the principles of evidence-based and proportionate regulation. This echoes the concern expressed by my noble friend Lord Howe about proportionality and the balance between personal freedom and health gain.

The Regulatory Policy Committee, among others, raised concerns about the impact assessment, which relies almost entirely on cigarette-related studies, with cigars hardly mentioned and their distinctively different consumer profiles, demographics and levels of risk completely ignored.

The IA also fails to adequately assess the Bill’s impact on businesses specialising in cigars and pipe tobacco. The specialist tobacco sector is composed of over 130 enterprises, supporting 794 jobs. They are mostly small or micro family-run retail businesses, with generations of experience and expertise in the niche and complex supply chains around handmade cigars. Being small-scale and specialist, and with handmade cigars constituting up to 70% of their turnover, these businesses will be facing closure if their primary revenue from cigars begins to dry up.

A considerably more urgent concern for them with the Bill, however, is the proposed power to extend standardised packaging to handmade cigars. Handmade cigars and their packaging are artisan products produced by small manufacturers, mostly in developing countries, with low-volume runs of diverse product lines that are packaged manually. Unlike the highly automated cigarette industry, with a high volume production of limited product variations, the handmade cigar sector has over 2,000 distinct products, with unique packaging for each one. This makes it impossible for producers to accommodate specific packaging for one small market, such as the UK, and extending standardised packaging to handmade cigars would require importers to develop packaging in the UK and repack each cigar manually. That is financially unviable, and a disproportionate requirement compared to other mass-produced tobacco products.

As importers will not be able to meet plain-packaging requirements, choice and supply to retailers and consumers will be dramatically reduced. Consumers will choose to purchase from other markets, leading to the closure of all specialist tobacconists in the UK and the likely loss of nearly 800 jobs within an estimated two to three years. That sounds alarmist but it is based on evidence: in the Republic of Ireland, similar measures in 2017 resulted in specialist tobacconists seeing their sales of boxes of handmade cigars drop from around 70% to zero.

The Bill’s one-size-fits-all approach to tobacco products is, as I have said, at odds with the Government’s own better regulation principles when it comes to cigars and pipe tobacco. There is no clear evidence that they contribute to youth cigarette uptake or to public health issues. It will endanger jobs and businesses without achieving corresponding health benefits. A more intelligent, proportionate and evidence-based approach would be to exempt cigars and pipe tobacco from the Bill and to exempt handmade cigars from plain packaging. Other options that might be considered alongside exemptions could be raising the minimum purchase age of cigars and pipe tobacco to 25 or introducing a five-year post-implementation review to assess the consequences of such exemptions.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Earl of Lindsay Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th November 2025 Grand Committee

Moved by

[The Earl of Lindsay]

102: Clause 45, page 23, line 5, at end insert “subject to section (Impact assessment before further regulation of certain tobacco products)”

[The Earl of Lindsay (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as president of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, which is relevant to the last group of amendments but not to those I will speak to in this group—namely, Amendments 102, 104 to 106, 108, 109, 112, 156 to 159 and 201. These 12 amendments stand in my name and the names of the noble Lords, Lord Mendelsohn and Lord Fox, who sadly is involved right now in the International Agreements Committee. These amendments are also variously co-sponsored by the noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, and my noble friend Lord Moylan.

Eight of our 12 amendments propose exempting handmade cigars, pipe tobacco and nasal tobacco, more commonly known as snuff, from the generational sales ban outlined in this Bill, as well as from the broad regulatory powers it grants the Secretary of State concerning plain packaging, other retail packaging and product related requirements. Our remaining four amendments focus on the need for impact assessments. At the outset, I reiterate my support for the Bill’s overarching objective: to prevent the youth uptake of smoking and nicotine products, thereby to protect future generations from the health risks that stem from tobacco addiction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

The Bill is very focused on the smoke-free generation, but we also know that existing legislation and practice in this country are about not only encouraging people not to take up smoking but helping them to quit. That is the focus of the Bill, not every potential health harm.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Fox and Lady Hoey, the noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, and other noble Lords referenced what is included, particularly for cigars. I had to remind myself—so I am happy to remind noble Lords—that most of the current legislation on tobacco control, such as the existing age of sale, health warnings and advertising restrictions, is already in place. So the regulation of cigars is not new.

Noble Lords asked about packaging restrictions for cigars. Again, this is not a new concept. Indeed, many countries already go further than the UK and require all tobacco products to be sold in plain packaging. That includes Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland. I say to the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, and the noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, that any new restrictions will be subject to a consultation process and an accompanying impact assessment.

I move on to heated tobacco and will respond to amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe. There is evidence of toxicity from heated tobacco, and the aerosol generated by heated tobacco also contains carcinogens. There will be a risk to the health of anyone using this product.

Clause 45 gives Ministers the ability to extend the restrictions under Part 1 to cover devices that allow the tobacco products to be consumed. That allows us to adapt to any new products that enter the market and prevent loopholes. I assure noble Lords that there is a duty to consult before making any regulations under this power. As I have mentioned many times before, those regulations will be subject to the affirmative procedure, ensuring an appropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny. Any additional requirements would be overly bureaucratic. Given the known harms of tobacco and the need to protect from any loopholes, I ask noble Lords not to press their amendments in this group.

[The Earl of Lindsay (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who contributed to this group of amendments. I am especially grateful to those who managed to pick up the issues that I had to drop in order to keep to time—such as hospitality and the letter from Caribbean ambassadors to the Prime Minister.

I will respond quickly on one or two issues. The first is definitions, which are really important. That is why this group of amendments seeks to define precisely what a handmade cigar is, for instance; we recognise that loopholes could be exploited. If, when we have reflected further on what has been said today, this comes back on Report, we will look again at just how tightly the definitions can be drawn, as we accept that there is scope for mischief otherwise.

I thank the Minister for the consideration she gave in the various points that she made. I continue to be concerned about the extent to which the UCL study has some use. Even the authors of that report have acknowledged the weaknesses in the methodology that they used. This lies behind the amendments about additional impact assessments. I think I heard the Minister say that, prior to secondary legislation being brought forward, there would be additional or further impact assessments. I welcome that in principle, but one of the amendments tabled said that there should be further impact assessments before the provisions of the Bill—not the secondary legislation but the provisions of the Bill—are applied to the three nominated categories. There is still considerable uncertainty about the exact risks and impacts of these three products.

It is easy to say that all tobacco products are potentially harmful. It is equally easy to say that for all alcohol, sugar et cetera. Those types of products are potentially harmful, but the one word that I used repeatedly in speaking to these amendments, which did not come up at all in the Minister’s response, was “proportionality”. We propose a proportionate approach to the availability of certain OTPs in future.

I am grateful for all the contributions and to the Minister for her response. I beg to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 102 withdrawn.