Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Euan Stainbank Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 26th March 2025 Commons Chamber

New clause 2 would represent a huge step towards removing 3.9 billion cigarette butts from our ecosystem, combating the blight on our beaches and streets, the stain in our streams and the rubbish on our roads. It is an environmental no-brainer. It is also a parliamentary no-brainer, as it has massive public support. I hope the Government can see the merit in supporting it today.

[Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)]

I declare an interest as an officer of the APPG on responsible vaping.

I was asked by a teenage member of my family over the Christmas break what my biggest regret is, and I undoubtedly go back to the evening at an empty—a party, for anybody unaware of the Scottish parlance—back in 2016, when I first took a draw off a cigarette. I know all too well the addictive power of nicotine, and I promised when I was sent here by the people of Falkirk in July that I would do everything I could to prevent another generation from being so easily exposed to it. Sadly, I must say that some of the amendments proposed may jeopardise that near universally supported ambition in our communities.

There is no safe way to consume nicotine, and we have known for near a century that smoking tobacco will in the long term be incredibly damaging to the health of a person. If we pass this Bill and slowly but surely cut off the tobacco industry from new customers, we will see lower occurrences of cancer, fewer heart attacks, fewer strokes and less illness in our communities. Points raised by hon. Members about the black market are important, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response, but they do not undermine my support for the generational ban in this Bill.

For all the reasons articulated, I do not support the various attempts in amendments to alter the generational smoking ban. In Committee, I saw an attempt to alter the scope of the Bill to set the age of sale at 25. I see similar attempts on the amendment paper to change the age of sale to 21, or to scrap the generational smoking ban altogether. I doubt it will come as a surprise to my constituents, who are well aware of my leanings, but for me the freedom for our bairns eventually to be allowed to smoke something that may ultimately kill them does not fall into the philosophical sphere of inalienable liberties.

Saying that, I will don the cloak of alternatively minded colleagues momentarily. For all but the last three days in Committee, I was 24 years old. The shift in the age of sale proposed in Committee would have deprived me of a liberty I already have and that regrettably I exercised extensively in my younger years. Depriving adults of their liberty in the name of liberty does strike me as an odd argument for opponents of a generational smoking ban. This generational smoking ban does not deprive anyone of a liberty they currently hold, but shifts tobacco into the category of inaccessible substances for those who never had, or will have, the right to begin with. The “liberty for our bairns to eventually be able to start smoking” campaign would get short shrift from parents at the school gates of Falkirk, or from those sitting at the bedside of loved ones dying decades prematurely. No smoker wants their bairns to start smoking.

[Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)]

There is growing concern about the use of vapes as a tool to entice children into sexual exploitation. My probing amendment, new clause 5, was prompted by a police officer in Derby concerned about this national issue. I am grateful to the Minister for meeting me to discuss it. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must acknowledge the use of vapes to groom children, and ensure that licensing authorities and the police work together to crack down on any retailers connected to such activities?

[Euan Stainbank]

My hon. Friend identifies an important point about the protection of young people, and I would be very interested to hear the Minister address it in her winding up.

Non-smokers should never vape, but we should acknowledge that vaping can help a hell of a lot of smokers to quit, and that the evidence base we have on relative harm shows that vaping is far less harmful than tobacco smoking. The consolidation of vaping into a more utilitarian device used solely for the cessation of smoking is something we should pursue. That necessitates measures that stop the worrying rise in young people getting their hands on vapes in the first place. During evidence in Committee, Trading Standards articulated that online age gating has a far lower failure rate than sales over the counter. We heard from various sources about how vapes are still far too easy for our bairns to get their hands on through proxy or underage counter purchases. There is still work to be done to put the onus on the vaping industry to safeguard our bairns.

That why I put my name to new clause 6 and new clause 7, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend (Mary Glindon). They would permit the Secretary of State to make regulations mandating vape retailers to sell only vapes that include approved age-gating technology, allowing adults to lock their vapes and prevent bairns being able to use them. That would align with and strengthen the Bill’s objectives of deterring underage use by seeking to extend protection away from the point of sale to the point of use. I will ask Ministers to commit to meet me and the all-party parliamentary group to discuss how age-gating technology and wider measures can be supported in the United Kingdom to strengthen the shared aim we all have to stop bairns vaping.

The Bill grants the Secretary of State similar powers to bring in regulations relating to the display, packaging and flavours of vapes. On that, I will make a few brief points. The Bill should not deter smokers switching to vapes. Flavours are a huge reason why smokers quit and stick by quitting, and we should not regulate in any way that undermines the crucial message we must get to stick with adult smokers, which is that vaping has a far lower relative harm than continuing to smoke.

If we can, across this House, acknowledge the scientific consensus that there is no non-harmful consumption of tobacco, the Bill should be supported. It is time to take a step that will do a substantial amount to deter smoking, prevent nicotine addiction and secure a generation against smoking-related disease and premature death.

[Jack Rankin]

I hesitate to break up the consensus ever so slightly, but I do disagree fundamentally with the Bill. In my view, a generational smoking ban misrepresents the proper relationship between the state and the individual, and creates two tiers of adults. Members will be heartened to know that, recognising the will of the House on Second Reading, I do not intend to plough on with that argument too far. What I have tried to do with my amendments, however, is to genuinely improve the main aim of the Bill in a way that gets people off smoking in the interests of public health, which, whether we are for or against a generational ban on smoking, is something that we should all support. That is why I am grateful to Members from across this House—on the Government Benches, the Liberal Democrat Benches and the Democratic Unionist Benches, as well as some independent Members—for supporting the measures in my name, new clauses 8, 9 and 10 and amendment 46.

The message behind those measures is simple: let us ensure less harmful vapes and nicotine products get to the adult smokers who could benefit from them so that smoking rates continue to fall. In that regard, I associate myself with some of the remarks made by the hon. Members for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) and for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy).

I feel the risk of the Bill is that Ministers may inadvertently weaken the decline in smoking in Britain somewhat. As the Minister and shadow Minister both said in their opening remarks, vaping is a legitimate and desirable smoking cessation tool for adults who currently smoke.

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In the Bill Committee, many raised the issue that any advertising seen by adults would inevitably be seen by children. That is why I tabled amendment 46, which would avoid this problem by permitting advertising in adult-only environments such as pubs, bars and clubs. To me, that is just common sense. If we know that everyone is 18, is no good reason why advertising of these products should not be permitted. Further, we know that these night-time venues are often hotspots for smoking. These are the people who could benefit from tobacco-free products the most. If a vape or a nicotine pouch is advertised in this location, a smoker may well think twice before going to the local newsagent to buy cigarettes. This would work especially well if the same pubs were licensed to sell these products on the premises. I urge the Government, through these amendments, to reconsider their approach to advertising when it comes to legitimate smoking-cessation tools. My recent written question to the Department exposed that either no real assessment has been done in this area of policy or it has been obscured.

[Euan Stainbank]

Specifically on amendment 46, which I have a degree of sympathy for, who would be responsible for enforcing the advertisements and ensuring that it was only those over the age of 18 who were seeing them?

[Jack Rankin]

I am assuming, to be honest, that it would be the same people who are responsible for the licensing of alcohol advertising.

All my amendments speak to the principles that I have outlined, which I think are consistent with the aims of the Bill, and for which I have received support from across the House. I hope that Members both in here and in the other place will recognise the value of my amendments and that the Government will take these concerns seriously.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes]

What I am saying to the hon. Lady is that the Government—and the previous Government should have done the same—need to take concerted and decisive action to deal with the unintended consequence of well-meaning legislation that led to a huge growth in the illegal sale of tobacco and cigarettes. Rather than introducing a rolling age of consent, which, by the way, is entirely unenforceable, they ought to target their efforts, draw on their resources and seek the almost limitless expertise that is available to Government to deal with an issue that, frankly, is going largely unrestricted.

Good work is being done by trading standards in my constituency in Lincolnshire and by local police, but they struggle, because the legislation is inadequate. I would have supported a Bill, had it come to the House— I will not digress too much, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you will not allow me to do so—that licensed the sale of tobacco. Most tobacconists and most newsagents, I suspect, would welcome that measure. I know that police would like to see that kind of measure, which is rather like what we do with alcohol. There is a precedent there, but that is not what is before us today.

On the rolling age of consent, the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), who has tabled amendment 4, is right that it cannot be enforced. I am in favour, by the way, of raising the age of consent. To be honest, I am in favour of raising the age of consent to 21 for virtually everything. That could be enforced, although it would not be straightforward. But the idea that someone will go into a tobacconist or a newsagent and say, “I am 29” and the tobacconist will say, “Actually, I think you could be 28” or in years to come, “I am 57” and the tobacconist or newsagent will say, “No, no, I think you could be 55” is nonsense. It is never going to happen. No retailer is going to do that. Either the Bill will fail—I think the law would be broken daily—or we will devote undue resources to policing something that frankly does not warrant such attention. Let us recognise that this is a preposterous proposal. As the right hon. Member for East Antrim said, by and large we should not do things in this House that are preposterous.

[Euan Stainbank]

rose—

[Sir John Hayes]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, who is going to tell me why we should.

[Euan Stainbank]

I was a retail and hospitality worker myself in Scotland, and we applied “Check 25” regularly. Would the simple question not be, “Were you born before or after 1 January 2009?” Is that a complex question? I would appreciate an explanation of how it is.