Smoke-free UK

Euan Stainbank Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I commend the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) for securing this timely and important debate about progress towards a smoke-free Britain. I also welcome the Minister to her place, and declare an interest as the chair of the responsible vaping APPG.

I made the daft decision at a slightly older age than the unique exposure that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) had to pick up a cigarette at a party when I was 16. I have managed to progress to a point relatively early in life where I am no longer a smoker, but that was due to the availability of alternatives, not because I had the willpower to overcome the strong addiction to nicotine that quickly took hold after that juvenile mistake.

When we talk about ending smoking and addiction, we need to talk about how to enable effective off-ramps for those who are addicted to nicotine. It was great when I visited one of the specialist retailers on Falkirk high street, VPZ, that they had a carbon monoxide test, which checks how much carbon monoxide is in someone’s lungs. The level in mine has returned to relatively normal, but many of my constituents with preventable smoking illnesses face substantially worse outcomes because they have not been given that effective off-ramp in their quit journey. In this debate, I am thinking about those who are suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer, heart failure and all other types of preventable illness. Diminishing that harm must continue to be our focus as we seek to sustain the progress that has enabled a significant fall in smoking rates.

There is no other legal product sold that does the same amount of damage as tobacco. I wholly support the Government’s Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026, which introduced a generational ban that will cut off those who turn 18 from January from ever being added to the 4.9 million smokers in our country. In the short time I have, I want to focus on the simple argument that, in seeking to achieve a smoke-free Britain, we should not prematurely regulate out of existence any of the tools that help combat tobacco smoking.

Occasionally, rhetoric on this topic has drawn an equivalence between vaping and smoking, because we are rightly concerned in this country about youth uptake of any nicotine products. Although I agree with that instinct, I must warn against the march towards an arbitrary equivalence of regulation between tobacco and vapes. We know from the data that the vast majority of vape use is among ex-smokers and current smokers, with 33.8% of current smokers and 20.7% of ex-smokers vaping daily or occasionally, compared with only 2.9% of those who have never smoked.

We also know from established public health data that vaping is 95% less harmful than smoking, yet—in no small part, I believe, due to the moralistic tone of the debate that emerged around vaping—around 90% of smokers still do not know that vaping is substantially less harmful for them. If we were to fully ban flavour or significantly restrict its availability as a result of the Government consultation on vaping flavours, which has closed, we may inadvertently limit the effectiveness of our most effective smoking cessation tool. ASH data indicates that 14% of ex-smoking adult vapers would return to smoking if flavours were restricted, and over 70% of vapers say that flavour variety helps them quit and, most crucially, sustain their efforts to quit. I would appreciate an update from the Minister on how the Government’s response to the consultation will retain the right balance by permitting flavours, as vaping is a quit aid.

I welcome the fact that the consultation is distinct from the question of packaging, display and appearance; far too much of the debate on the Tobacco and Vapes Bill focused on the appearance and names of vapes rather than the value of flavours to smokers who are seeking to quit. We have tacitly acknowledged that vapes are important in ensuring a smoke-free Britain; we can see the success of the “swap to stop” scheme. Overzealousness in curtailing the variety of products that are available to those seeking to access those services may undercut the sustainability and viability of that effort.

With my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend (Mary Glindon), I sponsored an amendment to the Bill that would have introduced age-gating technology into vapes, which I think could be a helpful tool for the Minister. It would have practically addressed Members’ concerns about youth vaping while retaining the benefits for smoking cessation. As the technology is achieving more mass adoption, especially in the United States, I would be interested to hear how the Minister thinks it could be utilised under the powers available to her in the Act. We see the worst practices in shops that would not think twice about selling similarly age-gated products to under-age people, including alcohol and fireworks. On the display ban, I believe that restrictions on what can be displayed at the shop front could inadvertently harm specialist and bespoke retailers more than the shops we are attempting to tackle, so we need a full list of specialist retailers to make sure we support smoking cessation efforts.

The Minister’s predecessor put it very well: if you do not smoke, do not vape, but if you do smoke, switching to vaping is a far preferable choice. The regulation that is being considered should follow that principle.