Vaping

Debate between Gareth Johnson and Sandy Martin

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Johnson]

Importantly, over the last 20 or 30 years we have moved away from the James Dean image of smoking. For many people, it is no longer seen as being cool, although it was when I was growing up; it was somehow seen as being acceptable. An increasing number of people look to vaping rather than smelly tobacco, if I can put it that way. It is increasingly recognised that there is huge problem with smoking.

Unfortunately, statistics show that more and more people are viewing vaping as more dangerous than smoking. Vaping is clearly a lot safer than smoking tobacco, but unfortunately the public perception is different from the facts presented by reputable organisations. Some 7 million people smoke in England alone, and some 8 million people do so across the whole UK, so potentially a large number of people can benefit from vaping. Although we have spoken briefly about smoking, my approach is not at all nannying. If an adult wants to smoke, that is their choice; I do not seek to lecture people on their tobacco use. It is an individual choice, but it needs to be an informed choice. We should therefore not obstruct people who want to access smoking cessation products, and vaping forms an important part of that.

I do not claim that vaping is risk-free; indeed, I would urge anybody who does not smoke not to take up vaping. There are risks, and it is unnecessary for non-smokers to take them. I also urge that our approach to vaping be evidence-based. When the Government make decisions on issues that affect vaping, they should base them on the best evidence available. Vaping should not be treated in the same way as tobacco simply because the term “e-cigarettes” has been adopted to describe vaping products.

We also need to be open-minded and objective about the pros and cons of vaping. Our views may change as more research is carried out, and that is fine. We may, over time, become more negative or more positive about vaping, but that should always be based on the facts available and not on a general dislike of smoking.

I am not a medical man at all, and I certainly do not claim to be an expert on health issues, so I have looked at what reputable organisations have to say about vaping. It makes incredibly interesting reading. For example, Cancer Research UK has said:

“the evidence so far shows that e-cigarettes are far safer”

than tobacco, even in the long term. It also says that

“Growing evidence shows e-cigarettes are helping people stop smoking”.

That is a pretty clear position. The British Heart Foundation has also looked into vaping and said:

“e-cigarettes are not harm-free.”

It has said:

“We would not advise non-smokers to take up e-cigarettes, but they can be a useful tool for harm reduction and to stop smoking.”

It also points out that long-term studies are, of course, not available just yet. That point is frequently brought up in this debate: because of the relative newness of vaping, we do not have the long-term studies that many people want to see. As I say, we need to be open-minded about vaping, but we should not turn our backs on the opportunities that it offers simply because we do not have long-term studies. It would be wrong for us not to engage with vaping for the next 50 years while we wait for long-term studies to be carried out. The opportunities are in front of us today.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the first major study on whether vaping helps pregnant smokers to quit, which is being led by Professor Hajek of Queen Mary University of London, working in conjunction with Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry? Does he accept that although there are apparent health benefits to switching to vaping if people are otherwise unable to give up smoking traditional cigarettes, it would be sensible to wait for the report to be published in three years’ time before making major interventions that might encourage pregnant women to start vaping when they are not already smoking?

[Gareth Johnson]

I am not aware of that report, but I think there is an inherent problem with pregnant women today having to wait three years to make that decision. My gut feeling is that the best approach would of course be for pregnant women not to smoke anything at all—not to smoke any tobacco products, and not to vape. I am not qualified to say whether it is beneficial for pregnant women to vape instead of smoking if they are unable to give up tobacco, so I would not want to comment on the report the hon. Gentleman mentions, but it throws up interesting questions. That is why I believe that this whole debate should be based on facts and evidence, rather than on an instinctive dislike of tobacco products that leads to lumping vaping in with them.

The British Lung Foundation has also commented on vaping:

“Given half of long-term smokers die as a result of their habit, using vaping to help someone quit smoking could literally save their life.”

The British Lung Foundation is also clear that vaping should not be seen as a permanent alternative to smoking or promoted to non-smokers, but nor should it be banned in public in the way that smoking is.

Public Health England famously—or famously in the vaping world—said clearly that it believes vaping to be 95% safer than smoking tobacco. The Royal College of Physicians and Action on Smoking and Health have chipped in with similar comments, so there is plenty of evidence that such products have potential, but they have to be judged on their own merits and should not be in the shadow of tobacco products. That is why, in my view, the EU tobacco products directive was wrong to incorporate vaping, which should have been dealt with separately.

That ludicrous approach is illustrated in the regulations that companies have to follow. If someone buys a vaping machine, the machine has to have a warning on it that it contains nicotine. The one I have here, which was sent out by a company called Totally Wicked, says,

“This product contains nicotine which is a highly addictive substance”.

They all have to comply with that requirement. The silly thing is, of course, that the machine does not contain nicotine—but it says it does, because it has to as a consequence of the EU directive. It contains nicotine only when e-liquid is added to the product; it is not included in the product. Companies have to put a caveat at the bottom of the product to say that the statement is not true, so that they do not get prosecuted under the Trade Descriptions Act 1968. That is one illustration of the ludicrous nature of an approach that lumps vaping products in with tobacco products, and that expects vaping organisations to act in exactly the same way as those involving tobacco.

The EU directive also imposes a requirement to sell e-liquid only in small quantities with a maximum of 20 mg of nicotine, which I understand some heavy smokers find insufficient. I do not want to turn this into a Brexit debate—we have enough of those taking place in the House of Commons at the moment; there are plenty on today and tomorrow, if anybody is interested—but we have to recognise that there is an opportunity after Brexit to depart from some regulations, where appropriate. I ask the Minister to put March 2019 in his diary, so that he can consider which of the regulations can be looked at again, are unnecessary or can be altered.

The rules on advertising are also inconsistent. An advert on a bus is fine, but an advert in a magazine or newspaper is not. The trouble is that it sends out a mixed message, which helps neither the public nor the industry and adds to the problem whereby increasing members of the public believe that vaping is potentially more harmful than smoking tobacco. That ultimately stops the benefits that do seem to exist, according to people far more qualified in the medical field than me.

Most people agree that there is a necessity for more evidence, and I am pleased that the Select Committee on Science and Technology is about to carry out an inquiry on vaping, which aims to collate the available information and give recommendations. I hope that it will look at studies on the health implications and give its view on which studies are the most and least credible. The public should not have to rely purely on whichever report is given the greatest prominence in the press. The inquiry will be important, but what is ultimately needed is more fully independent assessments of the health considerations around vaping.

The Government have launched a tobacco control plan, which I am sure the Minister will mention. I welcome the aim in that plan to reduce the number of people smoking in the UK, and it is to be welcomed that the usefulness of vaping is recognised in the plan.

To conclude, although vaping is not risk-free, it has been found to be a useful tool for millions of people who want to stop smoking. It should therefore be given the recognition it deserves. It has huge potential to save lives. I therefore ask the Minister to meet the vaping industry as soon as his diary allows, to discuss how vaping can be best utilised.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

I was only going to intervene today, but there are other things that I wish to say. Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Howarth.

The hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) said that vaping is the most successful way to stop smoking. I absolutely and fully support his contention that vaping is a valuable way of persuading people who have failed to give up smoking through other methods, and I support any attempt to use vaping to crack the hard nut of breaking addiction to nicotine. When he sums up, however, will he confirm that vaping induces a certain degree of nicotine addiction if there is nicotine in the substance that is vaped?

The reduction in smoking in this country over the past 20 years is one of the best possible advertisements for health education and smoking prevention measures. The number of people who have managed to give up smoking is fantastic. I gave up in 2013 and have not touched a cigarette since. I gave up lots of times before that, but when I gave up in 2013 it was conclusive. I have never used any substitution products, because the problem for me was breaking the addiction to nicotine, rather than to the smoke itself. Now that I have broken my addiction to nicotine, I have absolutely no intention of going back to any form of smoking product.

I believe that there is an issue with the nicotine addiction element of vaping. I look forward to seeing all of the studies, including that of pregnant women.

[Gareth Johnson]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that nicotine is an addictive substance. There is no doubt that if someone stops smoking and moves on to vaping, their addiction continues. One of the benefits of vaping is that the substances can have a reduced amount of nicotine or no nicotine at all, which some vapers have found useful when they want to overcome their addiction to nicotine.

[Sandy Martin]

I fully accept that and I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Vaping is clearly a valuable tool in the attempt to reduce further the number of people who smoke, but I urge caution. Health education measures that enable and encourage people who are hard-nut smokers to move on to vaping should be fully supported, but we should wait until the studies report before introducing measures that make it easier for people who do not already smoke to start vaping.