Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting)

Gregory Stafford Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 9th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Johnson]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. It brings us to the heart of the next part of my speech, which is the inconsistency between different parts of the United Kingdom. We will come on to other inconsistencies in further amendments to clause 1 relating to age verification processes. As for why there are differences in the legislation as drafted, I am afraid I did not draft it; the Minister did. Perhaps he will say whether that was intentional or whether he wishes to amend it later.

[Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)]

I just want to clarify the intention of my hon. Friend’s amendments, not to resile in any way from her clear point that she supports the Bill, but to clarify her feeling that the current level of fines and punishments within it are disproportionate, especially if they are going to be levied on a part-time junior shop worker, or perhaps even a Saturday person who is a minor themselves. I want to clarify for the record that she does not in any way feel that the offence should carry a lesser punishment, but believes that first-time offenders should be educated rather than castigated.

[Dr Johnson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. Those who know me or who have listened to my speeches on tobacco and vaping will be in no doubt of my support for the Bill, and I believe that the criminal justice system has its part to play in ensuring compliance, particularly where people recklessly or even deliberately sell products to children. If one talks to children at local schools, one will repeatedly be told which shops they know they can get particular products from.

You were not here this morning, Mr Dowd, but I talked about the last time I was carded when purchasing alcohol. A junior shopkeeper was selling it under the supervision of an adult, and when the adult had walked away, the young chap actually said to me, “Now if you go to the corner shop round there, they will sell you it.” That shop might not have sold me what I was trying to buy, but a different form of alcohol. It is certainly the case that some shopkeepers sell age-restricted products to children with some impunity, and it is important that we catch them and ensure that they are punished appropriately.

--- Later in debate ---

However, one reason we have new smokers is because people, particularly children, start smoking; again, clause 1 will help in that regard. The other reason is because people who smoke come here, either as tourists or migrants, whether regularly or irregularly. How the Minister tackles that group will be interesting. What will happen with tourists to the UK who are legal smokers in their own country? Will they be expected to bring tobacco with them? Presumably, they will. Does that have an effect on imported volumes and how will border control manage that situation?

[Gregory Stafford]

My hon. Friend is making a very interesting point that I personally had not considered before. We need to know more from the Minister, and the point will potentially come up again when we consider smoking in the grounds of a hospital. The Minister has quite rightly pointed out that smoking is a terrible addiction, but if we have people coming to this country—tourists or migrants—who are addicted to smoking, but who are also under the age of sale here in this country, how will we be dealing with them?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I wish to speak to new clause 3, which is in my name. I do not intend to press it to a vote, and I will be very brief because there has been a lot of discussion—about three and a half hours—on this part of the Bill already, and I hope it will answer some of those points. I am introducing it because I think it would enhance the Bill’s consistency with the Government’s four-nations approach. New clause 3 would apply to all the nations of the United Kingdom mandatory age verification for purchasing tobacco, vapes and non-medicinal nicotine products, in line with the provisions set out for Scotland in the Bill.

Scotland has had mandatory age verification for anyone who looks under 20 as a legal requirement for purchasing tobacco and vapes since 2017. In lay terms, there is a legal underpinning for Challenge 25, which is voluntary in the rest of the UK. The Bill amends the Scottish system so that from 2033, it will be a legal requirement to verify the age of anyone trying to purchase tobacco who looks like they were born on or after 1 January 2009. My new clause would simply extend that beyond Scotland to ensure consistency for retailers, customers and enforcement agencies.

[Gregory Stafford]

Just for clarification, is the hon. Lady doing this simply to make it equitable across the United Kingdom, or is there something specific in the policy that she thinks will strengthen the Bill or add to it parts that are not covered currently?

[Mary Kelly Foy]

The new clause will make the policy consistent across the nations and simplify the process. If I can carry on, I will expand on those points. The new clause will extend the policy further than Scotland and simplify the process for retailers, customers and enforcement agencies. There has already been a lot of discussion about the implementation of a smoke-free generation, and about trying to make it simple and easy to understand. We heard in oral evidence concerns about the difficulty, when the policy has been in place for some decades, in telling the difference between two individuals in their forties who fall on either side of the policy. While that is likely to be a marginal issue in practice, the new clause will further help to resolve it.

Mandatory age verification currently exists in Scotland and is supported by retailers here. In response to the Minister’s point about it possibly being a burden on businesses, a survey of independent UK tobacco retailers by Action on Smoking and Health in 2024 found that more than seven out of 10 retailers—71%—in England and Wales supported this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Bool]

I want to take a step back and look again at clause 1 itself. Enforceability has to be considered as an important element of achieving the smoke-free generation. As I keep stating, as a former lawyer, I want to be absolutely sure before I can give further support.

I seek assurances from the Minister on the implementation of the policy with regard to Northern Ireland, if it is truly to be a smoke-free nation. One of the provisions of EU law in the Windsor framework is the EU’s second tobacco products directive—TPD2—which applies to Northern Ireland. It lays down various requirements that must be satisfied for tobacco products and vapes to be marketed in the EU—for example, on ingredients, emission levels and packaging. Most crucially, it also states that member states, which include Northern Ireland for these purposes,

“may not...prohibit or restrict the placing on the market of tobacco or related products which comply with this Directive.”

So a generational smoking ban may be incompatible with TPD2.

Similar plans for generational bans in Denmark and the Republic of Ireland were ditched in 2022 and 2024, respectively, because of TPD2. I ask the Minister whether the Department of Health and Social Care has any plans for this issue, and whether the Attorney General has formed a view that can be shared with us. I think we have learned over the years that it is imperative that we do not jeopardise our Northern Irish friends.

[Gregory Stafford]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank the shadow Minister for her comprehensive look at the clause, and the amendments and new clauses that go with it. I look forward to similar in-depth discussion on the rest of the Bill over the coming sittings.

I will state at the outset that I have never smoked a cigarette or tobacco-based product, or indeed any other product—legal or illegal—and I come with a background of being vehemently anti-smoking, so it may surprise some Members that I abstained on Second Reading. I did so for two reasons, really.

I support entirely the vapes element of the Bill, and had the Bill contained just that, I would have supported it wholeheartedly. I will not talk about vapes now, because that is a separate part of the Bill. My concern is with the enforceability of the tobacco element of the Bill, and indeed about some of the civil liberties that I outlined earlier. That said, I hope that hon. Members take my comments as helpful, supportive and inquisitorial rather than critical of the principle of the Bill. I entirely support the idea that we must have a smoke-free generation, as outlined in clause 1.

I abstained for two reasons. The first was personal. My paternal grandparents were both chain smokers. I do not have medical evidence of this, but I would say that both died because of that chain smoking. My grandfather died when I was three months old, so I do not have any recollection of meeting him. Having heard from people in Haslemere who did know him since becoming the Member of Parliament for the area where he lived, I feel that I am definitely the poorer for having not had the chance to meet him. My grandmother lived a lot longer; I knew her very well and loved her very much. But I have to say that the smell of tobacco and smoke in her house was not something I looked forward to as a child; in fact, I dreaded it. When I went back to visit that property, which is now in the hands of a lovely woman in Haslemere, it was refreshing that it did not have the pervasive smell of smoke and, to be frank, decay that went with it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Kelly Foy]

As I pointed out, surveys of retailers in Scotland show that 83% of them do not think it is a burden. As things are, there are fewer tobacco sales year on year, and as we progress, the sale of tobacco will phase out anyway; it will not be a thing of the future for businesses. In the meantime, they have pointed out that this measure aids them.

[Gregory Stafford]

I am interested to hear those facts. I know the hon. Lady will not press her new clause to a vote, and given that the Government do not support it, as far as I can tell, it is probably not going to be part of the law, but perhaps we can have a further discussion on Report.

[Sarah Bool]

On that point, the concept of having an age verification policy so that all retailers know what to do in these situations is not necessarily a bad thing in itself, but the difficulty perhaps lies in making it an offence not to have one, because it will be in-built as part of that process.

[Gregory Stafford]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. We in this Committee want to ensure that nobody who does not have to dies of smoking or tobacco-related issues, but we do not want to make the regulations so tight that they make things more complicated than necessary for business.

[Dr Johnson]

I do not want to put words into the mouth of the hon. Member for City of Durham, but I think she is trying to fill a gap with her new clause. The Government have said that businesses need to take reasonable steps and people need to take reasonable steps, but they have not defined those reasonable steps. Even today, it does not seem clear what they might be, although we know what they are not.

[Gregory Stafford]

I thank the shadow Minister for her intervention. She made that point powerfully during her speech. It is vital that we in this Committee, people listening to at home and those who will have to implement or abide by this legislation are really clear what those steps are. I hope the Minister is able to give us some surety on that.

We must ensure that we expand the acceptable forms of identification as much as possible, especially in clause 1, as the shadow Minister said. We have seen this in all sorts of walks of life, and she made the reasonable comparison with voter ID laws. Even if it is not something that the Minister can guarantee today, I hope that further forms of ID, such as veterans’ cards, will be inserted on Report, because as the age of people who are still allowed to smoke increases, they will have different forms of ID from younger people.

I will finish with a personal comment, if you will indulge me, Mr Dowd. I have two daughters, one of whom is nearly seven and one who is eight, and I find it fascinating that they find the idea of people smoking both bizarre and abhorrent. When we drive along in the car or walk along the street and they spot someone who is smoking, they rather loudly, and perhaps slightly to my embarrassment, point it out and say, “Daddy, that man”—or woman—“is smoking. Isn’t it awful?” Although the steps in the Bill are necessary and useful, I think that we as a nation, and Governments of all different colours, have done a good job in dealing with this. What worries me more for our young children is vapes, which we will discuss in future sittings. I will be happy to support clause 1 if it comes to a vote.

[Jack Rankin]

Judging from the tone of debate so far, I might be the most sceptical about the principle of clauses 1, 50 and 68, and I appreciate that perhaps I am in the minority. I will talk to what I see as the principle of those clauses and put on the record where I agree with the Minister and the shadow Minister. I will also give international examples that we should bear in mind, particularly in relation to the scope of “tobacco products”, which I think is wrong in these clauses.

We talk about a smoke-free generation. If we were to tweak that slightly and call it a “cigarette-free generation”, I would share the aim of the Government and the previous Government; that is laudable pretty much every which way. The Minister, the shadow Minister and Members from across the Committee have made eloquent contributions about the damage that smoking cigarettes does to people over many years. It clearly should be a priority of a Government of any colour to reduce cigarette smoking significantly. As my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon eloquently said, we have made significant progress on that. Yes, there has been legislation, but the change has also been cultural. The legislation has been important. Government Members made the point to me earlier that some of the arguments I have used I might have used against previous legislation that sought to put barriers between people and smoking. But the cultural element that my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon talked about is deeply embedded in most young people today.

That is why, despite sharing with the Government the aim of moving to a cigarette-free generation, I do not think I can quite get over the principle of what they are doing to civil liberties in this Bill. We are on the journey to a cigarette-free generation anyway, so why would they need to use—I do not mean this in an incendiary way, although they might take it that way—quite draconian powers? I would say that that is what this is.