Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Debate between Judith Cummins and Preet Kaur Gill

Report stage
Wednesday 26th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton), to her role. It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate and to support this genuinely world-leading piece of public health legislation, which will help to consign smoking to the history books.

Unless we act to help people to stay healthy, the rising tide of ill health in our society threatens to overwhelm our NHS. Paring back public health, as the last Government did, was the definition of penny wise, pound foolish. It is vital that we tackle the causes of ill health, not just the symptoms, so that we can save the taxpayer billions of pounds and, most importantly, save lives.

We know that prevention is better than cure. As we have heard today, smoking remains the single biggest preventable cause of ill health in our country, causing 80,000 deaths a year. It is responsible for one in four cancer deaths, and it is a factor in over 70% of lung cancer cases. In my own constituency alone, nearly 12,000 people smoke. They are more likely to leave the workforce due to ill health. Many will suffer strokes, heart attacks and conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. On average, they will lose 10 years of life expectancy.

However, the real tragedy is how many thousands of those smokers will have started when they were children, when they did not know any better, and have simply never been able to quit. Most smokers report wishing that they had never started, which is why it is incumbent on us all to support this legislation to help stop the start. According to ASH, in my constituency alone the cost of smoking exceeds £90 million every year, including £56 million in lost productivity, £4 million drained from the NHS and £30.7 million in social care. The costs of smoking to our society are enormous, and that is why it is time to stub it out.

Even today, in 2025, hundreds of young people a day take the first drag of a habit they will never manage to kick, and will regret for the rest of their lives. I was proud to lead the Opposition’s response to the last Government’s Bill through Committee in the last Parliament and, as I said then, there is no freedom in addiction. It is a shame that the leader of the Conservative party allowed her ideology to blind her from that fact when she voted against the legislation in the last Parliament, and against this Bill in this one. Where the last Government failed to get their Tobacco and Vapes Bill over the line, this Government will get the job done.

I am proud that the Government have vastly improved on the legislation that the previous Government drew up. First, the introduction of a new licensing regime to cover tobacco and nicotine products, including vapes, is hugely welcome. That was a key recommendation of the Khan review in 2022, which the last Government largely ignored and which retailers and the public overwhelmingly support, according to surveys conducted by ASH. The status quo, where there was no requirement to obtain a licence to sell those products, is a major gap in enforcement, particularly when we consider that the sale of alcohol is licensed, while nicotine and tobacco are not.

Secondly, I am pleased that the Government are taking forward an amendment I tabled in Committee during the last Parliament, for the introduction of £200 on-the-spot fines for retailers selling products to under-age people. In 2019 to 2020, 50% of the councils that undertook test purchasing reported that cigarettes or tobacco products were sold to children who were under 18 in at least one of their premises. That proves that the current regime is not enough of a deterrent. The introduction of new on-the-spot fines, which are double the amount proposed by the previous Government, will be much easier to issue and much harder to ignore. Does the Minister agree with me that double the fine is double the deterrent?

Thirdly, I commend Ministers on the action they are taking on vapes. Under the last Government, youth vaping trebled in two years. An estimated one in three vapes on the market were illicit, and products often contained harmful chemicals, heavy metals or even drugs. Gaping loopholes were left to sit on the statute book for years, putting children at risk. The promulgation of dangerous illicit vapes in shops, schools and on our streets is a real concern. Recently, in Birmingham, trading standards officers and the police led raids on retailers under Operation Cloud, when they seized nearly £6 million-worth of illicit vapes, tobacco and drugs. One raid alone, the biggest ever in Birmingham, clawed £1 million-worth of goods out of criminals’ hands. That shows the extent of the problem of the illicit market and the incredible job that council trading standards teams do to keep the public safe.

I thank the Government for getting behind trading standards with a £10 million boost to support their work next year. In particular, I welcome the new Government’s introduction of clauses to this Bill to set up a testing regime for vapes, a proposal that I championed in the last Parliament. It is shocking that under the current rules, unlike with tobacco, there is no testing regime for vaping products. That means that dodgy products can be rubber-stamped by the British regulator and wind up on our shelves, undermining the valuable enforcement work that trading standards do to identify and seize un-notified products.

As testing of vapes marketed at young people has shown, a significant proportion of vaping products are not what they say they are. Some market themselves as 0% nicotine when they are not, leading to accidental addictions; others contain harmful substances, such as heavy metals and even anti-freeze, as evidenced by research undertaken by Inter Scientific. That is why during the last Parliament I tabled amendments that would have established a new testing regime for vapes. Unfortunately, the Conservatives voted them down. I commend Ministers for introducing powers that the previous Government snubbed. Nearly 3 million people have quit smoking using vapes. Clearly vapes have a role to play in the transition to a smokefree future, but if they are to be used as stop-smoking aids, we need confidence that the products people buy are safe, which is what routine testing would do.

Finally, I commend the Government on the amendments that have strengthened this Bill; they close the loopholes on vape vending machines and ban vape advertising, promotions and sponsorships. The new clauses will ensure that these products are kept away from the impressionable eyes of young people, so that the next generation are not simply substituting one nicotine addiction for another. There were significant holes in the last Government’s plan, and I am glad that the new Government are slamming them shut.

The health crisis facing our country has never been confined to the running of its hospital wards, doctors’ surgeries and dental practices. We are a sicker nation, and that public health challenge needs confronting. Life expectancy was extended by three and a half years over the course of the last Labour Government, but in the 14 years under the Tories, it grew by just four months. In this Bill, we see the epitome of the future-facing approach that only a Labour Government can deliver. By stopping the start and ensuring that the next generation never develop an addiction to nicotine, we can protect their health and wellbeing and protect our NHS for many years to come.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.