Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Debate between Lillian Jones and John Slinger

Report stage
Wednesday 26th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lillian Jones (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab)]

For me, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill is a landmark opportunity to improve health outcomes for people in my constituency of Kilmarnock and Loudoun, as well as people across the whole United Kingdom. Almost 80,000 people die each year from smoking-related illness, and many of my constituents have told me they wish that they had never started smoking in the first place. With this Bill, we draw a line under the public health tragedy that tobacco has caused over too many decades. On top of the tragedy of 80,000 deaths, every year smoking costs the NHS more than £3 billion and sees our economy lose more than £18 billion in productivity. This Bill is the bold action that our country needs and that my constituents in Kilmarnock and Loudoun will benefit from.

I am proud that this Labour Government are standing up to the tobacco lobby with the banning of tobacco products for anyone born in or after 2009. That radical change will save lives. In my constituency, I have seen people as young as 12 puffing on vapes on their way to school and when returning home. That is a huge concern for the health and wellbeing of those young people, and the ease of access that they have to vapes is simply unacceptable.

[John Slinger]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. She refers to the risk that young people will increasingly use vapes. Does she agree that the ban on advertising vapes cannot come quickly enough? In my constituency of Rugby, I see shops that look like sweet shops and whose names sound like sweet shops that are clearly designed to encourage and frankly entice young people to take up this unpleasant habit.

[Lillian Jones]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend on those points.

While some argue that vapes may be less harmful than smoking tobacco products, our new generation should not be encouraged to become dependent on the addictive effects of nicotine. This Bill does exactly the right thing in giving the Secretary of State the power to ban flavoured vapes that are very obviously marketed to children and young people. Researching the flavours on offer, I found cola gummies flavour, pink lemonade flavour, strawberry chew flavour and tropic bubblegum flavour, to name just a few. Can anyone really claim that those flavours and the countless others on offer are not aimed at children? Many Members from both sides of the House would raise more than an eyebrow at that claim.

This Bill will regulate the wild west of vaping, which we have seen expand on our high streets over the last decade. It will also address the issue of poor-quality vapes, which are a safety concern, including single-use vapes, and end the scourge of these products littering our streets and communities. As someone with a background of 23 years in the NHS, I know the difference that this Bill will make; it will save lives and help to save our environment, and I will be proud to vote for it.