Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Debate between Lillian Jones and Sammy Wilson

Report stage
Wednesday 26th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson]

It is easier to distinguish between a 16-year-old and a 24-year-old. Usually, the younger the age, the easier it is to make that determination, but it is much more difficult when people are older, yet that distinction will have to be made.

The idea may be that the cost of the licence will be so expensive that many small retailers will be squeezed out of the market, and the only outlets will be bigger stores where there are security guards. However, the sale of tobacco provides an important part of the income of many small retailers. Whether we like it or not, we are putting a burden on people who will find that they are exposed to dangers and difficulties, and will be subject to the law if they make the wrong decision.

The second issue, which has been touched on today, is what happens when people cannot get the tobacco that they want. Where do they go? They go to people who are prepared to sell it to them illegally. We cannot run away from the fact that the sale of illegal tobacco is already lucrative, especially because of the tax increases that we have introduced. It is lucrative for criminal gangs and it funds many of their activities. We have heard statistics that 7% of cigarettes and 33% of rolling tobacco are already sold by criminal gangs. In Northern Ireland, it is probably far higher because paramilitaries were involved in the trade and used it to fund their activities for so long. If anybody thinks, “Oh well, we’ll deal with that problem when it comes,” look at the history of Northern Ireland, where hundreds of millions of pounds found its way into the coffers of terror gangs and action was not taken, because it was sometimes too hard or too difficult to trace the things. Yes, action has now been taken, but do not think that we are going to have an all-out assault on the booming industry that this legislation will produce.

My last point about the Bill being impractical is that it cannot apply in Northern Ireland because, as part of the EU single market, we are under the tobacco products directive. The Irish Republic tried to introduce similar legislation and found that it could not because of that directive. That is why we have tabled new clause 3, challenging the Government to amend the Windsor framework so that the legislation will apply across the United Kingdom. This is not a counsel of despair because I believe that there is an alternative, as set out in the amendment. Indeed, the Government’s own modelling suggests that a much more practical way is to set the age limit at 21.

If the figures and the modelling are correct—although there are questions about the tobacco modelling on doing away with smoking in a generation—and if we impose the age limit of 21, which avoids some of the problems we have talked about with the sale of tobacco, we reach zero consumption by 2050, just as we do with the generational model. That avoids many of the problems and difficulties I have outlined and the consequences for retailers, rather than rushing into this. It is a headline-grabbing measure, but it has not worked elsewhere. Why did New Zealand drop it? Because of the booming market in illegal tobacco. I believe that in a number of years, we will find that we made the same mistake.

[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.