Tobacco and Vapes Bill (First sitting)

Liz Jarvis Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 7th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We have one more question, which I am afraid is probably the last one to this set of witnesses, from Liz Jarvis.

[Liz Jarvis (Eastleigh) (LD)]

Q I would like to understand more about how you think the gradual change in age of sale will affect tobacco and vaping behaviour, compared with increasing the age of sale in one go. If a child has an older sibling or someone who may be bringing the products into the home, or has older friends, I do not see how this will change the behaviour or the desire to try the products.

Professor Sir Chris Whitty: It is important to be realistic about the fact that—as I suspect you will all remember from your schooldays, and if you have children, you will know from them—people do not stick exactly to the current law as it is. The idea that, magically, there will be a cut-off and people will exactly follow it strikes me as flying in the face of lived reality. However, as the age of sale moves up over time, I am very confident that it will lead to a significant reduction over time in the number of children buying cigarettes, because it will be illegal for people to sell them to them. It will not be illegal for them to possess cigarettes—that is an important distinction—but it will be illegal for people to sell them to them. If you are a 17-year-old you can usually pretend to be an 18-year-old, but pretending, or even wanting to pretend, to be a 30-year-old is a different thing completely. Over time this measure will become more effective.

The impacts will be seen first in things such as children’s asthma and developing lungs. It will probably next be seen in birth effects, because the highest smoking rates are in the youngest mums: the rates are up to 30% in people who have children before they are 20, but much lower in people who have them in their late 20s or early 30s. In that younger cohort, the effect on stillbirths, birth defects, premature births and so on will be the next big impact that the Bill will have, and gradually it will roll over time.

It is not a perfect mechanism—I do not think any piece of law that has been designed is a perfect mechanism—but, as a way of gradually driving smoking down in a way that does not take away anyone’s existing rights, it seems to me a reasonable balance between those principal aims. To go back to my first point, in reality the borderline will probably be a bit fuzzy, because it always is, but over time the effects will be very substantial.

[The Chair]

I have about three minutes left, so I will ask Mary Kelly Foy to ask a very brief question with a very short answer, because we will be finishing spot on 10.25 am.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Second sitting)

Liz Jarvis Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 7th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Andrew Gwynne]

Q In an earlier answer that you gave to the shadow Minister, you talked about the two priorities of preventing new smoking and tackling youth vaping, alongside supporting the 6 million to quit. The Bill seeks to reduce youth vaping. How do you think we best achieve that while not deterring adult smokers from quitting?

Professor Linda Bauld: If I can start with the second part of your question, in terms of not deterring adult smokers, we need to continue making the products available for smoking cessation. We are not banning vapes—that has happened in a number of other countries, as the CMO for England was saying—but we are recognising the things that make them appealing, attractive and affordable to young people, and taking action on those. It is fine for the adult smoker not to be able to see a wide array of advertised products on the shop front, on the billboard or at the point of sale, but to know they are there behind the counter and ask for them. I also do not think that the adult smoker who is trying to quit cares about gummy bears or Coca-Cola flavours—maybe they want some flavours, but not all of them. It is about striking a balance.

Finally, although we are not here to talk about the funding of smoking cessation services today—certainly in England, you have made previous announcements about that—it is important that in clinical settings and through stop smoking services we can give good information about vaping and other cessation aids, and support people to quit that way.

[Liz Jarvis (Eastleigh) (LD)]

Q Do you think the Bill goes far enough to protect children and young people from the harmful effects of tobacco and vaping?

Professor Linda Bauld: It is very ambitious on tobacco. We will be the first in the world—after unfortunate events in New Zealand, from my personal perspective—to introduce the smoke-free generation policy, and the world is looking at us. That is good. In terms of protecting people from vaping, the Bill has a proportionate set of measures, but if I come back to the answer that I gave to the shadow Minister, we really need to keep our eye on the regulations and—going back to the Minister’s questions—make sure that we are striking a balance. Given the evidence that we have for much stronger regulations on vaping, I think this strikes the right balance, but we need to make sure that we do that in a proportionate way. Finally, to go back to the comments from the previous set of witnesses, we also need to make sure that local areas have the flexibility around some of the measures to adapt them for their local circumstances.

[Dr Zubir Ahmed (Glasgow South West) (Lab)]

Q Thank you, Professor Bauld, for sharing your extensive expertise with us today. I want to explore the intersection between poverty and health, and where you think the Bill will have an impact. We know that health outcomes are poorer where there are pockets of high deprivation, as in many areas of Scotland, including my constituency of Glasgow South West. What are your thoughts, both quantifiable and general, as to the impact of this legislation on those children and on those particularly deprived communities?

Professor Linda Bauld: Dr Ahmed, you know—as Sir Gregor Smith said earlier—that smoking rates in our most deprived communities in Scotland are about 26%, compared with 6% in the least deprived. That is a very big number, and we see that pattern across the UK.

The Bill will make a difference in several respects. First, on preventing smoking uptake by gradually raising the age of sale, the evidence that we have from studies done by my colleagues at University College London and elsewhere is that previous rises in the age of sale have not exacerbated inequalities but have had a benefit in terms of preventing uptake. We know from the evidence that we have that those measures should be useful and helpful, and should not exacerbate that. The other thing is that, to go back to my earlier answer to the shadow Minister, by preventing smoking uptake in the groups that are likely to be future parents who are already likely to smoke, which are highly concentrated in our most deprived communities, we are going to have an impact there.

I do not see any signs in the Bill, when I look across the measures, that we will be exacerbating inequalities with it. I think that we will probably have the biggest impact in the areas where we have the most smokers which, unfortunately, are our most deprived communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Looking at the number of Members who wish to ask questions and the amount of time that we have left, I ask Members to be short in their questions and the panellist to be short in his answers.

[Liz Jarvis]

Q One thing that I have picked up from my conversations with youth workers and police is that children are being given vapes outside school. For example, if they are not at school for any reason or if they are particularly susceptible or vulnerable to other influences, they might be given them in the playgrounds or wherever. Obviously you have the issue that it can be a gateway to county lines as well. How do you think this Bill will support education, encouraging children to turn away from vaping, and should the Bill be backed by a public health awareness campaign aimed specifically at children and young people?

Matthew Shanks: I would say yes to the second point, but I would aim the campaign at everybody, because we also need to educate parents to get them to understand. On the first point, I think people who want to find ways of rewarding people to get them to join things that are not appropriate will find something, and vapes are something that is being used at the moment. I am not saying that this Bill will stop that happening, because people will always find ways, but it will certainly help the majority of people to see that vaping is not something they should engage with.

[Dr Beccy Cooper]

Q Thank you for coming along this afternoon. I want to hear a little more about the online issue—children purchasing vapes or perhaps being influenced to purchase vapes there. Given your experience as a headteacher and working in schools, how influential do you think the online environment is? Would you like to see the Bill develop more to look at that as it goes forward?

Matthew Shanks: Yes, I think the online area is hugely influential for children. It is where they spend a lot of their time—a huge amount of their time—so it would be really good if this Bill could look at that as well. I do not receive any online marketing adverts for vaping, but I am not 13 years old. I bet if I was, I would, so I think that is an element to look at.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We have about 15 minutes left, and five Members wish to ask questions. Could they do that briefly, and could we have brief answers too?

[Liz Jarvis]

Q Lord Bichard mentioned Border Force. Will ensuring that it has enough resources to implement this Bill successfully be a consideration? In response to my question, Matthew Shanks mentioned a public health campaign. Are there any plans to have a public health campaign to back that up?

Andrew Gwynne: The short answer to both those questions is yes. We have committed to an investment across HMRC, trading standards and Border Force of £100 billion over the next five years to enforce these measures—sorry, it is £100 million. The Treasury will be having a fit; I am getting my billions and millions wrong. I wish it was £100 billion.

As far as public health campaigns are concerned, just this week we committed £70 million for smoking cessation. For this new year, I have signed off a concerted public health campaign for smoking cessation on social and broadcast media. As this Bill progresses and becomes law, there will be a huge public health publicity campaign so that everybody is aware of our Smokefree 2030 target ambitions.

[Dr Ahmed]

Q I have a couple of points, Minister. The first is to do with poverty and how the Bill will affect those who are disproportionately impacted not only by smoking but by second-hand smoke. We heard from our CMOs and Professor Bauld about the impact that smoking-related diseases have on those populations. It is not often in our lives that we get an opportunity to use an instrument that has the potential to change the trajectory of the lives of people who are at the lower end of the economic spectrum in society. What do you think will be the impact of the Bill on them?

Secondly, could you make a wider comment on the historical context of the Bill? In 2006, it was a Scottish Labour Government in the Scottish Parliament who set in train some of the processes that we are trying to finish today. Over those 14 to 15 years, we have seen many positive short-term and long-term public health outcomes. What do you think will be history’s judgment on this portion of that journey?