Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Bethell Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevens of Birmingham (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of Cancer Research UK. Given that smoking continues to be the single biggest cause of cancer, it will not be a surprise that I oppose the amendments in this group, which would substantially weaken this landmark legislation. In explaining why, I will respond to each of the six points made by the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth.

First, the noble Lord argued that we do not need more tobacco control legislation anyway because smoking rates are already coming down. That is not correct; Javed Khan has pointed out that, among the most deprived parts of the country, on current trends we will not be smoke-free until 2044. In any event, some in the tobacco industry have come to the same conclusion. I quote from an advert that Philip Morris took out in the New Statesman, no doubt designed to influence people such as us: “Here in the UK, smoking rates are not declining fast enough. None of the home nations are on course to hit their smoke-free dates, and the most deprived communities are lagging significantly behind”. The suggestion that we can just assume that the status quo will produce a benign outcome is incorrect.

The noble Lord’s second argument was that, rather than having a generational tobacco sales restriction, we should instead just move towards delaying the age at which smoking can be initiated to 21. The tobacco industry would doubtless switch its efforts to targeting twenty-somethings instead of teenagers. On the surprising claims we have heard in respect of the behaviour down the decades of Gallaher or British American Tobacco, I simply say to noble Lords: google their internal documents. They have all been disclosed as a result of international treaties and court cases, and noble Lords will see the systematic duplicity, bribery and corruption that has continued across the world in advancing big tobacco’s agenda. Those documents, the internal files, are there: noble Lords can check them out for themselves.

The noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, referred to the Republic of Ireland as an example we should perhaps be following, when it proposed to adopt the age of 21. However, the director of the tobacco industry-funded front organisation FOREST said of the effect of adopting the age of 21 as a tobacco sales restriction:

“If you’re not careful, you’re actually going to make smoking … fashionable again. You’re going to actually encourage young people to smoke”,


on the back of this proposed sales restriction to over 21 year-olds.

The third argument we heard was about the black market. For reasons that are a non sequitur, we have several times heard cited the example of Australia. The amendments in this group relate to changes to the age of sale. There has been no change in the age of sale in Australia. As far as I am aware, it is still 18 and has been for 30 years. So, whatever else is going on in Australia, it has got nothing to do with the amendments in this group in respect of age of sale. In fact, the Australian example tells us that you need rigorous enforcement. Until very recently, there was no retail licensing available for New South Wales, Victoria or Queensland, covering about 70% of the Australian population, and it has only been patchily introduced subsequently.

There is agreement that we need strong enforcement to deal with the illicit trade, but the argument that we should essentially do whatever it takes to maximise revenue for the Exchequer is a flawed one. If that were the case, as we have heard from other noble Lords, we would be legalising and licensing handguns, assault weapons, fentanyl or crack cocaine. The fact is that, when it comes to tobacco control policy, it is not the Laffer curve that we should focus on, it is the life expectancy curve.

The fourth argument has been around the impact on retailers. I accept that there are legitimate concerns, and the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, has rightly drawn attention to the epidemic of violence and also noted the provisions that will be in the Crime and Policing Bill as one step to attempt to tackle this. But the fact is that the progressive age of sale restrictions in the Bill are an evolutionary measure that will be phased over many years, giving retailers much opportunity to adjust. There are substitutes that they can sell, including vapes, as alternatives to smoked tobacco. Surely, nobody is suggesting that the trump argument should be that we need to sustain the margins of retailers at the expense of 80,000 people who die prematurely from smoking every year.

The fifth argument we heard was around the Windsor Framework. It is fair to say that alternative legal opinions are available. Member states are free to determine the age limit that they see as appropriate on their territory. This does not constitute a trade restriction within the meaning of the EU treaties. In any event, even if a court found that it did, it could be justified on public health grounds. Perhaps the Minister can confirm that the Bill has the support of Northern Irish Health Ministers and that legislative consent has been received from the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Lastly, we come back to the liberty argument: the freedom of unborn smokers to become addicted in decades to come. Well, those of us who take the opposite view judge that this is a proportionate response to a great harm. It is a novel piece of legislation; we will need to see how it plays out in practice. One of the government amendments that will be before us on Report will be precisely a report on its real-world effects in the coming years. In the meantime, to weaken what has the potential to be one of the most fundamental health-improving pieces of legislation this Parliament has ever enacted would in my judgment be a grave error.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, who gave a pretty good summary of many of the arguments against this group of amendments. I join him in all that he said. My fundamental motive is twofold. First, I would like to see the eradication of smoking in this country. That is a vision that we should embrace and be proud of. Just kicking the can and putting up the age limit, as this group of amendments seeks to do, would simply extend a very large and unfair addiction that kills two-thirds of its users and that we could all do without.

Secondly, I am very proud that my party was leading on this issue and brought about the generational ban. I remind noble Lords to have a moment of self-awareness. This is a measure that is massively supported by voters, taxpayers, smokers, Conservatives, retailers and even by the tobacco companies which, at least in this country, have a notional commitment to the eradication of smoking. You can judge whether to take that at face value, but that is at least their rhetorical position. So it seems out of date for my noble friends Lord Murray and Lord Naseby to be stalwarts for the permanent establishment of smoking in the face of such opposition.

--- Later in debate ---

[Noble Lords]

We do not.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

Noble Lords have, perfectly reasonably, rebutted me on that. But my point is that the modern retail experience does not rely on retailers squinting to try to judge the difference between 21 and 22 year-olds. It is mandatory for almost everyone to produce ID when they are purchasing any restricted product. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, rightly said, it is right that the Government support this regime. I am pleased to see statutory guidance, updated training standards and enforcement tools as part of the Bill.

Regarding stories about the black market, I must express grave reservations about some of the points that have been made in this debate. They remind me more of stories of Arthur Daley and “Minder” than of modern Britain and I am not sure how relevant stories of Australian biker gangs shooting each other are. Just to correct my noble friend Lord Napier, he said that 4 billion—

[Noble Lords]

Naseby!

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

I have only been here for 50 years.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My noble friend is looking very well on it. He mentioned that 4 billion cigarettes had been taken by the police in 2024. According to HMRC, the number is 24 million. I draw attention to that because there is a lot of loose use of numbers in the description of illicit trade.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

The figure that my noble friend quotes is correct from the source that he quoted, but, after further investigation, it was found that the figure I quoted was the correct figure.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

If my noble friend is correct, I will absolutely and humbly correct myself. Maybe we could have a drink afterwards and compare notes on that.

On the question of freedom, I too am a passionate believer and fighter for freedom. However, the freedoms I care about are not only the freedom of choice but the freedom not to be impoverished by taxes and not to see my nation, my country, ruined by the health, welfare and productivity costs of carcinogenic, nasty toxins such as cigarettes. The financial cost on ourselves, and particularly on our children, of this industry is absolutely enormous and is still growing, even if the numbers have stalled. So the freedom from addiction and debt should be included in any discussion of what the freedoms are. For those reasons, I will be voting against this package of measures.

[Baroness Gerada (CB)]

My Lords, I am also against these amendments. I will disclose a conflict of interest: I started smoking when I was 16—and 33 years later, like many of us who start to smoke at that age, because it is a childhood disease, I gave up.

We know and have heard about all the health effects of smoking, but we also have to realise that smoking is an easy addiction to start. I have looked after every addiction—heroin, cocaine, alcohol—and smoking is the easiest. You need only two cigarettes for 80% of people to be addicted, like me, for 33 years, and many people, like me, try to give up.

It is not just addiction that is the problem. It is not even about death, although death is a bad outcome to have. It is also about all the other complications. Like many smokers, I have lost many of my teeth. Our eyesight goes. We have skin problems. Smoking causes all sorts of things.

As a GP for nearly 30 years, I am pleased that I have seen a massive reduction in people with smoking-related diseases. My surgeries used to be full of what we call blue bloaters and pink puffers and full of people with premature heart disease. It is not an accident that I no longer see that in my consulting room; it is because of the hard work of our Chief Medical Officers, the Department of Health, ASH and many others to stop normalising smoking.

On the issue of the black market, there is of course a price differential. Wherever there is a price differential you will get a black market, whether it is diesel, cigarettes, alcohol or whatever. But the Bill is about stopping people starting—as the noble Lord said, preventing the next generation that has not even been born from starting. We have to focus on prevention, which is what the Bill is about.