Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a great privilege to speak after the noble Baroness, Lady Grey- Thompson. Perhaps noble Lords will not be surprised to hear that I do not entirely welcome this Bill, for a number of reasons.

The first is that it has been described as bold on the basis of the advice given by the late Viscount Nelson. But there is a fine line, even he would have acknowledged, between being bold and being reckless. I regard this as essentially a reckless Bill, because it invites us to set out on a wholly untested course of a generational ban, with all the difficulties of enforcement, when the Government’s own impact assessment, or their modelling, shows that a very similar effect on the trajectory to a smoke-free future would be achieved by raising from 18 to 21 the age at which cigarettes and tobacco can be sold. That would be an incremental approach, much more easily understood by the public and much more easily enforceable by shopkeepers. But no, we choose the reckless course, because there is something exciting, brilliant and brand new about it, but we do not ask whether it is going to work.

Given the large expertise in local government in your Lordships’ House, I am surprised to be the first speaker who is saying that I have had experience of political responsibility for trading standards in a local authority. I know how very difficult it is to manage test purchases, especially with younger people who need to be protected, briefed and counselled before they are put in a situation that could turn violent. That is one of the reasons why there are so few enforcement activities. According to the Explanatory Notes that accompany the Bill:

“In 2023 to 2024, Trading Standards conducted over 650 tobacco test purchases in England and Wales”.


That is approximately one, or one and a bit, per local authority in an entire year.

Anyone who thinks there is going to be effective enforcement of a generational smoking ban has to understand that that is the base of enforcement from which you are starting, and it is going to have to be huge if it is to be effective. Part of the explanation for that low number is that it is clear that trading standards has switched its focus to vaping—I will come to vapes in a moment—because there were 3,400 test purchases of vapes. But even 3,400 divided by the number of local trading standards departments is a very small number indeed.

There is also the effect on crime. I was really struck by the wonderfully optimistic figures cited by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Birmingham, on the basis of Treasury figures, about the number of smuggled cigarettes falling. What world does the Treasury live in? If asked, it would probably say that the amount of marijuana being smoked on the streets is falling, because it has not properly measured it. Only two weeks ago the BBC news was filled with some very interesting reporting, basically saying that for many of our high streets up and down the country, the sale of illicit cigarettes is now the principal economic activity and is closely associated with money laundering and foreign drugs dealing. Who cannot imagine that this is going to expand?

I come also to vapes. In the Government there is clearly a state of confusion about vapes. On the one hand, vaping is a core part of the Government’s and the National Health Service’s smoking cessation approach. On the other hand, it is obvious that the Government do not really approve of it and are not terribly in favour of it. What we can all agree on is that vapes should not be sold or marketed to children. One of the best ways of doing that would be to stop the importation into this country of a large number of illicit vapes deliberately designed to be marketed to children. I suspect from his description of it that the one rather naughtily waved around earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, may have been in that category.

Finally, the question of flavours is a mistake on the part of the Government. It is not flavours that are marketed to children; it is the descriptors. It is the fact that something is called bubblegum, say, that makes it attractive to children, not that it tastes like bubblegum. What does bubblegum taste like anyway? It is not flavours that the Government should be aiming at but descriptors, and I think that is something we should see an amendment on in Committee.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th October 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, it is an honour to open Committee on this significant Bill. I have Amendments 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 126, which relates to Northern Ireland, 127, 128, 130, 131 and 217. These amendments seek to remove, from every place in the Bill, the generational element of the smoking prohibition to be brought in.

Let us not mess around. A generational ban is de facto prohibition, and there is no evidence anywhere in the world that prohibition of a long-standing legal product has ever worked. In time, it will result in the termination of a legally controlled, highly regulated and heavily taxed industry. It will be replaced by an illegal, uncontrolled, unregulated and untaxed criminal market. The idea that because the Government ban a product, they extinguish demand for it, is pure fantasy.

The Government’s policy approach of exceptionally high taxation on tobacco is already failing. A generational ban will only cement their failure. The representation of that failure can be found in the flourishing black market. So long as there is a flourishing alternative market, consumer demand will always be met with cheaper, illicit tobacco. Taxes on tobacco have become so expensive that people are switching in huge numbers to buy cheaper, illicit products. Not only does this result in a decline in vital tax revenue to the tune of about £1 billion a year, but it is doing nothing to bring down smoking rates, which have stalled since 2020, according to Action on Smoking and Health. The Government desperately need to rethink their policy towards tax and banning tobacco, as it is not working and is the single biggest driver of the expansion of the illicit tobacco market controlled by organised criminal groups.

That takes me to the second consequence of driving cigarettes underground: the susceptible purchaser of cigarettes will then be offered the other, illegal products available on the black market. Action on Smoking and Health and the Government maintain that illicit tobacco consumption is in decline, but all the evidence from law enforcement and retailers tells a different story. The Government need to pay attention to what is happening in Australia, where organised criminals have taken over control of the illicit tobacco and vapes market and violence and chaos have exploded across the streets. Retailers are facing the full force of the impact of this violence, with more than 290 arson attacks taking place in the last two years. Even Ministers in the Australian Government are calling out the tobacco black market as the biggest threat to public health in Australia, with organised crime taking a stranglehold over the illicit market.

If the Government are serious about reducing smoking rates, they need to execute a twin-track strategy of pursuing stronger zero-tolerance enforcement action against those criminals trading illicit tobacco along with prioritising more investment in targeted education programmes, youth access prevention, smoking support services and campaigns to educate smokers on less harmful alternative nicotine products.

Implementing a generational ban will be unenforceable. It will only drive more consumers into the hands of the criminally controlled illicit market. It makes absolutely no sense at all. Further, it will deprive the Treasury of much-needed revenue, which will be redirected instead into the pockets of organised criminals. Smoking rates will not decline any further, given the exceptionally low price point for a packet of illicit cigarettes—apparently between £3 and £6 for a 20-cigarette pack—and for hand-rolling tobacco, which is between £5 and £8 for 50 grams. In contrast, a packet of 20 cigarettes in a shop apparently costs about £17. One can see immediately the incentive for purchasing black-market cigarettes.

My final point by way of introduction is that this Government purport to be a keen proponent of adherence to the provisions of international law, but, as reported in the Sunday papers, it is now clear that a generational ban would not be permissible in the European Union. The ability to impose this ban is therefore a Brexit benefit—something that noble Lords will perhaps not hear from the Minister. More importantly, it would be unlawful to introduce it in Northern Ireland.

There is now clear and careful legal opinion, from the former Advocate-General for Northern Ireland, John Larkin King’s Counsel, that a generational ban would be contrary to the provisions of the Windsor Framework. I ask the Minister, in respect of the applicability of this measure across the United Kingdom, whether the Government accept that that is the case, and if not, why not? Are they content to proceed in the face of contrary legal evidence and take their chances before the courts of Northern Ireland? In the event that the law is found incompatible by the courts of Northern Ireland, do they intend to disapply these measures in Northern Ireland, thus creating an imbalance whereby 21 year-olds in Northern Ireland are able to buy cigarettes but their compatriots in Wales, Scotland and England are not?

By way of further background to these amendments, noble Lords will note that the method by which my amendments would take effect is by raising the age of purchase from 18 to 21. This would be much more practicable and manageable and a more straightforward way for retailers to enforce a stricter regime on the purchase of tobacco than a generational ban, which would be complicated, impractical, unworkable and unenforceable. Furthermore, the Government’s own modelling in preparation for the last tobacco and vapes Bill showed that raising the age to 21 would have an identical effect on UK smoking rates as the introduction of a generational ban. Moreover, the Government’s own modelling in preparation for the last tobacco and vapes Bill showed that increasing the age of purchase from 18 to 21 would result in exactly the same outcome as a generational ban, achieving 0% smoking rates among 14 to 30 year-olds by 2050.

One further aspect that I wish to touch on is the impact of the proposed generational ban on retailers. For retailers, especially small independent ones, the introduction of the generational ban presents a number of very profound challenges. Crimes against retailers are already at epidemic levels. Many independent shopkeepers are scared of the impact that a generational ban will have on their businesses and the safety of their staff. There is no getting away from the fact that the weight of responsibility for enforcing the ban falls entirely on the shoulders of retailers, who will have to navigate a new legal age threshold that will change every year and with every customer. Already, the British Retail Consortium records that violent acts of abuse and intimidation towards Britain’s retailers have leapt to an unprecedented 2,000 incidents a day, up from 1,300 incidents a day in 2024. This is a staggering increase. Retailers have consistently tried to engage with the Government throughout the passage of the Bill, but the Government have ignored that audience and their concerns at every stage.

Shopkeepers could not be clearer: the end result of the implementation of a generational ban is that they will close their businesses, with all the loss of jobs and convenience that that will entail. Tobacco and vape sales make up 20% of the annual revenues of many of these shops. With the inevitable escalation of further violence and intimidation towards themselves and their staff, it does not make economic sense in the long term to carry on. We also know that organised criminal gangs are keen to dominate the illicit tobacco market, as they have been in Australia, and, as I mentioned earlier in my remarks, have sought revenge on those who are not participating in their illegal schemes.

This Government tell us that they wish to introduce ID cards. If that is right, would it not be better—if they insist on persisting with a generational ban—to await the introduction of those measures prior to introducing a measure such as this, to avoid the absurd situation when you have potentially an 18 year-old shopkeeper having to ask a 46 year-old to prove that they are in fact 46 and not 45, with no obvious basis on which to ask for that and with all the attendant risks of aggression and difficulty that that would give rise to?

For all those reasons, I beg to move Amendment 1 and commend all my amendments in the group.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 5 and 205 in this group, which, although there has been no prior discussion between myself and my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth, point in a very similar direction. I propose in Amendment 5 that the permitted age of sale be raised in the interim to 21—Amendment 205 is purely consequential, so I do not intend to say anything about that separately; I will focus on Amendment 5—so that there would be an immediate introduction on the passing of the Bill of a ban on sales to persons under the age of 21, with a view to replacing the generational ban.

The arguments against the generational ban that have been made by my noble friend are compelling and comprehensive, so there is not a great deal that I can add. But I can bring some experience, which perhaps my noble friend does not have, of having had political responsibility in the past for the enforcement of underage tobacco sales in a local authority through a trading standards department and having myself been out in disguise in a fairly clandestine way, because that is how they operate on such excursions—I will not call them “raids”, because that makes them sound very dramatic; I shall just say “excursions”—in order to test sales at various premises to see whether they are complying with the law. So I have some experience of that.

I think that, in the minds of those promoting the generational ban, there is an expectation that it is going to be self-enforcing. After all, the ban on smoking in offices and in shops, which was introduced some years ago, is self-enforcing. I have never seen anybody attempt to enforce it, because there has not been any necessity. When was the last time one saw somebody smoking in a shop so that enforcement might be required, or wandering around their office with a cigarette or a pipe? It is self-enforcing.

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Moved by

[Lord Moylan]

3: Clause 1, page 2, line 3, leave out “negative” and insert “affirmative”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment provides that regulations to specify methods of customer age verification must be made by the affirmative resolution procedure.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 3 and 17. The bulk of the amendments in this group are to do with age verification, but mine are not, and I do not intend to speak about age verification. However, the process of numerical determinism that governs our actions and procedures means that I have the privilege of speaking first in this group.

My amendments are to do with the question of whether certain regulations should be approved and made by the affirmative or negative process, which I hope is a relatively uncontroversial topic. Indeed, I hope that it will find support across the Committee, because I wish to move from the current arrangement whereby these regulations are made under the negative process to the affirmative process, which generally finds favour among your Lordships.

Both amendments require certain specific regulations—not all regulations—to be approved by the affirmative process. Amendment 3 relates to tobacco sales and Amendment 17 relates to vape sales. The activities subject to these regulations are what constitute a defence by the retailer if charged with an offence under the Bill. In other words, these regulations state how a retailer must operate if they are to have a defence under the Bill from the charge of making illicit sales. To be effective, these must be highly technical and challenging regulations which will require the broadest consultation with representative bodies, including those representing not only retailers but trading standards and enforcement officers, which I think would benefit greatly from parliamentary scrutiny.

This would involve issues such as—we will come on to this—what sort of age verification would be acceptable and other matters of that sort. As I say, they are likely to be very technical and they will have to work. If they are going to work, the greater the scrutiny they are given, the better. In that sense, the argument makes itself.

I hope that the Government see that there is nothing mischievous about these amendments; the Bill and the operation of it would benefit by accepting them, and there should be little difficulty in doing so. I am not proposing to speak on the broader question of age verification that will come up in the course of this debate, but I wish to move Amendment 3.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 9, tabled in my name, would create an offence of selling tobacco products online. This is a probing amendment.

If the generational ban policy is to be effective, or the alternative policy of an age limit of 21, there would be a clear loophole if tobacco could be bought online, as roughly 9% of sales are at the moment, without any form of age verification. Such a policy would be unusual for the UK, as there is not currently a product that is available for sale in a bricks and mortar shop that you cannot legally purchase online. However, we would by no means be the first country in the world to introduce this measure: Brazil, Mexico, Finland, France and Greece, to name a few, have all banned the sale of tobacco products via the internet, so there are some clear international precedents.

Banning the online sale of tobacco was recommended by the Khan review in 2022 and the World Health Organization, which argued that internet sales constitute

“display at points of sale”

and

“inherently involve advertising and promotion”.

Today you can look up tobacco products on any of the major supermarket websites or shopping apps and see reviews, such as:

“Quite nice for relaxing on a summers day, beside a bubbling brook perhaps or at a test match”,


as one purchaser of Pall Mall Flow Red Superkings commented. Last time I went to a test match, smoking was prohibited.

Separately from the point about the delivery of smoking products, are these the messages that we want smokers to see about such a lethal product, given that such advertising was banned on television some 60 years ago? When retailers sell tobacco products, they are not permitted to display them, yet there are pictures of products online. This seems inconsistent. Products such as heated tobacco and cigarillos have colourful packaging, as they are not captured by plain-pack laws, which seems to be a regulatory oversight. I appreciate that the Government may be doing something about this, so perhaps the Minister can give us some details—but it feels like the online world is somewhere where rules are often bent with little repercussion, and the amendment would address that.

At the moment, online sales are not heavily exploited by underage individuals attempting to circumvent the law. However, we should be mindful of that possibility in the future. If the Government are minded to resist the amendment, I hope that the Minister will explain how age verification will be secured at the point of delivery. Someone born after 2009 can order their groceries online and include tobacco, but they could not buy it in the shop. How might this be enforced without the amendment? Does the Minister plan to go down the route that we have taken for the delivery of knives? Since 2022, a retailer has to verify the age of the purchaser before he or she sells a knife and, if that knife is delivered after an online order, it has to be checked at the point of delivery. Does the Minister have that in mind for tobacco sales? Who will be responsible for ensuring the implementation of the policy if tobacco products are available online? I look forward to her reply in due course.

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[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I understand the point the noble Lord makes. I believe I said that it potentially risks making vapes less accessible. I know that that is not a view that he shares. I also agree that, where there is evidence, we need to be focused on it in the measures we are taking. But the position I have outlined is the case. I will reflect on the comments that he and other noble Lords have made, which I have heard very well. I understand the concerns of retailers and I am very aware of them; that is why we continue to work so closely with their trade associations to overcome difficulties. We do not want retailers to be put in a position where they cannot do the job that they want to do. We will continue in our work in that way.

With that, I hope the noble Lord will feel about to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her concluding remarks and for the sensitive and attentive way that she commented on the debate; she has clearly listened to what noble Lords said and sought to respond within the limits of government policy. As far as my own amendments are concerned, I heard what she said with just a hint of encouragement; there was not a slamming of the door at least, so I look forward to seeing what the Government come forward with on Report.

Concerning the other amendments in this group, I refer to the fact that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, used the words unintended consequences. The Bill potentially has quite a lot of unintended consequences. Some of them relate to age verification and the role of retailers in the architecture created by the Bill. There are potential lacunae in the Bill.

I simply say that the sooner the Government come forward with draft regulations and a clear idea of what is being required, the happier noble Lords will be and, more importantly, the happier the retailers—including online retailers—will be with the Bill as it goes forward. I hope that the Minister recognises that and feels that the Government can act on it. Perhaps we might even see some draft regulations before the Bill completes its passage through your Lordships’ House. In the meantime, with that hopeful and optimistic wish on my lips, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 3 withdrawn.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 30th October 2025 Grand Committee

Cancer Research UK—would you believe it?—also opposes this approach, saying that the price of vaping products and liquids is already set to increase with the UK Government’s vaping products duty. It believes that the increase could reduce rates of vaping, saying that there is no significant evidence that it would encourage cessation. It suggests incentivising vaping of all sorts and that low pricing can be a vital part of that. Therefore, I do not support that amendment, although I understand where it is coming from.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 18 in this group.

There is merit in thinking about the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, which was so effectively moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley. We send very confusing messages generally to young people in society about the age of responsibility. Voting has one age. We recently changed the marriage age. Other things are allowed or prohibited at the age of 16. There is a proposal that the voting age should be reduced to 16, as it has been already in either Scotland or Wales. These are very confusing messages about the age of responsibility. We should not carry on arbitrarily creating bans for young people without some coherence. The amendment tabled by my noble friend certainly brings that to the fore and should be used by the Government to encourage serious thought about this.

Turning to my own Amendment 18, I will take in with it the two amendments in this group in the name of my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising, though glancingly only, as I have not prepared anything to say about them. I rope them in with mine as all three have in common that whenever one introduces a sweeping ban or a blunt instrument, there are cases where unintended consequences arise that should be addressed through some careful attention to what exceptions should be allowed. My amendment focuses on healthcare settings, particularly mental healthcare settings, which will include establishments where people are detained. They may be voluntarily detained, in a sense. I am familiar with these, for reasons which I do not need to go into, having had cause to visit such settings in the past. Even those who are voluntarily detained are gently voluntarily detained. Wandering outside the building is not encouraged, even for voluntary patients, and is not allowed for those who are detained under the Mental Health Act.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, said, such people are very often smokers, and hospital settings are an appropriate place to encourage smoking cessation programmes. That is what many mental health settings actually do.

The essential point I want to make is that we are discussing vaping, and the Bill does not ban vaping. Around this Committee, we have an unclear mental attitude towards vaping. There are those who see it as something almost as bad as smoking, and there are others who see it as a positive solution—as it has been for me personally—for those who want to give up smoking. We need to realise that vaping has a very important place in smoking cessation—it is the Government’s policy to recognise that—and that there are places, such as institutions, where vending machines might be the only means by which people can have access to vape products, which would be beneficial as an alternative to smoking.

My amendment, and I think those of my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising, are intended to probe this issue, to ask the Government whether they recognise that a general ban on vaping machines might have unintended consequences, and to test whether they are willing to listen to arguments and representations about where exceptions might be appropriate.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 21, and I thank my noble friend Lady Walmsley for adding her name in support of it. The amendment would establish a £30 minimum retail price for vaping products. This vital proposal is a means of addressing the mounting environmental crisis from disposable vapes, which are still so cheap that they are used as a one-time product. It is also an effective means of ensuring that these products are out of the range of pocket money prices and are kept out of the hands of our young people.

I support the use of vapes as a smoking cessation aid, and my amendment is in no way intended to stop that purpose. Vaping is a good and proven means of smoking cessation. However, big tobacco has been allowed a free hand to move beyond smoking cessation towards a new business model, and it has free rein to create a whole new generation of young people who are now addicted to vaping products and are future customers, supplying it with profits.

While we support the aim of smoking cessation, big tobacco must not be allowed to continue to put vaping products into the hands of young people. Vaping has exploded in popularity with children and teens across the UK, and these products are deliberately targeted and marketed towards them. In 2025, around 1.1 million 11 to 17 year-olds—20% of young people in this age group—admitted to having tried vapes, with approximately 400,000 currently using vapes and 160,000 vaping on a daily basis.

Alarmingly, nearly one in 10 secondary school pupils are now regular or occasional vapers, a figure that has almost doubled since 2018. Children as young as eight have been found to be using vapes in school, and one-quarter of 11 to 15 year-olds have experimented with these products. Anyone with a teenage child will know the true scale of the problem, and I suspect that the true scale is larger than the statistics bear out.

The aim of the Bill is to create a smoke-free generation. We support that, but the Bill could and should go further by creating a nicotine-free generation. The epidemic of vape use has been fuelled by disposable vapes. They are brightly coloured, child focused, flavoured and available for less than the cost of a sandwich. Marketing and pocket money prices put nicotine firmly within the reach of our children. Despite sales law prohibiting sales to 18 year-olds, the truth is that you can go to any corner store and probably get one.

Vaping can act as a gateway to smoking. Studies have shown that teens who vape are 22 times more likely to take up cigarettes and 33% of vaping teens move on to smoking, compared to just 1.5% of non-vapers. Who said big tobacco could have carte blanche to an ever-growing number of nicotine addicts—new generations for new profits?

Turning to the environmental impacts, the numbers are staggering. Before the supposed ban, 8 million single-use vapes were discarded every week—13 devices every second—resulting in 260 million devices being thrown away annually. Each vape contains plastics and lithium. It has been estimated that, collectively, the lithium lost each year could be enough to power 5,000 electric vehicles. The scale of the waste is enough to fill 22 football pitches. The real consequences are big, with over 1,200 fires at waste sites and bin lorries catching fire. Lithium batteries are dangerous. The plastic and toxic materials spend hundreds of years in our landfill sites, leaching into the environment and polluting our soils and waterways. I do not believe that any device should be made where it is not possible to remove and recycle the battery.

Defra has plans, and those introduced to ban disposable vapes have helped, but they do not go far enough, and the problem has not gone away. Cheap products continue to be bought and used on an ad hoc basis. With a quick look online or a trip to my corner store, I can still get a perfectly compliant vape for £4.99. They are fully compliant, but they will be used once and then discarded. They create waste that we do not need to create.

If we are serious about our environmental responsibilities—the Government are very much championing the circular economy; I welcome and support them in that—we need to take further steps. My view is that minimum pricing is the best way to do that. If we have a higher price for these products, we get better quality products that last longer. The batteries will have longer cycling times, and they will be used regularly by their users.

I recognise the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, made. However, the figures I have seen show that although there is a £30 entry point—which is not much more than a packet of fags—if you refill a vape with liquid the saving can be up to £750 a year. I have another associated amendment that seeks to ban pods. This is not about making vaping more expensive. It will save regular vapers considerable amounts of money; it will give them a better product; and they will be able to vape knowing they are not destroying the planet and environment needlessly.

Price controls are the only effective means of keeping these products out of teenage hands. The truth is that the regulatory systems do not work—they are not enforced and they never will be—and our children will continue to vape. I do not see another way of doing this. I will be honest that £30 was plucked out of the air; I am happy to reduce that amount. A good quality vape probably costs £20 to £25. It could be that the Government will work with me on that, and we can look at setting a lower figure. I do not want to ban entry into this market, but that kind of price range is where it needs to be. It could be that this price has a free bottle of liquid, or something else, to go with it.

I want the Government to look at this seriously. If this Government are serious about the circular economy and about making sure that these vapes do not end up in our children’s hands, they really need to consider these things and take them seriously. I stand ready to work with the Government between now and Report. This is a serious amendment, and I would like the Government to make progress on these matters.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

May I ask for some clarification? There seems to be a contradiction between the idea, on the one hand, that these products save you money in the long run and, on the other, that they price young people out of the market. I cannot see how something that saves you money in the long run prices you out of the market at the same time. I leave that to the noble Earl.

We are discussing a ban on advertising, but I have never actually heard of these products. It is only by virtue of my membership of the House of Lords—which is a restricted market—that I have come to hear about it. From what she said, that is also the case for the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley. The noble Earl made a very good advertisement for these products as money-saving devices. Where do I get hold of them?

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[Lord Moylan (Con)]

May I probe a little on the noble Baroness’s response to my Amendment 18? On the one hand, she seemed to take a hard and unrelenting line on vending machines, particularly in enclosed mental health premises. On the other, the noble Baroness said towards the end that she was still working on it, and I wondered to what extent one could look for hope. I am sure the noble Baroness said that she was still working on these issues. I appreciate that she has consulted the National Health Service, but I think she probably means NHS England, a vast organisation at some distance removed from patient contact. In fact, it has no patient contact at all. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, said that representations have been made by a certain number of mental health trusts on just this issue. Their views need to be considered, because they are very much closer to real life. May we hope that the Minister will come back at a later stage with something that modifies the severity and comprehensiveness of the ban that is, as she says, in a Bill that we are here to change?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I will be happy to check exactly what I said but, to be clear, we are not continuing discussions about vapes in hospital and mental health settings, in respect of vending machines. As I said, that is in the Bill. I hope I was making the point that discussions are continuing in respect of vape-free places, and that will be a matter for regulations. I assure the noble Lord that NHS England was in full consultation with the relevant parts of the services. It does provide services and it is the right organisation. As the noble Lord knows, we are bringing NHSE into the department in any case in the future. I am sure he will welcome that, as I certainly do.