Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 13th November 2025 Grand Committee

Unless Ministers have the power to regulate the design and interoperability of devices, the industry will continue to outpace regulation. Amendment 142 is how we stop this. It is urgent. It would enable Ministers to remove regulation-bending products from sale to stop manufacturers redesigning devices faster than the law can react. As an evidence-driven measure to protect children and uphold the integrity of the disposable vape ban, I hope that it will have the support of noble Lords. I beg to move.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 144 in this group. Before I do so, I express my support for the argument made so eloquently by my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister on behalf of my noble friend Lord Mott. The amendments in this group should be relatively uncontroversial because we are all, I think, pushing in the same direction, and one of the key features of where we are going is the protection of children, on which we are all united.

My amendment relates to an area where the Government have misfired slightly in drafting the Bill. They seek to regulate the flavours of vapes. There is a most intriguing further amendment in this group, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, which seeks to tease out what the Government mean by the “flavour” of a vape. Both he and I are trying, I think, to come at the question of flavour as distinct from the description applied to that flavour. My amendment would substitute the word “descriptors” for the word “flavour”.

I speak as a vaper. I have vaped—not smoked—vapes that are described on the packet as “blueberry ice”, “mango ice”, and things of that sort. I can say immediately from my experience that none of them tastes like what they say. I can assure the Committee that the vape called “mango ice” does not bear any resemblance to anything that you could describe as a mango, and very much the same can be said of blueberries and so forth. I like eating blueberries—they are very good if you keep them in the fridge—so I know what they taste like. I like mangoes as well, but they do not taste like these vapes.

I think it fair to say that what we really want to control is the description applied. I will take this in two parts: first in relation to children and then in relation to adults. It is obviously the case that a descriptor can be applied to a vape that is designed to induce—if not seduce—a child to smoke a vape. If I saw something on the shelf described as “bubblegum mango”—I am not a marketing man, so I may not have chosen the best example—I would think that that descriptor was designed to appeal to a child. The Government should be able to regulate the descriptor on those vapes so as to eliminate descriptions which are designed to—or may inadvertently—appeal to a child. But that is not the power taken in this clause; it is a power to regulate the flavour, which, as I say, is both subjective and often at some distance from the descriptor that is applied.

The Minister may say, “I take your point on that, but I still want the power to regulate flavours because I am thinking now about adults”. Adults can, of course, see past descriptors. Most adults are not likely to find much appeal in something describing itself as bubblegum ice, bubblegum mango or whatever; none the less, there might be flavours that adults who do not like the taste of tobacco are seduced by, in the same way as menthol cigarettes were used to appeal to adults who did not like tobacco, and so on. I can see that.

However, it is also important to remember that vapes are a very important smoking cessation tool. It is clear from evidence from the industry that having a range of different flavours available makes them attractive to adults—not in a way that seduces them into wickedness, but that makes it easier for them to use vapes to give up smoking. I am trying to be helpful, and I am sure that the noble Earl is seeking to be helpful as well. We both agree on the protection of children, but we think that the Government have—rather lazily, perhaps—aimed at the wrong thing here with regard to flavours. It is about the marketing. It is the descriptor, rather than the flavour, at which the Government should be aiming.

I hope the Minister will accept my amendment in the spirit in which it is intended: that of being helpful. I also hope that she will agree to look more closely at this matter and perhaps come back with a more subtle and nuanced amendment on Report.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 146 on vaping devices, and I thank my noble friend Lady Walmsley and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for adding their names in support of it. I have been slightly outed already but, to be clear, this is a probing amendment. However, it touches on an important and genuine issue: regulation and the Government’s intention to define “flavour” in a vaping product.

Before I speak to my amendment, I want to be clear: I fully recognise the need to prevent young people vaping. I support age restrictions; changing names; making sure that vaping products are not appealing; ensuring that such products are not marketed; ensuring that they are hidden in shops and counter displays; descriptors; and every other tool in the toolbox to make sure that every trick big tobacco can come up with to put these products in the hands of young people is restricted. However, I firmly believe that, if this Government or a future one used these powers to ban or severely restrict vape flavours, it would be a retrograde step in the fight to stop smoking. As the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said, it is the flavour in vapes that reminds ex-smokers just how nasty cigarettes really are when they lapse—and ex-smokers surely do lapse.

As we have heard throughout the passage of this Bill, there are strong and legitimate concerns about the rise of vaping among young people. We have just passed a crossover point whereby more young people are now vaping than smoking, so I absolutely share those concerns. Nobody in this Room wants to see young people taking up vaping; nor do they want big tobacco to be able to start a whole new industry for a whole new generation, through which vaping is marketed at our young people.

However, if the Government are genuinely serious about taking this problem on, they need to do so through effective regulation, and that must start with clear definitions. My amendment is tongue-in-cheek in its approach, but it highlights a serious issue: the Government have created a bit of a heffalump trap for themselves here. I remind noble Lords that, as drafted, the legislation says that the Secretary of State may, through regulations, make provisions about the flavour of relevant products, and that the regulations may make

“provision for a determination to be made by a person authorised”.

My proposed new clause does not prejudge what those definitions should be. It simply asks a very reasonable question: by what criteria will the Government determine that a vaping product has a flavour? Once we start looking at this, the situation becomes absurdly complicated. This might be the philosophical background in my ancestry, but many vapes on the market today use a combination of chemicals that exist not to add fruit or sweet flavours but to mask the harsh taste of nicotine. Some add traces of methanol or cooling agents that are technically flavourless, but they change the sensory experience of those who vape. I do not know whether those will count as flavours. Under what threshold would they be counted? Which chemical compositions or flavours in these products would not be? Then there is the question of packaging, as we have heard, which brings up the descriptor point. Flavour is as much about perception as what might be contained in the product. If a vape has “mango ice” or “blueberry ice” on the package, but has no flavour, is that a flavour?

These are major complications, and I believe fundamentally that the route the Government are going down will end up in poorly drafted law, which will be hard to enforce. It will not work or do what the Government set out to do. It will lead to legal complication and challenges, and that is not good for the aims of the Bill, which I support. There really could be practical consequences and they go quite far. Concerning manufacturers, how will they comply with this when the Government are not clear? How will small retailers ensure that they are compliant with the terms of the legislation? Trading standard officers who have to enforce this stuff will find it complicated to do so.

I say again that for many adult smokers who turn to vapes to give up, as I think we have heard, the flavour element in the vapes is the thing that keeps them from going back to tobacco. There is strong evidence on this point, from Public Health England and numerous international studies, that it is about the wide availability of these flavours so that people can make a personal choice. None of them taste like their descriptor, but people can find a flavour that works for them personally. I just do not want the Government to act too harshly and crudely in this area and end up by creating perverse consequences, which are completely contrary to the stated intentions of the Bill.

I absolutely want to keep this stuff out of children’s hands. I support every other measure that the Government are taking in the Bill, but I come out strongly against this issue of controlling and restricting flavour. My amendment is really a tongue-in-cheek way of asking the Government to think again on it.

Turning briefly to the other amendments, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mott, for his Amendment 142. I now understand what his amendment is about: that despite the ban, it is still basically a disposable vape. It is used once and chucked away but it has 1,600 puffs in it. These things are cheap; again, they are marketed at children and disposable, so they are e-waste. I had an amendment earlier about creating minimum pricing for vapes but I think that, fundamentally, the Minister misunderstood what I was doing in that amendment. She said that it would make vaping more expensive than smoking, whereas that is fundamentally not true, because it is about buying a base unit that might last for three or four years. Although you would be paying £25, that base unit would stay with you for a long time and by doing it in that way, you are not needlessly generating e-waste. I would like to revisit that with the Minister prior to Report, but I basically support that amendment. These devices should not be in the hands of our children; they are absolutely designed to get children addicted to nicotine. They are not good for the environment, so let us get rid of them.

I absolutely agree with Amendment 144 on descriptors; I think we are on the same page and speaking about the same thing. My amendment might be a bit nuanced and tongue in cheek but we share an opinion.

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[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I am sure that I will be able to do that, if the noble Lord will allow me to continue in the meantime.

What we do not yet know is the long-term harms of certain ingredients or flavours. This is why we need to be able to limit the flavours themselves, with the ability to respond to emerging evidence or scientific advances in the future, as well as how flavours are described. I can refer the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, on the point that he raised to Clause 91, which says:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about—”


et cetera. I hope that will be helpful to him.

I understand the concerns that were raised about how restrictions on flavours can impact former smokers who have switched to vaping. We absolutely recognise that vape flavours are an important consideration for adult smokers, and we will carefully consider restrictions to avoid any unintended consequences for those who seek to quit smoking. Our aims for future regulations on vape flavours, as well as for the wider regulations on vapes, are to reduce the appeal of vapes to young people while ensuring that they remain a viable quit aid for adult smokers. I heard the concern of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, about ensuring that the legislation is right. I am sure that all noble Lords share that view.

The published call for evidence includes flavours of tobacco, vape and nicotine products, to ensure that we are considering the best available evidence. We will also review the approaches taken by other countries, to learn the lessons and to consider whether they are appropriate for the UK. I give an assurance, as I have done before, that we will then consult on specific proposals before making regulations.

On the point about international comparisons—the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, raised a certain aspect of them—there are varied determinations on what a flavour is. For example, in the Netherlands, there is a specified list, and, in Finland, there is a restriction on all characterising flavours. That is why the call for evidence and the subsequent consultation are so important.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

The Minister refers to “characterising flavours” in Finland. That sounds to me like a descriptor, rather than anything about the composition. I know that these appear to be subtle distinctions but they are not—how something tastes and how it is described are two very different things. The question of characterisation seems to fall into the same confusion that the Government are in.

Perhaps this is an appropriate moment, so that I do not interrupt again later, to add that the confusion is evidenced by what my noble friend Lord Lansley and I have found in reviewing Clause 91; I am not very good at these things, but my noble friend is a former Secretary of State for Health and, as I have seen on many occasions since joining your Lordships’ House, a consummate legal draftsman. I suggest that the Minister’s support team does the same, because there is absolutely nothing in the clause that does what the Minister thinks it does. There is no reference to the description of flavours. There is reference to the flavour itself and to determining what the flavour is, but there is nothing about descriptors in that clause. I would have felt rather foolish tabling an amendment to the clause if the content of my amendment was already there.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

Perhaps I might assist by referring noble Lords to Clause 89, which obviously precedes Clause 91 and covers descriptors. I am very happy to review the points made by noble Lords in this regard; I will of course write to them in order to provide clarity.

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[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I say again that my noble friend Lord Lansley and I have scanned Clause 89 as far as we can. It appears to give the power to regulate almost anything to do with the packaging of vapes other than the description of what is inside it. Brand differentiators, but not flavour differentiators, are covered—that is,

“the markings on packaging (including the use of branding, trademarks or logos)”—

but a mango is not a brand, trademark or logo. The Minister is doughtily defending the text that has been given to her, but it deserves more careful thought before Report. I am grateful that she will write.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I agree that it needs more careful thought, which is exactly why, rather than discussing the merits of a mango, a raspberry or any other matter, I will be pleased to look at the points about which noble Lords are concerned; I want to assist in this regard. I am grateful for the reflections of noble Lords in looking at the Bill, as I have done. However, the best thing at this stage would be to commit this to writing.

I hope that noble Lords feel able to withdraw or not move their amendments.

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Moved by

[Lord Moylan]

147: Clause 92, page 52, line 19, at end insert—
“(5) The Secretary of State may, through guidelines, make provision about the nature and amount of the substances that may be released into the body of a person using government funded stop smoking services which entail—(a) vaping products;(b) nicotine products.”

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I want to dispose of this very quickly. I must start with an apology because I am trespassing greatly on the indulgence of the Committee; I must also declare a non-interest by making clear that I do not have an interest.

This amendment is very awkwardly and almost misleadingly worded, as it is limited by scope and reasons; I am perhaps trespassing beyond the scope of the Bill in raising this matter at all. That is the first thing I have to say. The second is that I am advancing this argument on behalf of a firm, Allen Carr’s Easyway, which is deeply involved in the smoking cessation business. I have no financial or other interest in the firm; in fact, apart from email exchanges, I have never met the people involved, as far as I am aware.

I wish my noble friend Lord Bethell were here—he does apologise. As a former Health Minister, his experience is that Allen Carr’s Easyway is a firm that does tremendous work in the field of smoking cessation. It produces books and booklets that encourage and inspire people and facilitate them, psychologically, to stop smoking. It also runs seminars and other in-person group sessions. When I gave up smoking three years ago, it was partly with the help of a copy of one of its books, which was given to me as a present by my sister.

It is also—this is perhaps the crucial factor—one of the four different smoking cessation methods recommended by NICE. It is not only recommended: the guidelines for local smoking cessation services which receive government funding say that there are four different smoking cessation methods that local stop smoking services must ensure are accessible to adults who smoke. They are behavioural interventions; medicinally licensed products, including nicotine replacements; nicotine-containing e-cigarettes; and Allen Carr’s Easyway in-person group seminars. However, it is the case that, throughout the country, most stop smoking services do not offer Allen Carr’s support as one of those options; they go for the easy options, if you like, of nicotine replacements and e-cigarettes.

The crucial difference is that, if one stops smoking in the old-fashioned way, one gives up not only cigarettes but nicotine. If, as some of us have found, you move from cigarettes to vapes or other nicotine-replacement devices, you may give up smoking, which may be very good for you, but you do not break the habit or the addiction to nicotine. It is much easier for the local stop smoking services to encourage that path, and so very often they do not follow the NICE guidelines, despite the fact that they are required to.

The Government provide, I believe, about £150 million a year in grant funding for local smoking cessation services. My request is that the Government make it a condition of those grants that all the NICE-recommended methods be supplied by the local smoking cessation service before it receives a grant. I do not expect the Minister to give that commitment at the Dispatch Box today, because of a lack of preparation—I have given her no warning of what I was going to say—but I hope she will be able to write to me and say that that will be a course that the Government will want to follow. If necessary, I am very happy to facilitate a meeting between her and the people from Allen Carr’s Easyway, so that they can describe the good work they do and explain the difficulty they have in reaching smokers through local smoking cessation services, despite the requirement placed on them to facilitate that. I beg to move.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I shall say a few words in support of Amendment 147 from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. I think his intention is quite correct for the following reason. Many of those who wish to stop smoking want to be released from the addiction to nicotine altogether, as they did in the old-fashioned way, as he has just said. They do not just want a less harmful nicotine hit. It is an expensive and harmful addiction, particularly for the developing young brain, yet we are told that many young people are becoming addicted to nicotine through vapes and tobacco pouches, and there is no help for them to quit in many places. As the noble Lord said, NICE guidelines list four services that should be available, including behavioural interventions and in-person group sessions, to help people quit, as well as nicotine-containing replacements for tobacco, which are available in most local stop smoking services. I have received a briefing from Allen Carr’s Easyway, although I have never come across the company before.

There is some evidence that some people who manage to stop smoking tobacco by using a nicotine replacement go back to smoking tobacco in the end. Quitting nicotine altogether has been shown to be more sustainable; people go back to smoking less often when they have managed to kick the nicotine habit as well. I assume that that is why NICE has recommended that services to get off nicotine addiction must be offered as well as vapes and patches. I note that, in its guidelines, NICE does not say “should” or “could”; it says “must”.

The ultimate role of NICE is to ensure that people across the UK have access to the most effective and cost-effective treatments and services; that is why it says that all four methods of quitting should be available. It may be much easier, quicker and even cheaper just to hand out patches and vapes—it is certainly much more difficult to arrange behavioural therapies and group therapies—but, for some people who want to quit smoking, it is more effective for them to have behavioural therapy, group therapy and the help of Allen Carr’s Easyway. That company must be good, authentic and of a high quality if it is recommended by NICE.

I certainly support the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, in his amendment.

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I have heard the request for a meeting with the Allen Carr service. I cannot agree to it from the Dispatch Box because of concerns over commercial advantage, but I am very happy to write to noble Lords further on that point. I hope that, with that, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment, and I thank him for it.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the support for my amendment from all parties. I am grateful for the sympathetic tone expressed by the Minister as well. Obviously I was not expecting a very full answer at this stage, having sprung it on her to some extent in the way that I did. I just remind her that, although there may be commercial advantage—I do not know about that—she could meet Allen Carr in its capacity as a NICE-recommended service. She also has considerable power over the local stop smoking services, not simply through regulation but also through the conditions that she can attach to funding. I think I heard her say that she will reflect a little bit further on this and possibly write, but, in the meantime, I am grateful for what she says.

I do not think the subject will necessarily stop today, but I think we could take it out of the Bill if she wanted to or we could possibly bring it back later. I think it would be helpful if she was given the space now to give some further thought to it and see whether the department felt that there was an opportunity here for it to do something. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 147 withdrawn.

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[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I hope noble Lords will forgive me: I have tabled an amendment to my own amendment, just for the purpose of making it clear that it became apparent that, in relation to brand sharing, for example, it might be appropriate for this to apply in Part 6 as well as Part 5. All the arguments similarly apply.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I think I am correct in saying that all of the amendments I have proposed so far have generally been met with a buoyant response and a good level of engagement. I suspect that Amendment 198 will be less welcome; I will speak to it briefly, partly because my noble friend Lord Lansley has already explained what the amendment says and made a comment with which I do not, in essence, disagree.

The amendment seeks to establish a vaping and nicotine industry forum so that the Government can engage with the industry properly. It would disapply the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which Ministers treat as if it were binding but which has not been the subject of a parliamentary statute imposing it on Ministers. My noble friend Lord Lansley says that this should not be necessary—I rather agree with him—but, in fact, it is necessary in practice because Ministers are treating the framework convention as binding. They are, therefore, excluding from their consultation vaping industry firms that are part of tobacco groups. They will engage with those firms that are involved exclusively in producing vapes—or are at least involved in producing vapes without being tobacco firms—but they will not engage with the others. Obviously, that leads to a very fragmented level of engagement with the industry.

We must be practical and realistic about this. As the tobacco companies transition—they clearly are transitioning—away from cigarettes and into vaping and e-cigarette products, the Government should start to engage with them differently as to their background. That is what Amendment 198 proposes; I do not have to say very much more about it.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendment 198. This vaping and nicotine industry forum is very important; I am also very sympathetic to exploring different kinds of self-regulation, as is suggested in Amendment 154.

It is interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, was forced to put down that there would be a disregard of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control because it speaks to the problem. I have been concerned about, in our discussions in Committee, the conflation of nicotine with tobacco; the conflation of vaping with smoking cigarettes; and, sometimes, the conflation of industries. The industries are distinct. I am pleased whenever I hear that the Government are prepared to acknowledge and meet members of the independent vaping industry and so on; they often represent small SMEs and so on.

I want to mention something that I genuinely do not understand. A lot of tobacco companies have now moved into anti-cigarette mode. It is a bit like how BP went beyond petroleum. If you ever go to an event with anyone from a tobacco company, you will be more likely to get a lecture on the dangers of cigarettes than on anything else. They have been forced, by being treated like pariahs, to adopt a different method and different products. I wonder whether the Government might acknowledge that this is going on; personally, I think that treating even tobacco companies as pariahs is not helpful.

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The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, asked why Ministers abide by the FCTC if it is not law. It sets the framework for effective tobacco control, there are 168 signatures to that treaty and the UK was one of the first to sign it. I would add that we have a proud history of tobacco control in this country, and we fund the FCTC 2030 to help low and middle-income countries to strengthen their own tobacco controls.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

May I just gently correct the Minister? I did not ask why the Government adhered to their international obligations; I understand why a Government will, in general, want to adhere to their international obligations. The dilemma I raised was why the Government would continue to adhere to international obligations when the practical necessities of engaging with the industry would suggest that there is a case here for not doing so. It would be legal in domestic terms not to do so; indeed, this amendment would give sufficient warrant to anyone who doubted it would be legal not to do so. The question is, in a sense: how long will the Government go on ignoring reality because they prefer to adhere to a non-binding international obligation?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I appreciate the clarification from the noble Lord and am grateful for his question. In my language, it does not give us a problem to abide by these obligations; they chime with our experience, with the evidence and, as the noble Lord is aware, with all previous practice. I will come on to the point from the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, about my ministerial colleagues in this regard, but this is also our government approach.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan—I hope that I am quoting him correctly; I know that he will correct me if not—asked about the treatment of vaping firms with tobacco industry links in respect of the consultation. When responding to the call for evidence, and with regard to any future consultations, we ask that respondents declare any direct or indirect links to, or funding received from, the tobacco industry. Input from those vaping companies that have links to the tobacco industry will be summarised with regard to the requirements of Article 5.3, and responses from those parts of the vaping industry that are independent of the tobacco industry will be considered alongside the contributions and evidence of other regulations.

Turning to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, about the DBT Minister, Sir Chris Bryant, I can tell her that the award ceremony to which she referred followed the historic signing of the UK-India trade deal. It has previously been attended by Ministers to celebrate the small businesses that are, as we have spoken about regularly, the backbone of our high streets and are delivering economic growth. We are acutely conscious of government guidance; I assure the noble Baroness that no bilateral or brush-by meetings with representatives of the tobacco industry were held.