Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Moylan]

12: Clause 10, page 5, line 28, 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.

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Moved by

[Lord Moylan]

17: After Clause 12, insert the following new Clause—
“Offence of manufacturing, supplying or offering to supply counterfeit nicotine products(1) A person who manufactures, supplies, or offers to supply counterfeit nicotine products, including tobacco and vape products, commits an offence.(2) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable—(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or both;(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years or an unlimited fine, or both.(3) In this section, “counterfeit” means any product or packaging bearing without authorisation a trade mark identical to or indistinguishable from a registered trade mark.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment strengthens the criminal penalties for the production and sale of counterfeit nicotine products with a view to protecting consumers, upholding safety standards, and safeguarding legitimate businesses from unfair competition. It introduces a tiered sentencing structure, permitting tougher consequences for serious offences.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, in approaching this amendment, I start with a very powerful series of BBC News reports that were broadcast before Christmas—other noble Lords may have seen them. The BBC accompanied trading standards officers—and, I believe, Customs and Excise—on raids of various high street premises in various provincial towns. They were shops that looked like stores; you would call them mini-markets or something like that. They had goods on the shelves—packets of soup and whatever it might be that you might conceivably want to buy—but their business was not actually selling these things, and nobody who went into those shops was particularly interested in buying the packets of soup that adorned the shelves.

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These ways of sharing intelligence enable tackling the concerns of wider criminality, including tax evasion and the links to organised crime, and enable them to be flagged to the relevant enforcement agencies and investigated as appropriate. However, not every fixed penalty notice that is issued may be linked to wider criminality. Therefore, these amendments would risk increasing the administrative burden for our enforcement agencies, which I know that the noble Lord does not wish, without adding meaningful value. I hope that this provides reassurances to noble Lords and that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, feels able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, that is a disappointing response. I repeat that my amendment does not rest on any claim that this Bill is going to make a bad situation worse. I do not want to get into that argument. It is a bad situation already. We should be willing to acknowledge that perhaps it is worse than we realise—especially those of us who do not spend a lot of time on provincial high streets and in working-class areas where this happens and is widespread. We need vigorous tools to deal with it.

I entirely accept what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said about the need for nuance in how enforcement is carried out. I am aware of the enforcement code that regulators use, including trading standards, because I have worked with it. One wants to be lenient to the honest shopkeeper who muddles up a 40 year-old with a 41 year-old. However, it is not possible to sell counterfeit goods accidentally. You know if you are selling counterfeit goods—it is a deliberate action—especially if you have them stashed in the attic and under floorboards. You are not making an honest mistake when you sell them. We need to be very hard on these people.

My noble friend Lord Udny-Lister has got something, in arguing for a gradation of fines and punishments that will bite harder on people who are repeat offenders or more serious offenders. The Bill misses a trick on that.

On this side—and, I suspect, if they reflect on it, in other parts of the House—there is concern that the Government have not got this element of the Bill right and that they will have to come back to it. The ideal thing would be if they came back to it before the Bill was enacted, at Third Reading, perhaps with something along the lines that my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister produced. It is possible that they could put it right later when they discover that they have made a mistake, but that is much more messy and would not have the desired effect.

I am disappointed. The Government will have to return to this, and the sooner the better. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 17 withdrawn.