Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, we have had a number of quotations and reminiscences about family. My father was a general practitioner in a very deprived part of the East End of London: Old Ford. He became as aware of the huge dangers of smoking as the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, did at roughly the same time in the late 1950s and early 1960s and of the terrible effects that smoking can have on individuals’ health, communities and families. I followed that very much. I have always supported the legislation so far on restricting the consumption of tobacco. I feel that one of the positive things about the Bill is that we should bring the vaping legislation pretty well up to where tobacco legislation is now. However, I have severe concerns that the first part of the Bill about the rolling age ban is not going to work. In fact, it is not just not going to work but could have certain other ills more broadly for society in the form of unintended consequences.

I was pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Brady of Altrincham, mentioned cannabis because when it comes to the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, and evidence, we should look at the cannabis market because the one difference the Bill makes is that it proposes that, in effect, tobacco will become an illegal substance for the first time, and over time it will be like cannabis and other banned drugs. It will be of a similar status. What has happened in the cannabis market? We have heard some of that. The statistics are difficult because it is a dark market, obviously, but it is thought that the annual turnover for cannabis, excluding medical cannabis, is about £2.5 billion to £3 billion per annum, and there are some 3 million regular users of this particular drug. That £3 billion is a proportion of the £10 billion illicit drugs market in this country, so it is very substantial.

The issue about this piece of tobacco legislation is that, as other noble Lords have said, cannabis legislation is hardly enforced at all, and where it is, it is very patchy—and I believe quite rightly. Where I live down in the West Country, rural crime is an issue; cannabis is not a social problem, although it is used, and many of us would prefer that the police spend their time more on issues other than drugs. The forces have obviously made that decision, and different forces make different decisions throughout the country. It varies very greatly. We all know that cannabis is hugely and easily available—it just is—but when it comes to tobacco, that will be even easier for the newly banned generations to obtain because they can just take it from their family or from those people who were born before 2009.

So, what we have is a problem in society where we encourage people to break the law regularly, and I seriously believe that that is an ill that we should not encourage. It is too easy to circumvent. Certainly, enforcement is incredibly difficult because of the transfer between friends, families and communities when for some of them it is not illegal. I find the area of age identity very difficult in terms of how that will be solved practically. In terms of cost to society, I believe that broad area of people breaking the law and not feeling it is a problem because that is what they do is something that eats away at respect for the law and for legislation. I have always strongly believed, as a legislator here and in the European Parliament, that we should not legislate unless we are able to enforce. Otherwise, it makes a mockery of us, the law and the rule of law, which is an important part of our democracy.

I also agree that this will be a market opportunity for organised crime. It is just obvious. That is what happens. We know that in this industry—and we have heard examples here of illegal or under-the-counter sales—there is a history of the tobacco industry exporting cigarettes to third-world countries which come back into this country. Those channels already exist and will continue to exist.

Another issue with drugs that are prohibited—I am not saying that they should not be prohibited—is quality control, as we see with cannabis again. What we risk when we ban tobacco to certain sectors of society is that the quality control and administration of those substances disappears completely, which becomes a risk to individuals, societies and communities.

I support bringing vaping legislation back up to where tobacco is at the moment, but I am highly sceptical that you can make a rolling age ban work in this country, given the resources, history and evidence that we have.