Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2026 Lords Chamber

I think we should put some constraints on the advertising of betting now—I do not go the whole way—but with hindsight we can see that the illegality of off-course betting was a well-intentioned, absurd and utterly ineffective misuse of the criminal law. The noble Lord, Lord Murray, should persuade us all that the Bill as it stands is a repeat of that rather ridiculous experiment.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, for the first time in my life, I will publicly disagree with my noble friend Lord Clarke. I will speak briefly but very strongly against this group of amendments, which would simply defeat the object of the Bill: to introduce a generational ban and achieve over time a smoke-free country.

Less than two years ago, a generational ban was the policy of a Conservative Government, and the then Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, described it as one of his proudest initiatives. In that Parliament, on a free vote, the vast majority of Conservative Members of Parliament supported the Bill, as did 28 out of the 30 members of the Cabinet. All the arguments that we have heard this afternoon were put forward at that time, listened to and discounted. In this Parliament, the measure passed with a majority of 415 to 47, so it is fair to say that the Bill has broad cross-party support, and it is popular outside. It has a clear objective of reducing the burdens of smoking on the economy and the NHS.

I will leave it to others to deal with the argument about illicit tobacco and the Windsor Framework; I just want to tackle the libertarian argument, following the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I listened to all the libertarian arguments when a Conservative Government made it compulsory for motorcyclists to wear crash helmets. We heard the arguments about well-informed adults being aware of the risks. Nobody would now reverse that piece of legislation. We heard the same arguments on compulsory seat belts. Both those measures were introduced by a Conservative Government. We heard the same arguments about smoking on public transport, on trains and in pubs. Yes, there is a libertarian argument, but in my view there is a much broader benefit in moving to a smoke-free country.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak in favour of the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth. I will concentrate on one narrow area—one of the practical aspects of this generational ban—which, as my noble friend Lord Clarke highlighted, is the inevitable difficulty of age verification in stores. I am sure the Minister will soon argue that age verification is a well-established practice and therefore should present no particular difficulty, but the implications of the Bill in a few years’ time are profound, as my noble friend noted.

Judging the difference between an 18 year-old and a 40 year-old by eye is not especially difficult—although at this point I note that there are a number of Peers on the Government Benches who regularly claim that even that is impossible in the case of asylum seekers. But how is a shopkeeper supposed to judge the precise age of someone who is apparently 40 years old in a few years’ time? Is he 40? Is he 39? Is he 40 in 364 days? I am sure that we will soon hear the argument that the point is actually somewhat moot, because that 40 year- old born after the 1 January 2009 will have never smoked or shown any desire to smoke because of the Bill. But that is simply not a credible argument. As my noble friend Lord Murray noted, the generational ban is a de facto prohibition, and one does not need to be a dedicated student of history to know that prohibition of any kind has never worked. Indeed, it serves to make whatever is being prohibited more desirable, more glamorous and more edgy. Plenty of people will still choose to smoke.

In effect, the state will therefore be asking shopkeepers to both comply with and police the law at the same time. To put some statistics around this, the Association of Convenience Stores represents 50,000 local shops, petrol forecourt sites and independent retailers across all locations. Last year, it reported that there were 57,000 incidents of violence against people working in convenience stores. Some 87% of store workers reported verbal abuse and 44% reported hate-motivated abuse. The top three triggers of this violence epidemic were encountering shop thieves, enforcing age restriction policies and refusing to serve intoxicated customers. Does the Minister think this will get any better when the shopkeeper has to ask two middle-aged men for their passports—or, indeed, an 85 year-old for his birth certificate?

Today, I read that the British Retail Consortium has reported that there were 1,600 incidents of violence and abuse per day in shops in the year 2024-25. That is down from the previous year, but it is still a staggering number. It is welcome that the Crime and Policing Bill will make assaulting a retail worker an aggravated offence, but that is, I contend, highly unlikely to make any difference at all to the number of incidents around age verification, which are inevitable. I am sure the Minister will also refer to the increase in police numbers and neighbourhood policing officers due by 2029. That is also welcome, of course, but I note that the previous Government bequeathed more police officers than ever before in this country, and that did not have a noticeable impact. The simple fact is that this measure will inevitably cause more trouble, and the Government will be unable to do much about that. It is ludicrous to pass a law that will provoke the breaking of other laws.

My noble friend Lord Murray’s amendments would achieve the Government’s aims without causing this needless aggravation. The Government’s own impact assessment states that a one-off increase in the age of sale to 21 would be just as effective in the short term at reducing smoking rates, compared with a generational smoking ban. The Government should change tack and accept my noble friend Lord Murray’s amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rennard (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, my Amendments 129 and 133 would place a duty on the Government to consult on whether health warnings should appear not just on cigarette packets or the inserts within them but on every single cigarette, by printing the warnings on the paper enclosing the dangerous tobacco. In Grand Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, whose great work on this Bill is much to be admired, said that this was something the Government could look at in future but not something they were looking at now, and that secondary legislation could provide for this in future. I ask: why not consider it now, and why not meet my request for a consultation to begin?

This idea is not new or untested. It was first endorsed by the All-Party Group on Smoking and Health in 2021, and then in the Khan review commissioned by the previous Government in 2022. Canada has already implemented this approach on cigarette papers, with demonstrable impact. Australia followed suit last April, albeit with warnings only on the filters. The evidence gathered for Health Canada examined how smokers and non-smokers responded to cigarettes carrying health warnings directly on them. The findings were striking: cigarettes displaying warnings were consistently regarded as less attractive, while those without warnings were more likely to be seen as less dangerous. In other words, the absence of a warning sends its own message—and it is the wrong one.

I strongly welcome the Government’s decision to introduce pack inserts that direct smokers towards quitting support. I argued strongly for this when we debated the Health and Care Bill. It is a positive and sensible step, but it does not address the problem that the first cigarette smoked is often offered from someone else’s packet. Warnings on individual cigarettes would get to these people in ways that pack-based measures simply do not.

This effect of warnings on individual cigarette papers has been shown to be especially pronounced among younger people. They are more likely to be offered a single cigarette in social settings, as opposed to purchasing a whole packet that already has warnings on it or may have an insert in future. Printing warnings directly on the cigarette would ensure that the health warning is present at the point of use, not just at the point of purchase. Evidence from focus groups in Scotland found that warnings on individual cigarettes were perceived by young people as embarrassing, with the consensus being that it would be very off-putting for young people.

It is sometimes disingenuously claimed that there is no need for health warnings about tobacco as the dangers of smoking are already universally understood. Action on Smoking and Health found in an analysis of its survey data that younger smokers, the very people who would benefit most from this measure, were less likely to be aware of the full risks of smoking. But awareness alone does not change behaviour. The average smoker makes 30 attempts to give up before succeeding. My amendment would help them give up every time they handle a cigarette.

More importantly, it would help prevent people smoking their very first cigarette. The evidence shows that, the greater the range of interventions we deploy, the greater our chances of preventing uptake and encouraging cessation. Different messages resonate with different people, and tobacco remains a uniquely lethal consumer product. We should be prepared to use every effective tool available to reduce the harm it causes to smokers, their families and everybody else.

Finally, I know the Minister has raised concerns about how visible the messages might be and that, in some countries where this has been implemented, they appear only on the filter. The UK could do things differently if we choose, as in Canada. It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words. If I could display to this Chamber a picture of the effective health warnings on Canadian cigarette papers, it would be easy to see how effective they are. If the Minister cannot accept this amendment today, I hope she will say not just that this measure might be considered in future but that it will be considered now, beginning with the consultation requested.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I have added my name to two amendments in this group. Before coming to those, I will say a word about Amendment 77 from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, which I was initially attracted to. Like many other noble Lords, I went to a presentation by ASH, where we listened to health experts explain that filters do not prevent anything noxious reaching the lungs. On the contrary, they have ingredients in them that might be damaging. Far worse, because of the filter, smokers inhale more than they would have done had there not been one, as they think it is safe. It may be that the 25 government amendments achieve in a rather roundabout way what the noble Baroness seeks to do in Amendment 77. We will listen with interest to the Minister when she speaks to her amendments.

Amendment 133 was ably spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. As I have said before, when I was a Health Minister in 1979, I tried to get the tobacco industry to adopt putting a warning on cigarettes and it declined on the grounds that ink was carcinogenic. This was not an argument I found very persuasive. Here we are, nearly 50 years later, still discussing something that at the time was world-beating, although I understand that I have now been overtaken by Canada.

Amendment 204, spoken to by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, sits rather uneasily in this group, which is otherwise about filters, in that it is about the tobacco levy. I want to make a number of points. First, previously the Government ruled this out on the grounds that they consulted on a levy model in 2014. Indeed they did, but this is a very different model from that which they consulted on. Crucially, in the one they consulted on, the levy would have been passed on to the consumer, with all the impact on RPI or CPI. This model has been constructed to avoid that; it would control the price that tobacco can be sold for, leading to very different outcomes from the model consulted on by the Treasury, and would not allow tobacco companies to pass the costs on to consumers as they do at the moment. It would raise revenue. One estimate has been £5 billion. Even if it is a fraction of that, it is money well worth having.

The scheme would not be complex to administer. As the noble Earl said, there are only four manufacturers. The department already operates the PPRS, controlling medicine prices, with far more manufacturers than are involved in tobacco. Crucially, the Khan review, already referred to, which was initiated by Sajid Javid when he was Health Secretary, pointed out that the Government were not going to hit their then target of a smoke-free England by 2030. It recommended the levy—this was an independent review commissioned by the last Conservative Government—and reinvesting the money in media campaigns targeted at those elements of the population who were still smoking.

Finally, I know that the Minister will not mind me reminding her of what she said when a similar amendment was debated in 2022 and passed in your Lordships’ House by 213 to 154. She knows what I am going to say; she supported and voted for that amendment, saying that it would

“provide a well-funded and much-needed boost, and a consultation would allow this proposal to be tested, refined and shaped”.—[Official Report, 16/3/22; col. 297.]

Well, that is what we are asking for today. She did not persuade me in Committee when she gave the reasons why she had changed her mind. Perhaps she can have another go this evening and explain why she will now urge the House to reject what she thought was a good idea four years ago.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, since this is the first time I have spoken on Report, I declare my interest as a professor of politics and international relations at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, where I teach an MBA module on healthcare policy and strategy. I also work with the Vinson Centre for the Public Understanding of Economics and Entrepreneurship at the University of Buckingham, and we sometimes run seminars on evidence behind public health policy.