Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Maggie Throup Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

As a former public health Minister, and a current vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health, I am delighted to speak in this landmark debate today and to support the measures in this Bill. Today, the UK takes another significant step towards becoming smoke-free, which will safeguard the health and wellbeing of millions of people across the country from the threat of smoking-related diseases.

I begin by taking Members back more than 60 years to the start of this marathon debate—not that many of us can remember 1962. This was a time when leading political figures such as Harold Wilson and Tony Benn openly smoked during interviews; when we were told that our doctor’s cigarette of choice was a Camel; and when a young American actor named Ronald Reagan, whom my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) has just mentioned, appeared in glossy ads encouraging people to send special Christmas cartons of Chesterfields to all their friends instead of a traditional card.

1962 was also the year when the UK’s relationship with smoking changed. A crucial report published by the Royal College of Physicians shed light on the devastating consequences of smoking and urgently called on the Government to tackle smoking. This seminal report paved the way for numerous groundbreaking reforms, including health warnings on packs and a ban on smoking in public places.

In more recent years, Government policy to tackle the rise of smoking has largely focused on increasing tobacco duty. However, although a packet of 20 king-size cigarettes has risen from £1.68 in 1990 to around £17 in 2024, taxation alone has not solved the problem, with 12.9% of the overall population, and 14% of the population of my Erewash constituency, still continuing to smoke.

The impetus for the Government to act now through new legislation to create a smoke-free generation cannot be clearer. Smoking is the UK’s single biggest preventable killer. It causes 15 different types of cancer, and it is linked to cardiovascular disease, strokes, diabetes and dementia, as well as reducing life expectancy in Derbyshire by an estimated eight years.

Smoking puts huge pressure on the NHS, with someone being admitted to hospital with a smoking-related condition almost every minute in England, resulting in 400,000 admissions every year. Tobacco use in England costs billions of pounds in lost productivity and in health and social care costs. ASH estimates that the total cost of smoking, including productivity loss, social care costs and health costs, is £91.8 million in my Erewash constituency.

The Tobacco and Vapes Bill represents a bold and necessary response to this public health crisis, and it is a direct result of the review that Javed Khan carried out while I was public health Minister. The measures he proposes will, without doubt, save tens of thousands of lives and save the health system billions of pounds, and they will save an entire generation, including in Erewash, from addiction.

Regardless of party politics, as my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness said, we all enter this place with the honourable intention of making life better for the people we represent. I recently met students from Dovedale Primary School in my constituency, and we discussed the idea of increasing the age of tobacco sales by one year every year. The students unanimously backed this measure. By supporting this legislation and ensuring that children turning 15 or younger this year, including all those Dovedale Primary School students, will never be legally sold cigarettes, we have a golden opportunity to deliver on that promise of making life better for our constituents. If we do not, how could we ever again go into schools in our constituencies and look those children and young people in the eye?

Another objection raised by critics of the Bill and by tobacco manufacturers is that the cost of smoking to the public finances is far less than tobacco tax revenues. This is just not the case. Lost productivity, healthcare costs and social care expenditure paint a stark picture of the true cost of smoking to the public finances. ASH estimates that, in 2019, lost productivity in England due to smoking cost £14 billion, in addition to a £3 billion cost to the NHS and social care. Tobacco excise tax revenues for the whole UK were under £9 billion in 2019, so the financial burden imposed by smoking far outweighs any tax revenues raised by tobacco sales.

As I have already mentioned, the Khan review outlines that vaping is an effective tool to help people quit smoking. Although I agree with that analysis, many young people are being given these nicotine products and are becoming addicted. This is all down to a clever ploy by tobacco manufacturers. Today, the vaping industry is applying similar tactics to those used by big tobacco in 1962. Vapes are increasingly being marketed as fashion accessories, and the Bill will tackle this directly be regulating the packaging of vaping and nicotine products, which will also reduce the appeal and attractiveness of vaping and nicotine products to children and young people. Can the Minister confirm that the Government have considered a total ban on the sale of tobacco and vaping products within a defined radius of schools, as I am sure that would have a huge impact?

Finally, on the illicit vaping market, our efforts to combat smoking and vaping must extend the legal market to tackle that side of things. We have all heard stories of criminal gangs exploiting the market and selling vapes containing synthetic Spice. Only last week, King’s College London published a report by Dr Caroline Copeland that outlined the fact that so-called zombie drugs have been found in fake vapes. Once again, may I ask the Minister what she is doing to tackle that dangerous aspect of the vaping market?

To conclude, this is our 1962 moment. As parliament-arians, we have an opportunity to end smoking once and for all, ensuring that future generations are protected. Some may argue that now is not the time to legislate on this matter. I say, if not now, when? The Tobacco and Vapes Bill is the single biggest public health intervention in a generation, and 66% of adults across Great Britain support the legislation. Now is the time for colleagues across the House to back the Bill for the sake of public health, the economy and our NHS.