Under-age Vaping

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

I thank the many right hon. and hon. Members who have made a valuable contribution to this afternoon’s debate. I will respond to the issues they have raised throughout my remarks.

I will start, without dismissing many of the concerns we have heard, by reiterating the importance of vapes in helping smokers move to healthier alternatives than cigarettes. Vapes are helping us to reach our smokefree 2030 target. There are currently about 3.5 million vapers in England, 47% of whom are ex-smokers and 39% of whom are dual users. The best thing, obviously, is for a smoker to stop smoking completely, but as shown in the recently published “Nicotine Vaping in England” report, there is clear evidence that vapes are substantially less harmful to health than smoking. With around 3 million users, vapes have become the most popular quitting aid in England and evidence indicates that they can help smokers to quit, particularly when combined with additional support from local stop smoking services.

That is why, in April this year, the Government announced a range of new measures to meet our smokefree 2030 ambition and reduce youth vaping. We have 1 million smokers who will be encouraged to swap their cigarettes for vapes through a new national “swap to stop” scheme, the first of its kind in the world. Pregnant women will be offered financial incentives, in the form of vouchers, to help them to stop smoking, alongside behavioural support. We will also consult on introducing mandatory cigarette pack inserts with positive messages and information to help people quit smoking. It is important to point those out, as the hon. Members for North Tyneside (Mary Glindon) and for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) did.

[Mary Glindon]

Will the Minister confirm that the statement made in the 2015 evidence update by Public Health England, that vaping is 95% safer than smoking, remains valid today?

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank the hon. Lady for that point, which my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) also raised. The 2015 evidence study was indeed conducted by Public Health England. The most recent evidence we have, from 2022, does not give that precise figure; it does emphasise that vaping is safer than smoking, but does not indicate by how much.

As the debate has made clear, despite vaping’s effectiveness as a tool to quit smoking, illegal under-age vape sales are a growing concern for many parents and teachers across the country, and vaping has increased rapidly among under-18s in the past 18 months. The recent rise in teenage users shows that vapes are being used beyond their intended audience. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) highlighted, there are multiple reasons for that, but whether it is packaging, naming or flavouring, the unintended consequences are clear. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) pointed out, these consequences are not necessarily easy to deal with, as there may be unintended consequences of doing so—for example, tax increases on vapes might prevent people who want to give up smoking from doing so. There are no easy solutions, so we need to take our time before making further decisions. That is why in April we launched a call for evidence on youth vaping. It closed last month, and officials at the Department have begun to examine the responses. We will set out our response in the autumn.

Other speakers, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) spoke about why it is so important that we consider going further. My hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham, who speaks with considerable experience, pointed out that this not a party political issue, but a cross-Government matter, with the Department of Health and Social Care dealing with safety, the Department for Education providing advice to children, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport dealing with the role of advertising, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs dealing with the disposable products element. To stop children buying vapes, we also need businesses to comply with existing regulations and to abide by the standards we have set. To help enforcement of the regulations, we have teamed up with enforcement agencies to fund a new illicit vaping unit, which will remove products from shelves and at our borders, and stop the sale of vapes to children.

In May, the Prime Minister announced further measures, including closing a loophole that allows industry to give out free samples; increasing education and supporting designated school police liaison officers’ work to keep illegal vapes out of schools; and reviewing the rules on issuing on-the-spot fines to shops selling vapes to under-18s, as well as the rules on selling nicotine-free vapes to under-18s, to ensure that the rules keep pace with how vapes are being used. To respond to a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell), we are also looking at adding lessons on the health risks of vaping as part of the current RSE curriculum review. Those measures will help headteachers and other school leaders to manage vaping on school premises and inform young people about the risks of vaping, with a view to reducing the number of young people who are currently vaping or might be tempted to try it in the future.

As a number of speakers pointed out, we must of course be wary of the environmental impacts, in particular of single-use disposable vapes. Increasing use of these products is leading to their improper disposal. That is why DEFRA is soon to consult on reforming the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations 2013 to ensure that more of this material is properly recycled. We shall continue to work with the sector and industry to help businesses to understand their responsibilities, both to ensure that their environmental obligations are met, and to ensure that products are not marketed to children, are produced to the highest UK standards, and are compliant with our regulations.

I emphasise that until recently our vaping regulations have been effective in keeping rates of vaping among under-18s low, but of course we acknowledge that there are problems and that we have seen an increase in usage, which is why the consultation is about looking into what more we can do.

[Mark Eastwood (Dewsbury) (Con)]

I welcome the consultation to tackle this problem, but will the Minister confirm that any appropriate measures that the Government take to reduce youth access to vapes will not harm our pragmatic science-led approach to ensuring that adults have access to the full range of alternatives to help them to quit cigarettes for good?

[Maria Caulfield]

That is the balance we have to create. We do not want unintended consequences whereby we reduce the use of vapes in under-18s but also stop their use among those who are quitting smoking. We know from our evidence that vaping is much safer than smoking. For those communities, very often in deprived areas, where there are higher rates of smoking, we do not want the cost of vapes to be prohibitive and for people not to switch to them instead of smoking.

Our current laws protect children by restricting the sale of vapes to over-18s and limiting nicotine content, and there are regulations on refill bottles, tank sizes, labelling requirements and advertising restrictions. It is important that we remember that regulations are in place, and it is important that they are enforced.

[Dr Caroline Johnson]

The Minister is talking about evidence that vapes are much safer, but I notice that she has not used the 95% figure that is used by the industry. Clearly, the absence of evidence of harm and evidence of the absence of harm are different things, so will the Minister clarify whether she has evidence that vaping devices are much safer? Or does she just not have evidence yet, because they are so new, that they are not dangerous?

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Caulfield]

The evidence is there that vapes are considerably safer than smoking, and that was borne out in the 2022 report. The 95% figure was not used then, but I think there is a general consensus that, as the chief medical officer has said, vaping is a much safer alternative to smoking cigarettes.

It is important to remember that regulations are currently in place; it is about enforcing them, which is why the Government have introduced the illicit vape enforcement squad to tackle under-age vape sales, as well as the illicit products that young people can access. We are funding that with £3 million of Government funding.

[Alex Cunningham]

Will the Minister give a timescale for when the Government will introduce plain packaging for vaping products?

[Maria Caulfield]

As I just said and as the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien) said earlier in the debate, the consultation closed only recently. Officials are going through the evidence and will come forward with the results in the autumn and take them forward.

[Rachael Maskell]

I raised the issue of addiction; although the Minister has said that vaping products are safer, does she agree that if they are drawing more children into addiction, they are clearly not safe in that field?

[Maria Caulfield]

We have to consider the evidence and that is not necessarily what the evidence says. NHS England is reviewing the number of admissions and incidents that it feels are caused by vaping, so we are gathering the evidence on that. We need to take an evidence-based approach and currently there is not the evidence that there is necessarily an addiction problem. But we do need to keep building the evidence base.

As we have set out today, we are committed to taking strong and assertive action to tackle youth vaping, and we are willing to go further as part of our evidence-based approach. We have to work with all parties and across Government. This is not just a health issue: it is an issue for the Department for Education, for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in terms of advertising, and for DEFRA in respect of how single-use vapes are disposed of.

We are committed to effectively tackling the issue and driving down youth vaping rates, while making sure that vapes are available to smokers as an effective aid to quitting smoking. We are committed to doing all we can to prevent children from starting vaping and we are actively working on ways that we can go further. We will go further in not only protecting children but driving down smoking rates, so that we make a future where people are not damaged by smoking. To meet our smokefree 2030 ambition, we will do all we can to prevent people from starting smoking in the first place and to give people the support that they need to quit.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House is concerned that children are being inappropriately exposed to e-cigarette promotions and that under-age vaping has increased by 50% in just the last three years; condemns the Government for its failure to act to protect children by voting against the addition of measures to prohibit branding which is appealing to children on e-cigarette packaging during the passage of the Health and Care Act 2022 and for failing to bring forward the tobacco control plan that it promised by the end of 2021; and therefore calls on the Government to ban vapes from being branded and advertised to appeal to children and to work with local councils and the NHS to help ensure that e-cigarettes are being used as an aid to stop smoking, rather than as a new form of smoking.