Under-age Vaping

Debate between Mary Glindon and Neil Hudson

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), who made such a common-sense and honest contribution. I think everyone appreciated it.

Colleagues may know that I am a strong advocate for vaping as a way for adults to quit smoking. I am also a vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for vaping, so I have a lot of experience of speaking directly with the industry. Much of what I say today comes from what the industry itself is feeling and how it sees the problem of children vaping.

I have seen so many friends, and my late husband, make the switch from being heavy smokers to using—I stress this point—safe vaping products. Every minute, someone is admitted to hospital due to smoking. Someone dies from a smoking-related death every eight minutes. Pertinent to this debate remains the fact that, while not risk-free, vaping is 95% safer than smoking. More than 6.6 million adult smokers in this country have not been able to quit smoking or make the change to vaping. However, I would never advocate that someone who did not smoke or had never tried to smoke take up vaping. That is not the way forward. Vaping must be a way to quit smoking.

Like my colleagues, I support the motion. It is unequivocal that under-18s should not use or have any access to vape products. However, despite the Government’s announcement to tackle youth vaping, it remains a major concern. Far more needs to be done to address it, and as we have heard, the trend is at epidemic levels. There is nothing more heartbreaking than walking up the street or being on public transport and seeing very young people at a bus stop or gathered on the street with a vape in their hand. It saddens me, it really does.

Measures are needed specifically to target rogue manufacturers and retailers. Ultimately, no vape should appeal to a minor. Trading standards really needs the resources and the power to enforce the law. A lot of what I am saying is also what the industry is telling me it supports, whether it is the vaping industry or even tobacco firms. I know many people really do not want to hear anything from tobacco firms, but in relation to vaping we should listen to some of the things the industry itself is suggesting.

One of the most effective measures to limit youth access to vapes is surely enforcing strict age verification across all retail channels, including online platforms. Retailers are required by law to operate age verification systems to prevent the sale of vape products to anyone under 18, but some retailers, we know, do not enforce those regulations effectively. Online retailers must also have a stringent age verification process in place to prevent under-18s accessing vape products. We know that retailers can get No ID No Sale! and Challenge 25 resources. They should make use of those resources if it helps them to challenge under-age sales.

The advertising and promotion of vape products is tightly regulated in the UK. However, some irresponsible online and social media marketing can and inevitably does still reach young people, with the results we are now seeing. The Government must strengthen online and social media regulation. No e-cigarettes and e-liquids, including product, packaging and marketing communications, should ever appeal to a child. We could do something about imagery, flavour names and anything else that relates to the world of children and young people, such as comic icons, cartoon characters or sweets. That must be clamped down on. At a minimum, all e-cigarette packaging could be inspected as part of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s notification process before a product can be placed on the market. Law enforcement mechanisms should also be reinforced, with fines and penalties reflecting the seriousness of the offence. This could be achieved by aligning fines with those relating to tobacco products. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has recently been given the ability to issue on-the-spot fines of up to £10,000. That should be extended to trading standards.

The UK Vaping Industry Association supports all those measures. Recently, John Dunne, the director general of the UKVIA, appeared before the Health and Social Care Committee. He stressed that the Government should take “extreme action” to discourage anyone from selling to children. He reinforced the call for fines of £10,000 per instance, a licensing scheme for vape retailers, robust age verification, and greater powers to check packaging and product designs for potentially child-appealing designs.

[Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. My apologies, Mr Deputy Speaker, for arriving midway through the debate. I was speaking at the all-party parliamentary group on suicide and self-harm prevention.

The hon. Lady is making an impassioned speech. On limiting access to young people, when adults go to the counter to buy tobacco products they are behind black and grey metal cabinets. They are not brightly coloured and so on. Would that not be a starting point? We could get vaping products hidden behind those black and metallic cupboards, so they are not, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) said, all glossy and appealing at the checkout? Would that not be a starting point?

[Mary Glindon]

I do think it would. I also think vaping products are currently an attraction for shopkeepers to get people into their shops, especially young people—a bit like when alcopops were put on the front shelf. It is brilliant idea and one I hope the Minister will hear. I wish I had thought of it.

John Dunne also urged the Government to look at the new Irish laws, whereby retailers convicted of selling to children can be jailed. Should we go that far?

Since entering the UK in 2021, disposable vapes have come to dominate the market, with 70% of disposable vape sales generated by new users. Children are attracted by their branding, bright colours and sweet flavours. The latest figures from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities show that in England youth vaping has doubled, from 4% to 8.6%. According to the latest figures highlighted by the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, more than 138 million disposable vapes are sold every year, and more than one in three products is potentially non-compliant, which means that more than 45 million non-compliant products are being sold each year. Figures have also revealed that in the last six months of 2022, 1.4 tonnes of illegal vapes were seized in, I am ashamed to say, the north-east of England alone. Trading standards officers across the country are doing their best to combat this tidal wave of non-compliant vapes. In March 2002, the tobacco company JTI UK commissioned tests on a variety of popular disposable vapes in the UK, and discovered that 25 out of 28 products were not legally compliant as they all exceeded the e-liquid volume and nicotine strength limits mandated by law.

Although the figures are stark, I do not advocate banning disposable vapes, but regulation must be tightened. For some people on low incomes, disposable vapes are an affordable way to kick the smoking habit. We do not want to send a message that vaping is bad, because we want some of those 6.6 million people to stop smoking by switching to vaping. Despite the Government announcing measures to tackle youth vaping, it is still a major problem and much more needs to be done to combat it. The Government must ensure that regulations are effective in targeting rogue vape producers and retailers, and not the elements of the vaping industry that are trying to sell responsibly to adults. We have to make sure that vaping remains accessible by adults who are trying to stop smoking.

The industry has produced a set of proposals on amending the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016 to ensure that all nicotine and non-nicotine e-liquids are regulated in the same way, and that all e-cigarettes and e-liquids, including their product packaging and marketing communications, do not appeal to minors, by prohibiting the imagery we have heard about today. To complement that, all e-cigarette packaging should be inspected as part of the MHRA notification process before products can be put on the market. Law enforcement mechanisms should be reinforced with the fines and penalties that have been suggested, including the £10,000 fine, and the power to impose penalties should be extended to trading standards. That would be a practical way for them to help tackle this problem. We all know that trading standards need more resources than the Government have promised, given the sheer scale and scope of their work and the specific problem of youth vaping.

The Government have a clear opportunity to address youth vaping with its recent consultation. Clear steps must be taken to ensure that only safe and responsible vapes are available on the market, and that sufficient enforcement measures are in place to ensure that children are not targeted. It is the job of Government, the industry and enforcement agencies to work together to create a regulatory framework that acknowledges the important role vapes play in providing support for adult smokers to quit and prevents their appealing and being accessible to under-18s. The time for action is now. The Minister and the rest of the Government must heed today’s debate.