Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Mary Glindon and Preet Kaur Gill

Committee stage
Wednesday 1st May 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Mary Glindon]

Q The UK Vaping Industry Association, which represents the vaping sector but not any of the tobacco companies that produce vapes—I note that John Dunne, the CEO, is in the Gallery today —has suggested that the Government should include a vape retailer and distributor licensing scheme in the Bill. The industry has itself developed a comprehensive framework for such a scheme, which it claims is designed to, once and for all, deal effectively with the issue of underage and illicit vaping sales. Would that be a big step forward to cut out illicit vape sales?

Mr Lawson: The evidence I have seen is mainly from Spain, where tobacconists must be registered and licensed before they can sell products. In Spain traditionally, vape products have been sold only through licensed tobacconists. More recently, you can see them in convenience stores. I think we are seeing issues in Europe beyond the UK where products are now being sold illegally. Where they are sold in licensed outlets, you generally see much better compliance with the regulations. Obviously the licence can be removed, so it is a deterrent to the retailer to selling any of the products. That would be a good step in the right direction.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

Q You mentioned that your company is doing testing of products. One of the things that we heard just before your evidence was that what comes into the UK market obviously is not tested before it comes out, and we know that the illicit and non-compliant market is growing hugely. Can you talk us through what you do when you test your product? Where does it go?

Mr Lawson: The main driver behind testing has been to support trading standards in taking enforcement action against illegal products in the market. The testing has therefore focused on two main areas. One is the tank volume, the 2 ml, and the other is the nicotine strength, the 20 mg/ml, so the testing looks entirely at whether products are simply complying with the regulations. I did hear some of the last answers, but there is a very simple step: when it is applied, the MHRA notification scheme works fairly well. Most of the products that we test are not on the notification system—they are not on the MHRA’s portal. There is no check from a retailer or an importer that the products must be on that portal, so there is a bit of an issue there; you can effectively bypass the entire notification process by importing products and selling. Additionally, if the products do not contain nicotine, they are not subject to MHRA regulations.