Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Second sitting)

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 7th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

Q Can I ask a question to all of you? We know that the Bill will go a long way towards reducing health inequalities. In more deprived areas, which have the highest prevalence of smoking, will the Bill also have an impact on the economics of local communities?

Professor Tracy Daszkiewicz: That is exactly the focus: reducing health inequalities and ensuring we get good health equity across all of our populations. When we look at preventable premature mortality, we know that smoking is a huge driver around that. We need to think about this across the life course. If we can stop the harms that second hand smoke causes to children, we can then think about deprivation across the life course and people who are dying early from preventable harms, with smoking being one of the risk factors.

We need to focus really narrowly on that, because it is not just about life expectancy, but about the number of years we live in good health. In my patch across Gwent in Wales there is huge variance, with up to 14 years’ difference in healthy life years between the richest and the poorest parts of the population. It is about not only the health outcomes around that, but the economic part of it, in terms of work productivity and work days lost. When we think about the cost of the NHS, which we often do, that is the cost of healthcare, but if we look at the economic picture of employability, productivity and those kinds of things, it increases that sum tenfold. We need to think about this so that when we look at the inequalities associated with smoking, we do so through a social, cultural, economic and environmental lens, to ensure that we get the full cost impact. It is something that we need to be mindful of.

Alison Challenger: I wanted to make a point about household income. We know that cigarette smoking is incredibly expensive. If one or both parents smoke in a household with a low income, that will have a considerable impact on the family’s spending capability for other things. It is not a matter of choice, either; smoking is an addiction. Seven out of 10 smokers really do not want to smoke, but it is incredibly difficult because of the level of addiction. If one or both parents smoke in a family household, that has huge repercussions for the funding of all the other household commitments.

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

Q We have touched on local variations. How do you think local variations should take into account the small variations in health inequalities that exist in different areas? You gave an example of a shop being the only shop in a village, but if that village was also an area of high deprivation, how should that affect the outcome?

David Fothergill: That is where local knowledge comes in. Taking that shop in the village, we would not say that it should not sell tobacco, but we would say that it should not be selling tobacco during these periods—for example, 8.30 am to 9.30 am, or 3.30 pm to 4.30 pm. Knowing the local communities and being able to put in local restrictions would help us to really have an impact. Clearly, in urban areas it would be very different.

When the Minister asked questions about England, Wales and Northern Ireland, I should have said that what we would really like to see—it is in the Scottish legislation—is verification, where people are required to verify their age. Challenge 25 seems to work really well with alcohol, and we would like to see that brought in. We understand that that is in the Scottish legislation, and we would like to see it brought in in England as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Euan Stainbank]

Q Thank you. My second question digs into the illicit online vape market that you referred to. Is the issue more the structure of enforcement that you were discussing, or do you have any concern about online retailers’ age gating policies?

Lord Michael Bichard: No, the point I was making was about enforcement.

Wendy Martin: To add to that, as part of the programme that DHSC has been funding for the last 18 months, we tested out a number of issues, and one was online under-age sales. I think we tested 312 purchases, and there was a 10% failure rate. That was significantly lower than premises-based sales. There was a lot in the platform’s corporate website design to try to ask the right questions and kick purchasers out. It is very much about who does it and who takes responsibility, rather than a major problem in itself.

We also work quite closely with the Advertising Standards Authority, and it does a lot around broadcast and published media, and website compliance and claims. That is quite a well-established mechanism for enforcement. It is about the structure of enforcement, as you have rightly identified.

Lord Michael Bichard: It is probably worth pointing out—it does not relate to the online point—that I said earlier that last year we carried out 4,000 test purchases, and 26% of those were failures. Compared to the 10% online, it is significantly higher. This is a very practical point, but some of the other changes that are going to happen will make it easier for us to do test purchasing. At the present moment, we can only use children or young people, so we have issues of safeguarding and we can only do it at certain times of the day. It should become easier, in that sense, for us to enforce the legislation.

[Mary Kelly Foy]

Q We heard from a previous witness that young people say that most of the advertising for vapes is in the shops. The Bill will bring in powers to regulate vapes, and that includes advertising. How do you envisage that the ban on advertising will be enforced on the high street, locally and in small shops?

Lord Michael Bichard: It will be enforced in the same way we enforce it for tobacco and other things. This is not new. Trading standards officers employed by local authorities are constantly visiting premises, and they will therefore deal with any offences that are being committed. They also have their own local intelligence networks. We cannot afford, because we do not have enough staff, to just have a random system where we pop in every now and then. We depend on people giving us intelligence. Some of those people are members of the public, and some are from other agencies. We try to target what we do. When you visit a shop—there are something like 60,000 outlets—you can see whether the current legislation, or future legislation, is being implemented. We can take action against the retailer if it is not.

[Mary Kelly Foy]

Q I was basing that on what you said at the beginning—that trading standards had been cut by 50%—so I know that local authorities will struggle. I also know that although a penalty has been put in place, six months later that same shop will be doing exactly the same thing again. I guess the question is about the resourcing of trading standards—

Lord Michael Bichard: Absolutely. I was going to say that if you are making a case for trading standards to have more resources, I am absolutely with you. I think that trading standards does an amazing job with limited resources. One borough in London now has no trading standards officers, and that is a great worry. We are there to protect consumers in all sorts of ways, but we are also there to try to establish a fair marketplace, so we are working on behalf of legitimate businesses. A lot of retailers want to support us in dealing with bad practice among their competitors. Yes, we need more resources.

Wendy Martin: Clearly, the responsibility is on businesses to comply with the law, first and foremost, and the hope would be that the vast majority of those outlets do so, because they are either part of bigger businesses with corporate structures to ensure compliance, or part of trading associations where that training and information is available. Generally, most people want to do the right thing. What that means is that the additional resources are necessary and can be focused on those sectors where there is intelligence from consumers, enforcers and other businesses—businesses will complain, and rightly so, about competitors who are flouting the law. That enables targeting, rather than feeling the need to try to inspect 60,000 or 70,000 premises. That would not work, and it does not need to work like that.

Lord Michael Bichard: Local trading standards officers know the problem retailers, where the problems are. I started my career doing prosecutions for trading standards, so I know a bit about how they work on the ground. They know where to target their efforts. I should also point out that there is a committed workforce here. Recently, we did a survey of the workforce, and 80% of them supported the legislation. It always helps.

[The Chair]

One final quick question from Jim Dickson, before we have to go on to the next panel.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

Q From what I remember, vapes really started in the UK around 2010. Do you think that the Bill is sufficiently future-proof for the next evolution of nicotine or oral tobacco products? Whatever is coming next, do you think the Bill has enough to protect us from it?

Professor Sanjay Agrawal: I have not yet had the chance to say this, but first, I think the Bill is really well balanced. It is bold and world leading; all nicotine products and non-nicotine containing vapes are part of it. The people who put this together should be congratulated, but we also have to be aware that industry never sleeps. It will try to adapt to regulation and legislation, and we need to be wary of that and make sure that we use the powers in the Bill in the future, depending on how industry responds.

For example, with disposable vapes, which are due to be banned later this year, I am sure that there will be a lot of companies right now changing their products to make them look as though they are not disposable vapes when, to all intents and purposes, they are. There will be lots of adaptation by industry that we must be wary about. The Bill provides those future powers for us to adapt to industry.

[Mary Kelly Foy]

Q As we know, we have very high levels of child poverty in this country. Much of that poverty is in the areas where there is high smoking prevalence, as well as many other health issues. How important do you think the Bill is for the health of children as they grow into adulthood, for the impact that it will have on the communities they live in, and for addressing inequality?

Professor Steve Turner: Touching on what I have said before, there are communities, invariably the poorer communities, in something called the tobacco map. If you look at the areas where tobacco use is greatest, it maps totally on top of deprivation. We have an opportunity to break that generational social norm of, “It’s okay to smoke.” The people who come to the greatest harm from cigarette smoking and nicotine addiction are invariably the poorest. What is proposed here will be a good step towards narrowing the divide we see in this country in health outcomes, which is totally determined by poverty.

Professor Sanjay Agrawal: We estimate that around 350 children a day start to smoke. A lot of those will be from the most deprived communities. In addition, smoking in the UK brings around a quarter of a million families into poverty, and those families have children. The Bill will go a long way to not only reducing the health harms to individuals, but reducing poverty and hopefully smoking-related deprivation.

To answer one of the questions earlier about the cost of smoking to the NHS, it is estimated that it costs secondary care about £1 billion a year. With primary care in addition, that is a total cost of £2.6 billion to the NHS, around £20 billion a year to social care, and about £50 billion a year in lost productivity. That is the overall cost of smoking to our society, whether at the level of the individual, poverty, deprivation, social care or workforce productivity, and that is why the Bill is so important.

[Jim Dickson]

Q Some other countries, notably Australia and Canada, have introduced mandatory health warnings for manufacturers to place on individual cigarettes and filters, because quite often, young people in particular are accepting cigarettes away from the packaging. Do you see that as a useful way of increasing the saliency of health warnings?

Professor Sanjay Agrawal: These additional measures warn people away from smoking—those who might be looking at the packaging or the individual cigarette. Remember, an individual cigarette—every time someone takes out a cigarette—is an advertisement for cigarettes. Lots of times, children are sold cigarettes on a per-cigarette basis, and they have never actually seen the packet; they have only seen the cigarettes. Therefore, having on-cigarette warnings is another measure that we can introduce to warn people off the harms of smoking. It would be great to see that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Barros-Curtis]

Q Minister, could you say a bit more about why you are taking the four-nation approach? I am a Welsh MP, and we have talked about some of the positive and progressive examples that have been illustrated in Wales, which we can learn from. Is the four-nation approach one of the strengths of this Bill? Will it help to ensure that you get that world you talked about, which I suspect—although I do not want to speak for everyone—we all support? Can you say a bit more about that four-nation approach, and if that is one of the key strengths underpinning this Bill?

Andrew Gwynne: It is. The four nations that make up our United Kingdom have gone at different speeds and to different depths in terms of tobacco control over recent years. Zubir was absolutely right to point out that it was the Scottish Labour Government that first introduced the indoor smoking ban, and we followed suit soon after, but it is really important that the four nations stand together on this, not least because some of this does require a four-nation approach in legislative terms. It also means that we can meet this ambition together, and that we are all in this together, because, for me, a health inequality in parts of Greater Manchester is just as important as a health inequality in Glasgow, Cardiff or Belfast.

We need to tackle these inequalities, because they are a scourge on our society. That is why a four-nation approach, alongside the permissive nature of this Bill, means that the four nations can go forward together, but also diverge on the basis of extending consultations and so on. That is why we have the support of the devolved nations and the Ministers, who come from different political persuasions across Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland; we are all in one, as far as this Bill is concerned, and we have shaped it together.

[Mary Kelly Foy]

Q We have heard overwhelmingly from the witnesses how important the Bill will be for tackling inequalities and bringing about a smoke-free future. I am confident that the Bill will pass. In terms of supporting the 6 million current smokers that we have in the UK, do the Government still have plans to make good on their pledge to produce a road map and strategy for reaching targets, especially in places such as the north-east and other deprived area? That way, we can keep an eye on those smokers who do want to quit and what the smoking prevalence ranges are in those areas. A few of the witnesses and submissions have called for that, saying how it would help them.

Andrew Gwynne: That is really important, and I want all Members to understand that a key aspect of reaching our smoke-free ambition is to drive down the prevalence of current smokers. That means a real investment in smoking cessation, a close eye on what is happening on the ground, and using the flexibilities in the Bill, should they be needed, to ensure that we reach that smoke-free ambition.

We announced £70 million of stop smoking funding this week, which has been weighted towards the areas with highest deprivation and smoking prevalence, so that we can try to drive down those inequalities. Obviously, future years funding is subject to the usual processes of the spending review, but let me make it clear that it is a priority of this Government to invest in stop-smoking services. We will ensure that local authorities and the public health functions of the country have the resources needed to reach a point where we are smoke free.

[The Chair]

Last, but certainly not least, I call Taiwo Owatemi.