Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Preet Kaur Gill and Steve Tuckwell

Committee stage
Tuesday 30th April 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Steve Tuckwell]

Q Thank you for coming in this afternoon. It is a pleasure to hear your thoughts. What will be the challenges for retailers in enforcing the ban on sales?

Adrian Simpson: The first challenge is education of all the shop staff. Our members are the very large, household-name retailers, and it will take a long time to get that education out to the hundreds of thousands—in some cases—of shop workers throughout the UK. We also think that there will be issues to do with changing our point of sale systems, things like where we are going to store some of these products if we need to, and even things like the size and nature of the tobacco notices. Retail operates in many different ways—we think of the large supermarkets, but there are very small stores as well—so a lot of thought needs to be given to the technical parts of the legislation, which of course we always work with you on.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

Q What conversations has the British Retail Consortium had with local authorities? They have a lot of data locally on the amount of illicit vapes or illicit tobacco being sold. They are already enforcing trading standards, so there should already be a level of awareness. What kinds of conversations have you been having with local authorities?

Adrian Simpson: Certainly. Ever since the point at which a potential vape ban and the rolling age restriction on tobacco were announced, we have been working very closely with the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, which represents local authority trading standards officials. Ever since the beginning, we have been in close conversation with them, talking about our concerns on the points I made about education and enforcement. Many of our members are closely linked to trading standards already, through the primary authority scheme. I am pleased to say that many of our BRC members have long-standing primary authority relationships, so they already work very closely with trading standards. Certainly at the BRC, I have been working closely with colleagues in the Chartered Trading Standards Institute.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Tuckwell]

Q You may have touched on this in some of your previous answers, but are there any tobacco and vaping products that are not covered by the Bill but which you think should be?

Kate Pike: We think that the tobacco age of sale should definitely apply to all tobacco products, and that the enabling regulations for vapes also allow the opportunity to add other nicotine products. The definition of nicotine is really helpful. The closing of the loopholes is really helpful. Loopholes are not helpful to enforcement, but closing the loopholes is really important to enforcement, so we are happy with that.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

Q To come back to your answer about the track and trace that you have for tobacco, have you had any conversations with Border Force and the MHRA about perhaps doing this for vapes? As you said at the beginning, you did not imagine that the industry would grow in the way it actually has around illicit and illegal vapes.

Kate Pike: Yes. As I say, we are already in the consultation that HMRC has running now about a vape excise tax. One of the questions is, “Would you want to see these products subject to track and trace?”, and the CTSI will go back and say, “Yes, but let’s get the vape excise tax in now,” because of what that is going to give us. A number of you have said your worry is illegal vapes. HMRC being involved in this enforcement picture will be a real game changer, because there will be extra boots on the ground in addition to ours, and that will really help in tackling illegal vapes.