Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Johnson]

The hon. Gentleman and I agree that we need to restrict the advertising of these products, because we do not want people, particularly young people and children, to start becoming addicted to nicotine. We agree on that. However, the Bill does not say an advert needs to promote a brand of nicotine product to be considered promotion or illegal under the Bill. It simply says “a nicotine product” or “a tobacco product”. I am keen to ensure the Minister clarifies that a doctor—I declare an interest as a doctor—or other health professional such as a pharmacist, like the hon. Member for North Somerset, will not find him or herself on the wrong side of the law for promoting vaping to individuals who smoke.

[Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. Current medicine regulations do not allow products to be advertised, but do not get in the way of smoking cessation clinics that currently take place at GP surgeries or pharmacies. The amendments the hon. Lady is proposing are, therefore, not needed. In fact, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford suggests, they could be used as a loophole for advertising by an industry that has been shown to be very successful at finding ways around legislation to increase market share and the numbers of smokers and vapers.

[Dr Johnson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He comes to this debate with significant experience as a pharmacist himself. In bringing forward this amendment, it is not our intention to create a loophole. None of us wants to see children vaping or using nicotine products and developing an addiction they struggle to quit for the rest of their lives, with the associated costs to their health and their purses. However, I want the Minister to assure the Committee that he has considered the position of pharmacists and people who will legally be selling these products as a stop smoking device, perhaps in a hospital clinic or as a health professional, and made sure they will not be criminalised.

If we are to follow the chief medical officer’s advice—that vaping is not suitable for children but is suitable for adults who smoke as a harm reduction measure—and are to have that harm reduction process in place, which I believe is the Minister’s intention, it is important to consider how it will continue under these regulations. It is important to consider how pharmacists and other health professionals will be able to have discussions with their patients or clients in which they may wish to say, “Vaping is better for you,” and in so doing effectively promote the process—not a specific product, but the genre of products.