Community Pharmacies

Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I must declare an interest as a registered pharmacist. I speak today wearing two hats: as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on pharmacy and as someone who spent nearly two decades working as a community pharmacist. That experience is why earlier this year, as APPG chair, I wrote a vision for what pharmacy should look like in 2040 and put it directly to policymakers across Government and pharmacy.

Community pharmacy remains one of the most accessible parts of the NHS, with around 80% of the population living within a 20-minute walk of a pharmacy. However, as has been mentioned, nationally 1,383 pharmacies have closed since 2016, including six in North Somerset, even after two pharmacies were reopened in Portishead thanks to the hard work of Magna Pharmacy and Ramesh. Every single day, 1.6 million people walk through a pharmacy door, saving an estimated 38 million GP appointments every year.

That is why the funding settlement announced last week matters so much. The 10.3% uplift adds £340 million to the overall contract. More importantly, an increase in the margin allowance provides important support and stability for the sector. I thank the Minister, the Department and Community Pharmacy England. However, I have called this a down payment on a brighter future. It is just a start, not an end point. The 10.3% uplift is very welcome, but it comes against a backdrop of an around 9% yearly increase in costs.

Pharmacy First and the inclusion of independent prescribing are good starting points, but the next step is to map out what we want Pharmacy First to look like through to 2030 and beyond. It cannot simply remain a pharmacist-led service for a small number of conditions. Community pharmacy has the potential to play a much broader role across acute care, minor ailments and prevention. That ambition must be backed with the professional boundary changes to match, because it will mean nothing if the foundations are not right.

Pharmacies are receiving £800 million less in real terms than a decade ago. The Government’s independent analysis found a funding gap of £2 billion a year. Former colleagues are telling me that they are dispensing more and more medicines at a loss, spending hours sourcing drugs that should be available and managing patients’ anxiety when the supply chain fails. As a country, we have become addicted to cheap medicines in our NHS, which has created vulnerabilities right across our supply chain. Fixing the drugs bill in a way that supports wider investment and greater supply chain resilience will also strengthen community pharmacy services for the future. We must get this right.

My vision for pharmacy in 2040 calls for genuine integration into neighbourhood healthcare, as the 10-year health plan intends. However, integration works only if the infrastructure works. A true single patient record system with read-write access for pharmacists is the foundation on which everything else depends. Primary care, pharmacy and hospitals all need to work from the same picture of the same patient and sing from the same hymn sheet. There is no point writing a vision for pharmacy’s future that does not fit the wider NHS system it sits within.

The 10-year health plan wants to move care closer to home. Community pharmacy is already there. It is an incredibly efficient, high-value asset to the NHS. I urge the Government to match that ambition with sustained, multi-year funding, a workforce plan that unlocks independent prescribing and the digital infrastructure to make seamless care a reality. This could be a really bright future for community pharmacy. I believe in the future of the profession, but only if we have the will to see it through.

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[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank the hon. Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour) for securing this important debate. I also thank the staff at community pharmacies across my constituency, particularly the staff at the Well pharmacy in Denton Holme who have given exceptional care and support to my family for many years.

Pharmacies and their staff provide a vital accessible health hub in our communities. However, this year Community Pharmacy England has reported that 55% of pharmacy staff experience abuse, often triggered by medicine shortages, prescription delays, long queues and other issues entirely outside their control. I am sure all hon. Members will agree that, whatever the prompt, abuse of that nature is completely unacceptable. I will therefore be grateful if the Minister can briefly outline what action the Government are taking to protect pharmacy workers from abuse.

Sadly, under the previous Government too many community pharmacies were lost. Between 2019 and 2024, 1,633 community pharmacies closed. In the same period, about 400 opened: just one for every four that was closed. In communities such as Carlisle, the closure of a pharmacy has a significant knock-on effect on the remaining pharmacies. Two pharmacies in the Harraby area of Carlisle have closed in recent years, placing additional pressure on the sole remaining pharmacy, on Central Avenue, and resulting in longer waits for prescription collections. It is therefore doubly frustrating that efforts to open a new pharmacy in the same community have so far come to nothing because the premises’ landlord, the Riverside housing association, has failed to respond to representations from both the prospective pharmacist and me since last October.

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

Shame!

[Ms Minns]

In the meantime, ironically, the shop next door, a former pharmacy, has been refurbed and opened as yet another barber’s and mini-mart. It is simply not good enough. That is why I very much welcome this Government’s prescription for our community pharmacies: not just £3.6 billion in funding for community pharmacies, but the Government’s high street strategy, the recently announced crackdown on dodgy vape shops and mini-marts and the plans to integrate community pharmacies as key local healthcare hubs. These actions are not just vital for the health of local people; they are vital for the health of our high streets, too.

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[Sadik Al-Hassan]

Only the good ones.

[Dr Chambers]

Yes, the good ones.

There has been a general consensus that pharmacies are often overlooked as a source of care for those in the community. I have visited many pharmacies in my Winchester constituency: there is Eric, who runs Springvale pharmacy up in Kings Worthy; there is Colden Common pharmacy in Colden Common; and there is the Wellbeing pharmacy on Winchester High Street, which gives me my flu jab every year. The people there actually make having a flu jab a lot of fun; we always have a great laugh. I never thought having a vaccine would be something I would look forward to, but I love going in and seeing them.

We know about the 8 am rush for GP appointments, so the fact that a high street service exists where one can drop in for advice and consultations is absolutely brilliant. Pharmacies allow us to siphon off some of the pressures on GP services, but—as pharmacists have been telling me repeatedly since well before I was elected—pharmacies are currently under immense pressure.

Adding to that pressure is the increase in national insurance contributions, which has saddled pharmacies and GP surgeries with additional costs. As a consequence, many local pharmacies have had to limit opening times and staff numbers. In Alresford in my constituency, the hard-working staff at Wessex Pharmacies have had to close shop on Saturday afternoons. That service will be sorely missed, particularly by those who are in full-time education or work during the week and who relied on being able to pick up their prescriptions at the weekend.

In addition, shorter opening times mean that if a patient sees their GP later in the day, the required prescription is delayed by a day if the paperwork is not registered in time. For a patient with an urgent need for medication, that extra day can be extremely frustrating and worrying.

Although we really do welcome the recent 10% increase in Government funding to community pharmacies, it is worth pointing out that that is giving with one hand and taking with the other. In the wake of rising costs for energy, staff and medicines, this funding increase was the first in 10 years, so it was sorely needed, but unfortunately, it did little to alleviate the extreme pressures heaped on community pharmacies in the Budget.

That point comes into focus when we consider the rise in drug costs: a 20% to 30% rise for things like paracetamol and hay fever medications, and an elevenfold rise in the cost of cancer drugs since February, while the funding provided to community pharmacies has dropped by more than 20% in real terms since 2015. That is why we are calling on the Government to invest in pharmacies in smaller towns, particularly in villages and rural areas such as mine in the Meon valley. In places such as Bishop’s Waltham and Colden Common, people need access to a community pharmacy, and not only for convenience: Conservative-run Hampshire county council has cut vital bus services to the nearest big towns, which means that people without a vehicle, especially older people, absolutely rely on local pharmacies for their medication.

We are also calling for a new, long-term, sustainable model for pharmacies and an expansion of Pharmacy First to give patients more accessible routine services so that we can free up GPs’ time. We want an exemption for pharmacies from the national insurance contributions increase so that funds can be spent on patients and vital medications.

I come to my final, key point. I have spoken to many pharmacists since I was elected and before that, and I have had very long, in-depth conversations with them. I have also attended events in Parliament organised by the Royal College of Pharmacy and the National Pharmacy Association and I have discussed their issues with the NHS pharmacy contract. Given my professional background, I am used to sourcing, dispensing and prescribing drugs. However, the contract is so complicated that, despite my extensive conversations with those organisations, I do not fully understand it. The key message that comes out is that it costs pharmacists to dispense NHS medication in many cases, and that NHS medication is sometimes being subsidised by other sales in shops. I even met two pharmacists who said that their personal finances are subsidising some NHS dispensation. That is clearly not tenable in the long run.

Jhoots Pharmacy

Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call our very own pharmacist, Sadik Al-Hassan.

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

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. As a pharmacist for nearly 20 years and the MP of North Somerset, I have the dubious pleasure of having two Jhoots pharmacies in the town of Portishead in my constituency. I cannot say two operating pharmacies, because they have shuttered their doors, with reports of them not having paid their bills, their rent or their staff. As a pharmacist, I know that this affects the perception and view of community pharmacy up and down the country. What plans do the Minister and the Department have to ensure that bad actors in the pharmacy space—as Jhoots, in my opinion, appears to be—are dealt with more quickly and effectively under new legislation?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Questions should not be statements.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

The hon. Gentleman will have seen—and I am sure will welcome—the record uplift of £3.1 billion that we are putting into the pharmacy sector after years of underfunding, incompetence and neglect from the Conservative party. A big part of this is ensuring that the shift from hospital to community takes place, and we want pharmacists to be taking pressure off primary care. We have to make Pharmacy First work effectively, which means getting the allocation of funding right. That is what we are working on in terms of reforms. Now that we have the spending review and the package, that is what we will be delivering.

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

3. If he will undertake a review of the potential impact of medicine supply chain shortages on community pharmacies.

[The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)]

Increasing the resilience of the UK medical supply chain is a key priority. I regularly meet the team to routinely take action to mitigate supply issues, including requesting additional stock, identifying alternative global sources and issuing management advice. Although the Department has no plans to conduct a specific review, we constantly work to identify and take forward further actions to reduce the impact of medicine shortages, including targeted winter monitoring.

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

Having worked in community pharmacies for nearly 20 years, I have witnessed at first hand the pain that medicine shortages can cause North Somerset patients and their loved ones. Will the Minister meet me, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Steve Race) and other members of the all-party parliamentary group on pharmacy, to discuss the outcome of our inquiry into these shortages?

[Karin Smyth]

I congratulate my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour on his dedicated career in community pharmacy, and thank him for the expertise that he brings to the work of the all-party parliamentary group to help Members understand the impact of this issue on patients and pharmacies. I am planning to hold a parliamentary event on the subject in the autumn, and I am keen to work with the APPG to make it a success for all Members.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts

Report stage
Friday 13th June 2025 Commons Chamber

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

Before entering this place last July as the Member for North Somerset, I had been a pharmacist for nearly 20 years. Pharmacists have a unique role in our healthcare system as the group of health professionals who specialise in drug usage and safety. That is where I wish to focus my thoughts today, and on which I offer the House my expertise.

Throughout the passage of the Bill, we have had the great benefit of learning from a number of international examples. In Australia, we have seen a carefully designed countrywide pharmacy system that has delivered self-administered assisted dying safely and with dignity. The evidence from that experience is greatly reassuring. Even in cases where the drug was not fully ingested, every patient who made use of the service died peacefully and without complications, with not a single complaint yet received from any of the families involved.

From Switzerland, we have learned from decades of practice, over which they have refined the substances and processes involved to the point where complications are now nearly unheard of. Their approach demonstrates that with care and rigorous regulation, drugs can offer an effective and compassionate route to end one’s life.

That brings me to new clause 13, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater). The clause outlines a comprehensive framework for the oversight and safety of substances involved in assisted dying. As is only right for life-ending drugs, the public expect the highest standards of transparency and the highest standards from manufacture to dispensing. As someone who has been involved in every facet of pharmacy for the past 20 years, I believe that the clause meets all our expectations. By strengthening safeguards and enhancing the workability of the Bill, new clause 13 ensures that healthcare professionals can act with clarity and confidence.

Amendment 72 is similarly important, and I believe it will provide much assurance to those in this place who are uncertain about whether they can support the Bill. By ensuring that all regulations made by the Secretary of State under new clause 13 are subject to the draft affirmative procedure, it will ensure that this place continues to play a central role in overseeing the safe and effective implementation of this legislation for years to come, and through our collective and continued scrutiny, it offers the opportunity for many millions of constituents who have contacted us on this issue to continue to have their voices heard and their concerns answered.

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I rise to speak to new clause 14 and amendments (a) and (b) to that new clause. I am honoured to speak after the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh). I also thank the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) for working closely with us on the issue of banning advertising. Whatever our views on assisting terminally ill adults to end their lives—and I remain implacably against the potential harms that arise when our society and our imperfect state are given permission to help people kill themselves—I have to acknowledge that there was a majority on Second Reading in favour of the Bill and a majority for closing down debate in the last sitting on Report.

Thinking ahead to the possibility that this Bill might get on to the statute book, I hope that everyone participating in the debate will recognise that we should not allow the services of the organisations that will arise from the legislation to advertise on television, online, on posters, on TikTok or on any platform that our constituents may see.

We can all imagine a scenario where, if the Bill passes without the House agreeing to new clause 14, independent contractors and not-for-profit firms, and perhaps even the NHS, will be able to advertise to potential customers, for instance on afternoon television. Can you imagine a situation, Madam Deputy Speaker, where, while watching a repeat episode of “One Foot in the Grave”, an advert runs for a funeral plan company, and is then followed by an advert for an organisation offering services to make it easier to have an assisted death?

Members may think the situation I am painting is merely hypothetical, but in Belgium, in fact, the Government themselves are running online adverts featuring young, healthy women at a yoga class talking about how they are worried about granny’s situation, and discussing whether they have considered telling her about the option of assisted dying.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Spen Valley for tabling new clause 14. It is not perfect, but she and I have had a lot of discussion about the wording. I also support the intention behind amendments (a) and (b) to new clause 14. It is important that Ministers confirm—as we have heard before, and as I hope we will again today—that encouraging assisted dying under the Bill remains a crime under section 2 of the Suicide Act. However, this requires showing intent to encourage, and adverts might be framed so that they are not so intended, so a specific provision on advertising is needed in this legislation.

I am also concerned about the scope of some of the exceptions in unamended new clause 14. I am grateful that the example set out in subsection (2) does not refer to potential service users, but there is nothing preventing the Secretary of State from exercising Henry VIII powers to exempt them, and doing so would negate the point of the prohibition. I would be grateful if the Minister would confirm that the power will not be exercised to create exceptions for adverts targeted at potential service users.

It is the case, as the hon. Member for Rochdale mentioned, that a number of advert bans already exist on the face of legislation, such as the Cancer Act 1939, the Surrogacy Act 1985 and the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002. Such bans are set out clearly on the face of those Acts.

I hope the matter can be resolved. I hope the House today will, at a minimum, support new clause 14. I hope that the House will also support the strengthening amendments, which I endorse. I hope that Ministers will confirm that these powers will never be used to create an exemption to section 2 of the Suicide Act in order to partially allow encouragement of assisted dying, as I think it would defeat the whole point of the provision.

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[Gregory Stafford]

I entirely agree. Some of the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) may address that.

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gregory Stafford]

I will make a little progress, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment.

My amendment would require the Secretary of State to prohibit the use of medical devices designed to induce death by the administration of gas, such as the Sarco suicide pod, which has been in the press recently. That device bypasses medical oversight entirely and presents an ethical rupture in our current framework. If the Bill proceeds without safeguarding against such methods, we risk opening the door to a deeply troubling precedent—one that would erode professional accountability and compromise the integrity of end-of-life care.

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

I would like to share my expertise as a pharmacist with the hon. Member. Drugs can be used for many indications and are quite commonly used in unlicensed situations, where there would be less evidence to support them than in the situation that we are discussing today with new clause 13: an idea that is incredibly well researched, practised and evidenced in multiple countries.

[Gregory Stafford]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I do not disagree that drugs are used for different things; that is not the thrust of the argument that I am making. What I am saying—relatively clearly, I hope—is that when the drugs we would potentially use in these situations have been used, there have been unintended consequences and side effects. We must ensure that the drugs we use, if the Bill passes, are absolutely effective in what they are intended to carry out: namely, the end of the life of the individual.

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[Dr Johnson]

I think one of the key problems with this form of intervention, compared with others, is that we cannot ask the patients afterwards how that felt. We cannot get their feedback, because they are dead. If we are going to give them things such as neuromuscular blockers or sedatives, we may not be able to tell what they feel. There are physiological ways in which we can monitor patients and get some idea—perhaps in their heart rate or blood pressure—but we will not be doing that. That is, therefore, one of the reasons for my tabling the amendments, to ensure that the drugs are properly regulated by the MHRA, so that we know that they have been properly tested on the purpose for which they are to be used.

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lizzi Collinge]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

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[Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)]

I rise to speak in support of amendment (a) to amendment 77, which is in my name. I should also refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests about my involvement with the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

New clause 13, we are told, is a replacement for clause 34; I hope that Members have taken the time to compare the two. New clause 13 contains even more powers than clause 34. It follows the trend of this Bill: instead of more detail being added, more powers are added. It seems to me that the line is, “There are some issues that we’ll sort out later,” but that this place will not be involved in that “later”. What is particularly concerning is that the powers that the Bill creates contain no explicit limit or guiding principle by which they are to be exercised. Nor do we have the benefit of a policy paper from the Secretary of State saying how he intends to exercise those powers or how his successors will.

I believe that the provisions relating to “approved substances”—clause 25 and new clause 13—face a real problem. As Dr Greg Lawton, a barrister and pharmacist, told the Committee in written evidence, the lethal substances intended to end life are not medicinal products within the meaning of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012. That definition is itself derived from EU law, which states that

“the term ‘medicinal product’…must be interpreted as not covering substances whose effects merely modify physiological functions and which are not such as to entail immediate or long term beneficial effects for human health.”

That creates the real problem: if the substances are not medicinal products, why does the Bill provide that pharmacists are to be involved in their preparation and why would doctors be supplying them? New clause 13(4) seeks to get around the problem by giving the power to the Secretary of State to amend the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 so that the substances fit in. The impact assessment tells us that the Government have no plans to conduct or rely on the sort of scientific studies normally done for drug approvals or for the MHRA to be involved.

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

As a pharmacist, I should say that the drugs to be used for assisted dying are commonly used in pharmacy now. It would be obvious for pharmacies to supply those drugs in some way, shape or form. I accept the hon. Member’s point about medicines being used, but he will, I hope, accept my point: how would the same studies used to approve treatments be used to approve their use for death?

[Robin Swann]

I think the hon. Gentleman said in an earlier intervention that those medicines would then be used off licence, to the risk of the prescribing doctor and the person using them. That is where the risk falls back on the individual rather than being covered by anything in the Bill. That is where my regret comes.

I understand the need to treat the substances as medicinal products in England and Wales if it is the will of the House to change the law here; what I cannot understand is why the law should change the situation for the rest of the United Kingdom. That is the basis of my amendment to amendment 77. The House is not voting for assisted dying in Northern Ireland, so it has no locus to change the definition of a medicinal product in Northern Ireland in order to accommodate this Bill, which we have been told applies to England and Wales only. Or is it the intention of the Bill’s sponsor or those behind her to extend it to Northern Ireland at a later date, using some of the Henry VIII regulations in it?

There is a further issue in Northern Ireland. We are still in part subject to EU law, and I would be interested to know whether the Government have considered that aspect. Can the Minister really change, by ministerial diktat, EU law in Northern Ireland when it comes to the use of these substances? If so, why is he not being granted such power in other areas of significance to Northern Ireland? Why only this? Why has so much Government time previously been spent on medicine regulation and supply for Northern Ireland? Why did the right hon. Member for Melton and Syston (Edward Argar), as the Minister of State for Health, and I, as the Minister of Health in Northern Ireland, spend so much time on that? To that extent, I ask the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) and the Minister: what engagement has there been with the Department of Health in Northern Ireland or the chief pharmaceutical officer for Northern Ireland? Or is this another part of the Bill that is being put in to meet the promoter’s needs without any background or engagement?

In conclusion, the application of those provisions to Northern Ireland also has implications for the conscience protection. If, as a result of regulations made under those provisions, pharmacists in Northern Ireland are required to be involved in the manufacture or preparation of such substances, they will not have the benefit of the conscience clause, as that clause has not been extended to Northern Ireland. I therefore oppose the extension of those provisions to Northern Ireland and Scotland. I will also oppose amendment 77 and ask hon. Members to support amendment (a) to amendment 77 in my name.

Draft Human Medicines (Amendments Relating to Hub and Spoke Dispensing etc.) Regulations 2025

Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 General Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stuart. I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a registered pharmacist, and previously a superintendent pharmacist of a distance-selling pharmacy. Although it is great to hear the hon. Member refer to distance-selling pharmacies in this august place, I remind him that he is representing the views of only one, admittedly large, distance-selling pharmacy, and that there is perhaps a wider range of views among distance-selling pharmacies.

[Dr Evans]

Of course, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, with his august history as a pharmacist. My job in the Opposition is to raise these issues with Ministers for consideration. At the heart of my point is that, by choosing only one model and not offering two, we are closing down the opportunity for not only patients but businesses. If we want to invent in the NHS, that seems a bad way of doing it. It is why the last Government suggested that having a couple of models allows people to invest in, invigorate and improve our system, because otherwise, innovation will fall behind. That is at the heart of the questions I am posing to the Minister.

That leads me nicely on to my follow-up question. Does this mean that the Minister will choose not to introduce model 2? Is that likely to be in line in the future, and if so, when?

Those questions go to the principle of this. The last Government decided that there were two options to accommodate all different fields, be it dispensing GPs, community pharmacies, large-scale chemists and pharmacies or, indeed, distance-selling pharmacies. It is really important to take into account the whole environment we have in the health service. We will not divide the Committee, but we would like answers to those questions about the practicalities and policies behind the regulations.

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

I start by reminding the Committee again about my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which includes a number of pharmacy-related entries as a registered pharmacist, including my employment by PillTime prior to being elected to the House.

With that out of the way, may I say how genuinely thrilled I am to be here this evening? Although this may seem a very niche issue to many on the Committee, as a pharmacist for nearly 20 years, many of those spent in community pharmacy and latterly in online pharmacy, I can tell Members through first-hand experience of the difference that this legislation will make to thousands of community pharmacies struggling across the country.

Although I am incredibly thankful to the Government for finally unfreezing the funding settlement after a near decade-long squeeze under the Conservative Government, there remains great financial strain upon the sector and thus a clear need for modernisation to improve efficiencies. Innovation such as hub and spoke model 1 is how we enable that modernisation and unlock the efficiencies needed to ensure community pharmacy has a future. Having worked in pharmacies for the last two decades, I know the difference that implementing hub and spoke model 1 could quickly make to my fellow pharmacists not only in enabling greater efficiencies, but in creating the much-needed additional capacity to enable the delivery of Pharmacy First services. As we look at implementing the three big shifts, pharmacy has a clear role in delivering the preventive agenda, but it can only step up and fulfil that role if we give it the funding and capacity to do so.

In late March, Minister Kinnock ensured that community pharmacy received the largest uplift in funding across the whole of the NHS. Today, the Committee can deliver hub and spoke dispensing and thus create additional capacity. Having worked with innumerable stakeholders in the pharmacy sector to get this legislation moving again after its derailment last September, I can say with confidence that there is widespread support within the community pharmacy sector for hub and spoke model 1. It will finally provide the beloved village pharmacy a level playing field with the larger chains, which have been able to utilise these technologies for decades.

The benefits of the model extend far beyond the efficiency savings, with robust evidence of greater levels of patient safety by providing access to automation in the dispensing process. I thank the Minister for acting with haste greater than many in the sector expected when the implementation of hub and spoke was indefinitely delayed last September. Although I apologise for the interminable stream of letters, conversations in corridors and questions I have since sent his way, I am afraid I still have one more point that I would appreciate clarification on.

As I understand it, the VAT status of hub and spoke services is still to be explained. Could the Minister elaborate on what exactly the VAT status will be for any fees or charges between hub and spoke? From my understanding, it is currently treated as zero-rated,and there exists some uncertainty within the sector over whether that will still apply under model 1, and if not, what elements might be subjected to VAT and at a higher rate.

[The Chair]

It is worth noting that Members should refer to colleagues by their constituency, as opposed to their name, even when they are an august Minister.

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.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Andrew Gwynne]

As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West, we will take all this away and look at it in detail, and we will come back to Members. I am just about legally savvy enough to understand the point that the hon. Lady is making that a break clause or something like it would probably be required, because the coming into law of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill on Royal Assent is expected—it is not an act of God, and it will not come as a complete shock and surprise.

Finally, clause 133 allows us to extend all of part 6 to cover devices that enable a

“tobacco product to be consumed”

or

“an item which is intended to form part of such a device”,

but that are not in the Bill.

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

On the conversation we were having previously, does the reference in clause 125(3) to a “specified date” mean that we can have an open discussion with the Secretary of State in the next stage of the Bill’s passage about deciding at what point the provision will apply to the contracts?

[Andrew Gwynne]

I will take that away, because I do not know the answer off the top of my head. In bringing forward regulations, the Secretary of State and I will want to ensure that we get these measures right. That is why there are statutory duties to consult on secondary legislation throughout the Bill. That will ensure that we get these measures and the details right, and that there will hopefully be no ambiguity about the different dates for the offences of printing, publishing and distributing advertisements or about those related to sponsorship deals and the production of the kits that come out of them. With that, I commend the clauses to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 124 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 125 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Taiwo Owatemi.)

Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Eighth sitting)

Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 16th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

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

Would the hon. Lady’s amendments affect the financing of the actions of trading standards, and would more money need to go in to offset that?

[Liz Jarvis]

I do not know the answer to that, so I will refer that question to the Minister.

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

They are your amendments.

[Liz Jarvis]

I am sorry; I do not know about that.

Our amendments would also promote transparency and accountability by giving those with skin in the game a direct role in deciding how fines are used to address public health priorities in their area. They would strengthen the Bill’s public health focus while retaining the integrity of its enforcement mechanisms.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Sixth sitting)

Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Johnson]

It is catching—it is the time of day, I think.

Paragraph 787 of the impact assessment says:

“We know that one of the main reasons children take up vaping is due to peer pressure…It is therefore worth considering that instances of vape vending machines in easily accessible areas might be an enabler for those who would not otherwise seek out a vape or who would be deterred by having to speak to an adult”.

Children would have to seek out an adult to make a purchase, because they have to go to a till or counter to get the vapes. Under the new legislation, that adult would look for ID, while a vending machine would provide a circumnavigation, so this is a sensible clause.

Most of us recognise that the vending machines currently selling disposable vapes have a finite lifetime, because this Government have banned them in the future under a statutory instrument in the competence of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. However, British American Tobacco has already stated that it is working on a product to sell the Velo brand—one of its nicotine pouches—via “age-gated vending machines” and is hiring for the product. Again, that is taken from the impact assessment.

That further highlights the need for a blanket ban on vending machines, particularly given that, as things stand, they are clearly advertising tools for vaping. Wherever the machines are placed, they are visible to the consumer, and the consumer needs to know what is in the vending machine in order to choose what to buy. Given the regulations appearing later in the Bill, we will be looking at the display of such products. It therefore seems nonsensical to have restrictions on the display of products, but to allow vending machines, which allow the display of products, in contravention of that. One aim of the Bill is to ensure that non-smokers do not begin vaping and get hooked on nicotine. These provisions strengthen that through age verification and on the marketing front.

I will now deal with some of the issues to do with mental health hospitals. My hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire said that the 2,400 vends were evidence of 2,400 positive choices. I am not sure that that is necessarily the case. The evidence is that 2,400 vapes were bought, but not that those individuals had ever smoked. We do not know whether the vending machines are being used by people who smoke or people who do not—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor comments from a sedentary position; if he wants to intervene, he is welcome to do so. A proportion of people out there smoke, and a proportion do not.

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Mark. Based on the behaviour of vape companies now, which is similar to that of tobacco companies previously, this proposal would allow further expansion of vending machines and further display on vending machines in more and more places. Is that the point that the hon. Member is making?

[Dr Johnson]

In essence, in relation to clause 12, yes. I do not think that vending machines including tobacco and nicotine products or vapes are a good idea, and I moved a new clause for inclusion in the previous Bill because a ban on nicotine and vaping products in vending machines had not been included at the outset. Without such a measure, we will see an expansion of vending machines as a way of selling products to children and getting children addicted. It will be done as a way of making products more available to adults, but its effect will be that the products are more available to children. I do not want to see such products available to children, because they are clearly harmful for them. All the medical evidence we have had states that clearly.

With regard to individuals in mental health hospitals, some may be there as voluntary patients, and some under a mental health section. When someone’s liberty has been taken from them because they are being treated for a mental health condition, we need to be careful that we are not restricting them in other ways in which we would not restrict other people. That is a fair point to make.

We also have to be mindful of the staff. As we go through the Bill, the Minister will rightly be looking at exposure to vaping inside hospitals and at extending the tobacco regulations that limit smoking in public indoor places to cover vaping in indoor public spaces. Indeed, he and you, Sir Roger, will have seen the signs placed in the Tea Room by the Speaker, who rightly wants to see that we do not have vaping there. The public do not want vaping in their tea rooms or in the public domain either, so that is the right thing to do. We need to consider that there are staff and other patients in mental health hospitals who may not wish to vape and should not be inadvertently and unnecessarily exposed to vaping products.

I do not support the idea that 2,400 vends means that this is a positive choice. For some of these people, vaping may have been a positive change from smoking, but for others it may have been a decision to vape.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Rankin]

I supported clauses 10 and 11 because I agree with the Government that under no circumstances should children be taking up vaping. I was heartened by the Minister’s comments on the principle of clause 10, the general point about evidence and balance when it came to vaping, and treating vaping differently from cigarettes and tobacco products.

However, I cannot quite go along with the Government on clause 12, because there they have the balance slightly wrong. I accept that vape vending machines should be prohibited, for the same reason that tobacco and cigarette vending machines were prohibited: vending machines cannot provide for age verification. That balance is well struck. However, I do not support the related measure for nicotine product vending machines. The Minister may seek to correct me, but I am not aware that any of the products described by the shadow Minister, such as nicotine patches and gum, is used recreationally or is attractive to children.

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

Does the hon. Gentleman not think that, if other items are restricted, people will end up buying those items? We are going to restrict what is available, and that will surely open them up as an avenue if we do not close it now.

[Jack Rankin]

I do not think that nicotine products are attractive to children in any way, shape or form today. My concern is that, as the Government are seeking to stop children using them by restricting them in vending machines—I do not think they should be using them—

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Rankin]

I mean the former: nicotine patches and gum. The stated intention of the Bill, supported by the House on Second Reading, is to move to a smokefree generation, so it would seem sensible to make nicotine products pretty widely accessible, in so far as they do not attract children. We should largely welcome a vending machine selling nicotine patches or gum if the intention is to move to a smokefree generation. I do not think the Government have the evidence and the balance quite right on that point, so I cannot support clause 12 as it is currently written.

I would make a similar case in support of the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire. She has read to us evidence from a relevant professional, who has a legitimate concern. It might be sensible, in the interest of broader public health, to have such a vending machine. If the Government are concerned about evidence and balance, those are exactly the kinds of voices they should be listening to, and they should accept the amendment, which is very much in line with their intent.

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

Does the hon. Gentleman have any evidence that there is a restriction on access to stop smoking products now? In my experience as a pharmacist, I have not seen that.

[Jack Rankin]

I do not think I can talk to that point, but I thank the hon. Gentleman for making it.

We have to find a balance. The Government can use their majority in the House to cast aside my hon. Friend’s amendment, but it seems to me that it is in line with the principle of the Bill, so it is a sensible thing to do.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Third sitting)

Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 9th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Johnson]

Once again, Sir Roger, I am very grateful for your guidance to the Committee. I was explaining the change in amendment 17, and my hon. Friend, like the very wise chap that he is, brings something forward that I had not really considered, despite my attention to this Bill over some time—and Members will be very much aware it is something that I have taken a long interest in.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: some people argue that the Bill creates two tiers of adults—some who are allowed to smoke and some who are not. In fact, that is exactly what it does. Eventually, of course, people get older and older. I saw that the oldest person in the world sadly passed on in the last week or so, and she was 116. I am not quite sure about the age of the current oldest person in the world, but I suspect their age is similar. Therefore, I suspect that it will take quite a long time before my hon. Friend’s ideal of all adults being treated the same is once again achieved. I suspect that I will certainly be long gone before it does, and I anticipate that the rules we are proposing will last the rest of our lifetimes here today.

This modification shifts the approach from creating a tobacco-free generation to implementing a uniform age limit that applies universally, regardless of the buyer’s birth year. That simplifies enforcement because sellers would need only to confirm whether a buyer is under 25, and they would not need to do the mental arithmetic in their head that says, “Okay, that is their birthday, but how old would that make them?” The Minister, in his questions on Tuesday, raised the point repeatedly with one of our witnesses about whether it is simpler to have a date of birth or an age. My understanding is that a lot of tills nowadays will give a prompt to the person working behind the till to say, “If you are born before or after this date, that is where the 18 cut-off is.”

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

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Johnson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the promotion—I shall mention it the Chief Whip and see how that goes!

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

My training and experience as a pharmacist over two decades involved working with systems such as tills that teach people how to ask for age verification. Does the hon. Lady agree that the Minister is spot on and that actually this is a moot point, because the software, support and training is already there across the country, including in independent shops, and age verification is quite easy to do?

[Dr Johnson]

I think it is straightforward to have an age and a date of birth to check. It could become more confusing if we ended up with a range of age-restricted products and the age for each of them was different, as that would require people to look at a whole spreadsheet of dates of birth.

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

Software systems I have worked with already have the facility to differentiate by product, including for razor blades and alcohol products. That already exists across retail and in a variety of retail premises.

[Dr Johnson]

The hon. Gentleman’s intervention highlights the fact that in Parliament we benefit from the experience of so many different people. Each of us comes to this place with our own history, backstory and experience of working in a whole range of different professions and jobs. That is one of the reasons why we go through these Bills line by line. It may seem to some extent slow and plodding to go through things so methodically, but that means that each person can, as he has, bring their experience forward and explain the ways that tills and such things work, which is really beneficial. I thank him for that intervention.