Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Sixth sitting)

Sarah Bool Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Jack Rankin]

That is exactly the kind of situation I am thinking of. The language could be a bit more practical, less legal and it might aid that shopkeeper to point to an external source for validation.

I have two further points. One is a point of ignorance for me as a new Member, for which I apologise. I do not know what subsection (5) means when it says that

“Regulations under subsection (4) are subject to the negative resolution procedure.”

I hope someone can help me with that. Clause 6 is being taken together with clause 5, because clause 5 applies to England and clause 6 applies to Wales. To me, they appear to be exactly the same, apart from the age of sale notice described in clause 6(2) and the fact that clause 6 obviously also includes the Welsh version. I am going to take at face value that it says the same thing in Welsh, although I do not speak Welsh. It would be nice to clarify whether it is either/or whether it is both together. That is of interest.

[Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

I want to follow up on the points made on clause 5(3) and clause 6(3) in particular. Both specify that

“The notice must be displayed in a prominent position”.

I agree with many of the points my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor made about what that means in practice. In the information pack that we have been given, there is a quote from the Scottish Grocers’ Federation, which I want to read for the record. It explicitly states:

“In most convenience stores, space is at a premium and the suggested wording set out in UK Government proposals will require a significant surface area in order to be legible and accessible to all customers. The complexity of a moving ban will require very clear public messaging. Appropriate and mandatory signage is essential for good practice and the sale of age restricted items, SGF is concerned that multiple messages throughout the store relating to various product ranges and items could potentially create confusion and lead to challenging interactions between customers and staff.”

To protect our retailers, we must ensure that we enforce these regulations correctly. When making the regulations, the Secretary of State should take into account the voice of the retailers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Andrew Gwynne)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. In responding to points that have been made, I want first to reiterate that these two clauses do not relate to enforcement; they concern the nature of the signage that will be required to be displayed. We can come to those other matters later in the Bill’s proceedings. I remind Opposition Members of what has been said in previous debates: we will use the very long lead-in time to engage fully with the retail sector to ensure that we get the delivery in shops right and to ensure that the Bill’s provisions can be implemented without any hiccups.

I also reiterate that we abhor any violence and abuse towards retail staff—or anybody else—and it is the intention of this Labour Government to introduce a new offence in this respect. Given the comments that have rightly been made in the course of this and earlier debates, I hope that it will command full support from all parts of the House.

The hon. Member for Windsor asked what is meant by “negative resolution procedure”. It is the procedure for the statutory instrument that will be have to be made to introduce these regulations. The fact that it is “negative” means purely that it will not require a parliamentary debate. It will be done through the usual secondary legislation processes.

There were questions about the nature of the clauses relating to different parts of the United Kingdom, and why we are approaching this with slightly different methods. I must say politely—particularly to the shadow Minister—that we have to respect the devolution settlement. These matters are entirely within the legislative competence of the devolved Administrations. Some things remain reserved for the UK Government, but for a lot of the measures in the Bill, the legislative competence rests with the devolved Administrations and their Parliaments.

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[Dr Johnson]

That was the second question I considered when preparing for the debate on this clause. My first question was: what is snus? My second was: if it is a tobacco product, why is it treated differently? We have talked about all sorts of different tobacco products—cigarettes, cigars, snuff—yet this one has particularly robust regulation and a robust legal framework. The only reason I could find was that it is new, trendy and coming forward very quickly, and there were concerns that it would quickly take over the children’s market in the same way as vaping. That is the only suggestion I was able to find. I am sure the Minister will be able to help us to understand why snus is treated so robustly, although I am not sad to see that.

Clause 7 makes it an offence to manufacture oral tobacco products. Oral tobacco products are defined quite particularly as those that are for oral use but not intended to be inhaled or chewed, so they do not include chewing tobacco, which would be included under clause 1. They also have to be in either powder or particle form—as I said, they are in the form of ground tobacco. Currently, the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016 define “tobacco for oral use” similarly, as tobacco “intended for oral use”, not to be inhaled or chewed, and

“in powder or particulate form or any combination”,

whether presented in a

“sachet portion or a porous sachet, or in any other way”.

Regulation 17 provides for a UK-wide ban on the production and sale of snus. Schedule 6 to the Bill, which we will come to, will repeal that measure and replace it with clause 7.

I want to ask the Minister why it is an offence to manufacture oral tobacco products in the UK, and not an offence to manufacture other tobacco products. He has talked about the need for a smoke-free generation and his worries that smoking tobacco harms individuals’ health, wellbeing and ability to choose, but he has not chosen to ban the production of other tobacco products. I found that the last time an English-produced cigarette rolled off the production line was at the Horizon Imperial Tobacco factory in Nottingham in May 2016, and the last UK-made cigarette was produced at Japan Tobacco International’s plant in County Antrim in October 2017. He may feel that such a ban is unnecessary because we are not producing any tobacco products, but I am interested in his thoughts on the matter.

The penalty here is the most severe so far. We have had some debate about different clauses containing fines at levels 3, 4 and 5 on the standard scale, but this clause contains a much more severe penalty for a product that may or may not be less harmful than cigarettes, although it has not been suggested that it is much more harmful. The fine for breaching clause 7 on the ban on manufacture of snus is, on summary conviction, imprisonment of six months, a fine or both. Six months is based on the current upper limit in a magistrates court, but the Lord Chancellor announced in October last year a plan to increase the maximum penalty for a magistrates court to 12 months’ imprisonment, which would presumably apply to this Bill. I will be grateful if the Minister could clarify whether that is the case and whether there have been any convictions under the existing legislation. The penalty for conviction on indictment would be imprisonment not exceeding two years, a fine or both—again, quite severe penalties when compared with other aspects of the Bill and other tobacco products. I am interested to understand why.

[Sarah Bool]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Dr Johnson]

I am happy to give way—and to be promoted.

[Sarah Bool]

I apologise to my hon. Friend. I might have misunderstood, so may I clarify the intended purpose here? If snus is illegal under earlier regulations, what is this further provision? Is it to ensure that nicotine pouches are also caught? The UK has already banned the sale of all oral tobacco products, including snus, under the Tobacco for Oral Use (Safety) Regulations 1992, which implemented European Union directive 92/41. I am hoping for some clarity about that, but perhaps it will come from the Minister.

[Dr Johnson]

My understanding—I am sure the Minister will leap to his feet to correct me if I am wrong—is that the Bill does not apply to nicotine pouches per se, because nicotine pouches do not contain tobacco. As I understand it, the brands we see in our local supermarket in similar round pots contain nicotine, and they are put in the mouth and absorbed in a similar way, but they are not tobacco products. As I read the Bill, clause 7 will not apply to them, and obviously they are not currently illegal, because they are widely sold.

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[Dr Johnson]

Sorry. Equally, I note that the vast majority of Members across the House, both in my party and in other parties, strongly agree with clause 10 and the other clauses that seek to ensure that children do not have access to these products. If someone sells a vaping or nicotine product to a purchaser who is under the age of 18, it is an offence. Under clause 10(2), the seller can defend themselves on the basis

“that they were shown what appeared to be an identity document belonging to the purchaser and it confirmed the purchaser’s age as at least 18 years old, or…that they otherwise took all reasonable steps to avoid the commission of the offence.”

The Minister has talked about the simplicity of the smoke-free generation and his view that it is easier for shop workers to look at a piece of identification and establish whether someone’s birthday was before or after 1 January 2009 than to establish whether someone was born 18 years ago by doing the mathematics in their head from the person’s date of birth. That brings me again to the question of why we will not have a nicotine-free generation as well as a smoke-free generation. Would it be classed as a reasonable step? If a shop worker had asked for ID, taken the proper ID, as defined in clause 10(3), and done the mathematics wrong in their head, would they have taken all reasonable steps or would their arithmetic error mean that they were to all intents and purposes a criminal? I would be grateful for the Minister’s comments.

Acceptable identity documents for the purpose of buying nicotine or vaping products if one is over the age of 18 include a passport, a UK driving licence, a driving licence from the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, a European photocard driving licence or a proof-of-age standards scheme card with a hologram. During the discussions of voter ID, there was a debate about how many people had access to different forms of ID. Passports are reasonably expensive and not everyone drives a car, so how would someone who did not drive a car or have a passport provide ID? When it came to voter ID, the previous Government looked at a number of reliable sources of identification that could be used, which included the veterans card, certain travel documents and the like.

[Sarah Bool]

Recent announcements from the Home Office have confirmed that businesses will be able to legally accept the use of digital proof of age for alcohol products. I would like to see that approach extended to these products, to make the life of retailers easier as far as identification goes. It would be good to have further consistency and an extension of the definition of identity documents to allow for digital forms.

[Dr Johnson]

Digital ID is not something that I am particularly familiar with, but nevertheless it sounds sensible, where ID is reliable, reproducible, not easily faked and easily identifiable by staff. Broadening the forms of acceptable ID would ensure that when somebody is old enough to legally purchase a product, it is not excessively challenging for them to obtain an ID to do so. Clearly the Minister would want people to be able to buy age-restricted products if they are old enough, so I am interested to hear his view not only on my hon. Friend’s intervention about digital identification, but on veterans cards, bus passes and other cards that demonstrate the age of the user and include a photograph for added reliability.

Clause 10(4) states:

“A person who commits an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.”

On a personal level, selling vapes and nicotine products to children is a dreadful thing to do, as I am sure the chief medical officer has said. I am more than happy for the Minister to increase that fine if he wants to, but I am interested to understand why he has set it at that level. Notwithstanding any changes across the four nations, it is important that we look at the choices that the Minister has made. That is what we are here to scrutinise.

The problem that clause 10 seeks to address is vaping among children. Are children vaping? Yes, I am afraid to say that they are, in large quantities. The biggest report of which I am aware that looked specifically at rates of youth vaping was published in 2023 by Healthwatch Blackpool. It looked at over 4,000 children and found that just under a third of them—31%—said that they

“currently vape or sometimes vape”.

Of those children, 65%

“expressed a preference for fruity flavoured vapes”,

which we will deal with later in the Bill. There is clearly an issue that vapes are being directly marketed to children with bright, attractive colours. Some of the most popular flavours include bubble gum, cotton candy, strawberry ice cream and unicorn milkshake. What does unicorn milkshake taste like? I have no idea, but it is easy to see the appeal to children.

An investigation by The Observer in 2022 found that ElfBar, a company that makes vapes, was promoting its products to kids via TikTok. The TikTok platform is apparently used by half of eight to 11-year-olds and by three quarters of 16 to 17-year-olds. When I found that out, I had a look at the screen time of my own children to establish that they were not getting on it.

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[Sarah Bool]

I echo what my hon. Friend is saying, particularly in relation to online sales. I think we are all very aware that one aspect is being in the shop and physically trying to buy a product with ID; I take it from the ingenuity of our younger generation that they will always find ways around that, especially online, so we should perhaps give some further thought to how we can ensure that the companies are operating effectively—that there is robustness without over-regulation and that we have the methods to ensure that people are not following another loophole.

[The Chair]

Order. Before we proceed, let me explain that Sir Mark has had to leave the Chair and I am taking over for the duration—for as long as you choose to sit. I have, however, been briefed, so I am sure that nobody in the room will seek to take advantage of a change of Chairman to cover the same subjects all over again.

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[Sarah Bool]

I rise to speak in support of new clause 10, on banning those who are under 18 from vaping. Many know about the health risks of smoking. They see it as a bad habit and disgusting, as the children of my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon noted, but vapes are seen as being new age and social. Parents are in danger of encouraging vaping by buying something that they think is safer than smoking or drugs. We must be very careful about that, so this ban will be important in restricting sales. Children fear being excluded, so, through peer pressure, they are forced into vaping. We need to stamp out this practice.

Children are often confused about vaping. The problem is that they get an accidental addition to nicotine and struggle to pay attention in school, which has a negative impact not just on them but on their classmates. Apparently, children vape to deal with stress and anxiety—they are almost self-medicating, which is appalling. It is right that we protect our children by introducing this offence.

[Dr Johnson]

My hon. Friend talks about children self-medicating, but are they not making the situation worse? The use of vapes and nicotine products may exacerbate, rather than ease, any mental health symptoms that they have.

[Sarah Bool]

Absolutely. Unlike my hon. Friend, I am not a medical professional, but I wholeheartedly agree that it is a self-perpetuating cycle, and we need to stop it as soon as possible to protect children.

[Gregory Stafford]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I want to make two points about this part of the Bill. First, I support new clause 10, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham. It is essential that we close off all avenues for children to purchase vapes. In the Bill, the Government have done a very good job of dealing with physical retailers, but there is a gap in relation to online retailers. I hope the Minister is minded to support the new clause, either when we come to a vote on it in a few moments, or by inserting something similar into the Bill on Report to ensure we close off online retailers.

In my opinion, online retailers are more dangerous than physical shops. A child—especially a very young child—has to depart from their guardian or their adult to go and buy something in a shop, whereas they can purchase products online on their phone or computer in the comfort of their own home, and it is very difficult for a parent or a senior person in their family to spot that. We know that that is where a number of children and young people are getting these products, so we have to close off that avenue.

My second point is about a more fundamental issue with the clause itself. My hon. Friend the shadow Minister has said this quite extensively, but it bears repeating so that we get some answers from the Minister. It does not seem obvious why the Government decided to ban vapes for anyone under the age of 18, whereas for other tobacco products it is for anyone born on or after 1 January 2009. I completely accept that vapes can be used as a smoking cessation tool; it is important that they are used in that way.

When we come on to vending machines, there are medical settings in which people require some form of intervention to help to stop smoking, and we should be looking at that. However, it is not beyond the wit of the Bill’s drafting to apply 1 January 2009 to tobacco products, and then to create an exemption specifically for smoking cessation. I want to understand why the Minister has decided to make this distinction. Does he not see the potential risks in doing so? Hopefully, we all want people not to be addicted to any products that are harmful to them, but both retailers and consumers, when faced with two sets of rules for very similar products, could become confused and accidently fall foul of the law. Because of that confusion, the law might not be enforced as the Minister would like it to be. I very much hope the Minister addresses those two points in his closing remarks on these clauses.

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[Dr Johnson]

Amendments 65, 66, 82 and 83 were specifically there to provoke debate on the coherency of the penalty portfolio across the Bill. The Minister has clarified his position on that. It is very important that we see those who are selling vapes to children or, in the case of clause 11, buying vapes for children, appropriately deterred from doing so or appropriately punished. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 11 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 12

Vaping and nicotine product vending machines

[Sarah Bool]

I beg to move amendment 96, in clause 12, page 6, line 8, at end insert—

“(1A) The offence set out in subsection (1) does not apply to vending machines that are located within specialised mental health units that provide care for mental health patients.”

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Clause stand part.

Clause 78 stand part.

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[Sarah Bool]

This amendment states:

“The offence set out in subsection (1) does not apply to vending machines that are located within specialised mental health units that provide care for mental health patients.”

I tabled this amendment on the basis of the evidence provided to us. I put on record that the Committee received a letter by Peter Terry, a

“Smoke Free lead in a large Mental Health Trust in the North West of England”.

In his letter, he says,

“As you may be aware the success of hospitals and Trusts becoming smokefree environments (especially Mental Health units) is particularly challenging. Mental Health service users due to their conditions have little or no motivation to stop smoking. On the units of my trust the prevalence of smoking is consistently between 70-77%.”

He goes on to say:

“To ensure we allow service users who are hospitalized a safer way to manage their nicotine addiction...my Trust would require Vending machines. These would allow service users to purchase a closed pod system device, which is a lot less harmful than tobacco smoking. On admission they would be offered either free NRT products or to purchase a vape as described above.”

He is asking that we make an exemption.

The exemption was also supported in another submission from the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS foundation trust. Ben Kingsbury, the tobacco dependency lead in that trust, wrote to express his concerns over the ban on the sale of vapes from vending machines. He indicated that his trust had installed vending machines back in May 2024

“to ensure that vapes are available to staff and patients at all times.”

He stated:

“Since installation of the vending machines in our Trust we have had over 2400 individual vends. Each vend represents a staff or service user making a positive decision to improve their health. 2400 individual vends in just 6 months represents a saving to the Trust of around £12,000.”

He argued:

“Removing the machines will reduce patients’ independence in buying their own devices while in hospital and will have a financial implication to our Trust, as wards would be expected to fund more vapes.”

He was also concerned that

“a lack of vape provision on our Trust premises may result in patients returning to smoking”,

which I am sure we all agree we do not wish to be the result. He also asked that we consider the financial implications, as well as health and wellbeing of service users, by implementing the exemption.

We can all empathise with those who are admitted to mental health units. They may have difficult and complex conditions that they need to work through, and coping with a potential addiction may be too much for them. There may be a logic to listen to the voices of the experts—especially if we end up having smoke-free places around hospitals and how that will work out—asking us to allow a mechanism to help someone with smoking cessation.

The Minister himself has just said that vaping can be good to help someone quit, but if they do not have access to a vape they may face difficulties such as cravings, anxiety, trouble concentrating and all the other elements that go with it, including potentially going back to smoking tobacco in its pure form. Taking away the option from those in mental health units will only make their recovery harder, longer and more expensive for the NHS. I heartedly commend to all members of the Committee that we all consider this amendment thoroughly, to ensure that we are not doing additional harm by taking an aggressive approach in this regard.

[Gregory Stafford]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire for moving the amendment. One thing we have seen across the debate thus far, and indeed during oral evidence, is that we have been led by the evidence—the Minister has clearly said that. The evidence that my hon. Friend has provided is from medical experts. These are not vape peddlers or people from the industry, or people who want to make a quick buck out of those who are addicted to nicotine. These are health professionals who are trying to ensure that there is a balance between what is absolutely right—we do not want to see people vaping—and the reality of the situation in medical settings, especially in mental health settings, where the ability for patients to have a certain amount of autonomy is often vital to their mental recovery.

My hon. Friend also made the valid point that if we remove smoking and tobacco products from in and around hospitals, which is a suggestion in the Bill that I think I support, we must ensure that those who are addicted—and we accept that it is an addiction—are dealt with appropriately. Obviously, in most regular acute trusts, that would be dealt with through a nicotine patch, but for mental health services, as I said, the requirement for autonomy should sometimes outweigh the functional nature of a nicotine patch. Indeed, my understanding is that nicotine patches do not work for everyone, because some of the addiction is in the holding as well as the imbibing.

I welcome the Minister’s response. As I have said to him on previous amendments, even if he is not happy with the precise wording my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire has put forward, I hope that he can bring in some kind of exemption on Report, so that the medical professionals who have written to us are satisfied that their concerns have been heard?

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[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.

[Sarah Bool]

I appreciate that; those were the words of the NHS trusts themselves when they talked about positive decisions. We cannot always be sure exactly why someone made that decision, but we have to hope in the first instance that that move away from smoking would turn into vaping and, ultimately, into a smoke-free generation.

I am minded to tighten the wording of my amendment on Report to ensure that the vending machines are in those mental health units for the purpose of facilitating smoke-free policies and smoking cessation, because I do not necessarily want nurses and those working in those units to be exposed to any unnecessary products. When we are dealing with addiction, we all appreciate how difficult it is, and I want to ensure that a process is in place that means that we deal with both the mental health issues patients are dealing with and the addiction in a suitable and balanced fashion.

[Dr Johnson]

I know my hon. Friend’s heart is in a good place when she thinks about how we can protect individual mental health patients who also have an addiction to nicotine. She said that having no vapes on the hospital site could lead to patients taking up smoking, but there are of course no cigarettes on the hospital site either. I do not support the idea that the removal of one product will automatically lead to the use of another unavailable product.

If a member of the Committee, for example, wanted to leave the room now and go and get some vapes, they would need to leave the House, go and find a shop, and purchase them, and the same is true of an average patient: they would have to leave their home, find a shop, buy their vapes and come home again. The availability of a vaping vending machine on a ward in a mental health hospital would make vapes much more available to an individual and much more proximal than they would be under normal circumstances, which may lead to a greater consumption of nicotine than would be the case if the vapes had to be accessed elsewhere.

As we have mentioned repeatedly, nicotine is a very addictive drug, and I will not reiterate that beyond saying that if one is in a hospital unit and unable to leave because one is on a section, and one is used to using nicotine, the cravings would be extremely unpleasant and the withdrawal could be very nasty indeed. With that in mind, we wish to ensure that those individuals are cared for, and I know that the Minister wants to ensure that they are cared for too, but I remind the Committee that other nicotine replacements are available.

Several treatments are available from shops and pharmacies to help to beat the addiction, and those are available on prescription to individuals currently residing in a mental health unit, voluntarily or otherwise. Essentially, they are nicotine replacement therapies, by which I mean a proper medicine, as opposed to a consumer product, that provides somebody with a low level of nicotine without the tar, carbon monoxide and other poisonous chemicals present in tobacco smoke. They help to reduce unpleasant withdrawal effects, such as bad moods and cravings, and may affect mental health treatment too. They can be bought from pharmacies and shops, but a doctor can prescribe them and NHS stop-smoking services can provide them, and they are available in a whole range of forms. There are skin patches that provide a slower release, chewing gum and little inhalators that look like a small plastic cigarette. There are tablets, oral strips, lozenges, and nasal and mouth sprays.

There is a huge variety of different nicotine replacement therapies. Some, such as the inhalators, gums and sprays, act quickly to provide nicotine, and some, such as the patches, release nicotine slowly. The treatment depends on the stage of craving and the stage of giving up that somebody is at, and on what is most suitable for them. Sometimes patients find that the best way to use nicotine replacement therapy is to have a low-dose patch that is worn all the time, with top-ups from a gum, inhalator or nasal spray if they have particular cravings. Treatment with such nicotine replacement therapy usually lasts eight to 12 weeks before the dose is reduced and eventually stopped.

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[Jack Rankin]

Perhaps it is an added thing that doctors in mental healthcare can try to address, but my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire read out a letter from someone at the coalface, who takes the opposite approach from that of the shadow Minister.

[Sarah Bool]

I will say a little about the intention behind the amendment. We have obviously stressed throughout this debate how addictive nicotine is, but I want to ensure that if we are trying to deal with mental health issues, we are not creating an extra burden. The intention was not to encourage people to smoke, vape or take up other bad habits, but to make sure that we offer the best possible healthcare in the round, which means giving support.

Nicotine is addictive and so stresses are associated with it. Perhaps there are alternatives to give patients, but if they are not suitable for a particular patient or they do not work as well for them as nicotine, they will effectively be going cold turkey, which has its own issues. The intention behind the amendment was purely to encourage us to listen to the evidence from trusts themselves, to try to come up with a practical solution to enable this transition and allow us to get to a smokefree generation.

[Jack Rankin]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and I agree with everything she has just said.

I will just finish my remarks to my hon. Friend the shadow Minister. She talked about this measure being a further opportunity; I would suggest that the easy availability of nicotine products in certain instances would be an aid on that journey.

We should be working pragmatically on amendments such as this in Committee, to ensure that the evidence is considered and that the right balance is struck. I will support the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire. Because the nicotine product vending machine measure is part of clause 12, I will vote against clause 12 stand part.

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[Andrew Gwynne]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that. This debate will not stop here at Committee stage; I am almost certain it will be raised on Report. If it is not concluded to the satisfaction of those who wish to see such provisions in the Bill, I have no doubt that it will be raised in the other place, too.

However, it is really important that we do not end up with unintended consequences. We have to get this legislation right. The smoking cessation services available are far-reaching in these settings, and I see no reason for an exemption, given that nicotine replacement therapies such as gums, patches, inhalers—important medicines—will still be still be available to patients with a nicotine addiction in mental health settings. It is for that reason that I ask the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire to withdraw her amendment.

[Sarah Bool]

I would like to press my amendment to a Division.

Question put, That the amendment be made.