Under-age Vaping

Debate between Stella Creasy and Andrew Gwynne

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House is concerned that children are being inappropriately exposed to e-cigarette promotions and that under-age vaping has increased by 50% in just the last three years; condemns the Government for its failure to act to protect children by voting against the addition of measures to prohibit branding which is appealing to children on e-cigarette packaging during the passage of the Health and Care Act 2022 and for failing to bring forward the tobacco control plan that it promised by the end of 2021; and therefore calls on the Government to ban vapes from being branded and advertised to appeal to children and to work with local councils and the NHS to help ensure that e-cigarettes are being used as an aid to stop smoking, rather than as a new form of smoking.

It is a pleasure to open this debate on behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition. We are witnessing an incredibly alarming rise in under-age vaping. In many ways, the statistics speak for themselves. A recent study conducted by Action on Smoking and Health found that in the last three years alone, the number of children taking part in so-called experimental vaping has increased by 50%. That has come alongside significant growth in awareness of e-cigarette promotions, with 85% of children now conscious of e-cigarette marketing either in shops or online.

What does that promotion look like? If hon. Members walk down any high street in the country and pop into a vaping shop or off-licence, they will see it at first hand. Brightly coloured e-liquids with names such as “blue razz”, “cherry cola” or “vampire vape” line the shelves. Some liquids are even designed to imitate well-known brands. We can find “Len & Jenny’s mint Oreo cookie” alongside “pick it mix it sherbet lemons”. In fact, it really is not an exaggeration to say that some stores selling vapes resemble old fashioned sweet shops, with pretty much any flavour we can think of covered in cartoon-led packaging. Let us make no mistake, this is not packaging marketed towards adults. It is deliberately designed to appeal to children and, most concerningly, it appears to be working.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Like my hon. Friend, I have been horrified to see custard, banana, bubble gum and doughnut-flavoured vapes, clearly targeted at younger palates. They are clearly not about helping people cease smoking. One of the challenges is that we know children are increasingly moving from vaping to actual cigarettes. Does he agree that there is no case for any further delay in the Government’s work to look at how we take vapes out of the hands of young people all together? Our generation all fought so hard against Nick O’Teen; now, we have Mr Vape to deal with. Does he agree that it must be an urgent public health priority?

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is a place for banana, custard and even doughnuts, but that is not on a vape package. She is right that we need to close the loophole and protect children’s health. That is why we have tabled this motion.

In a recent evidence session on youth vaping, Laranya Caslin, the headteacher at St George’s Academy in Sleaford, told the Health and Social Care Committee:

“we have a significant proportion of students vaping. They vape regularly”.

The problem is so bad that St George’s has had to change smoke sensors to heat sensors, to clamp down on young people leaving the classroom to vape.

I would love that to be an isolated case, but we all know, across the House, that it is not. In Hartlepool, concerns have been raised about an increase in primary school children using vapes—that is just shocking. In Devon, schools have reported confiscating e-cigarettes from children as young as seven. Those claims seem to be reinforced by the fact that last year 15 children aged nine or under were hospitalised due to vaping, with health experts warning that the excessive use of e-cigarettes in children could be linked to lung collapse, lung bleeding and air leak. In Yorkshire and the Humber, it is estimated that 30% of secondary school students have tried vaping, which equates to around 109,000 children. It is just staggering.

Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Stella Creasy and Andrew Gwynne

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy]

I wish to reassure the Committee that I will speak only to the amendments that have been selected for this evening—I know that we have debates on other amendments scheduled tomorrow, and I have amendments in both selections.

I beg your leave, Dame Eleanor, to reflect on the fact that, while this important debate has been taking place, Jess England, a member of my staff, has just won parliamentary staffer of the year. Jess has first-hand knowledge of the things that we are discussing because she has for years helped me work with people seeking asylum—refugees from around the world who have come to the UK and have a connection to Walthamstow. I put on the record my gratitude to Jess, whose award is long overdue. If she were here now, she could bring much light to this debate as somebody who knows about the reality for people fleeing persecution.

It is a genuine honour to follow the previous speaker, the hon. Member for Newbury (Laura Farris). We may be in different political parties, but I recognise how brave she has just been to make that speech and to speak up for the importance of human rights, which has increasingly become an extreme view in the Conservative movement. I recognise the power of her speech and its many points, and the expertise that she put on the record. The House benefits from light, not heat, in such debates.

There is clarity in that there is not a single Member among us who wants to help the smugglers; not a single Member among us thinks that small boats crossing the English channel is an acceptable or reasonable way to proceed. The difference is in how we address the issue; whether we pour oil on that fire or seek, in our amendments, to recognise the best of Britain—to be the actual patriots in this Chamber. So far, we have talked so much about the ways people travel, but not about who is travelling.

Different statistics have been bandied around. We know that the vast majority of people in those boats are from seven countries, so let us recognise first and foremost why it matters that the legislation meets the test not of the mode of travel but of who is travelling. People fleeing persecution do not form orderly queues at the border when there is a war. When they are facing persecution for their political or religious beliefs, they cannot turn to the state to ask for their paperwork to be put in order and emailed to them so that they may cross the border with copies of it.

I reflect on the fact that the former Member for Blackburn, who was responsible for incorporating the Human Rights Act into UK legislation used to say to me, “There was left and right in Parliament, and then there were those people who dealt with the UK Border Agency and those who did not.” When dealing with people who have fled persecution, we know at first hand that it is not a simple, straightforward linear experience that accommodates well the kind of bureaucracy and administrative process that the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) wishes for. That is why the refugee convention itself says that refugees should not be prosecuted for destroying their documents, for issues around immigration fraud or, indeed, for their mode of travel, recognising the reality that when the decision is life or death, life matters. I see no irony in suggesting that.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is making a really important point, which is not pertinent only to the small boats. We witnessed exactly the same issue with Ukraine. People were fleeing Ukraine in fear of their lives; we opened up safe routes, but many of those people had to leave all their important documentation behind.

Human Rights: Kashmir

Debate between Stella Creasy and Andrew Gwynne

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for ensuring that this debate has been granted time in the Chamber, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) for the excellent way she opened, in such an even-handed manner, the debate on human rights abuses in Kashmir.

I came to have an interest in the situation in Kashmir when I was visited by a small delegation of British Kashmiri constituents at my surgery in Stockport Labour club several years ago. I have a very small minority ethnic community in my constituency, and of that small minority ethnic community the Kashmiri population is a fragment. However, I was taken by the passion and commitment of my Kashmiri community to their cause and concerns; a very similar kind of passion to that we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain). That led me to look a bit further into the situation in Kashmir, and quite frankly I was shocked by what I found out. Many of the issues have already been raised in this debate; I will not repeat them, because they are already on the record and time is short.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the reports of crackdowns on freedoms of expression in Kashmir should concern us all across the House? One thing that would help to bring light, not heat, to these debates is making sure that everybody can be heard freely, especially those on the ground, and that Kashmiris can speak their mind about what is happening, because we know that at the moment that is not happening.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The most basic and fundamental human rights, which each and every one of us in the House and each and every one of our constituents enjoys and takes for granted, are denied to too many people living in Kashmir. That is wrong. As parliamentarians, as democrats and as believers in human rights, we should call out and condemn those abuses, not just in Kashmir but wherever they occur across the world.

I am particularly concerned about this seven-decade injustice because the most basic and most fundamental human right, from which all other rights derive, is people’s right to choose by whom they are governed and how they are governed. That is the crux of it. That is the right that the people of Kashmir have been denied.

I will make no particular biased remarks about who should govern the Kashmiris. I do not care whether it is India, Pakistan or the Kashmiri people themselves—that is for the people of Kashmir to decide. That is what they have been denied, and it is what they have been promised in a United Nations resolution.

I implore the Minister, who is new in post and whom I welcome to her position in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, to do all she can to use what influence the United Kingdom has to bring all interested parties to the table from the United Nations, the Commonwealth, India, Pakistan and—most importantly of all—Kashmir itself, to start talks and try to find a successful resolution.

What is clear from all the reports that my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth outlined is that two wrongs do not make a right. The fact of the matter is that there are people on both sides of the line of control whose human rights, to some extent or another, are being affected and withdrawn. We should ensure that their rights are protected and upheld and that their most basic and fundamental human right—to decide by whom they are governed and how they are governed—is finally put to the people. That is why I am proud to stand here today as the chair of Labour Friends of Kashmir.