Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Alexander Stafford

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support. We understand the level of lobbying that has been undertaken by both the vaping industry and the tobacco industry. We know that the vaping industry has pushed that as one of its lines. In the current vapes market, when walking into a local shop or a newsagent the vape products can be seen on sale next to the till, often next to the sweets—the part of the shop that children will be very attracted to, if my experiences are anything to go by. The industry markets them in very cynical ways. We are saying that it is already unlawful to sell vapes to under-18s, but we want to take the powers in this legislation to consult on flavours, design and so on, to ensure that vapes are sold as they are intended—to help adult smokers to quit, because no child should ever vape.

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

rose—

[Victoria Atkins]

I am going to make a little progress, if I may, because I want to come to the age of sale.

On the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Sir Jake Berry) about the age of sale and the black market, tobacco industry representatives claim that there will be unintended consequences from raising the age of sale. They assert that the black market will boom. Before the smoking age was increased from 16 to 18, they sang from the same hymn sheet, but the facts showed otherwise. The number of illicit cigarettes consumed fell by 25%, and smoking rates for 16 and 17-year-olds dropped by almost a third. Consumption of illegal tobacco plummeted from 17 billion cigarettes in 2000-01 to 3 billion cigarettes in 2022-23. That is despite the further controls that this House has put in place in the meantime. Our modelling suggests that the measures in this Bill will reduce smoking rates among 14 to 30-year-olds in England to close to zero as soon as 2040. I hope that many of us in the Chamber today will still be here in 2040. This is our opportunity to play that part in history.

Thanks to constructive engagement with colleagues across the devolved Administrations, the measures will apply not just in England but across our entire United Kingdom, saving lives and building a brighter future. Having listened carefully to colleagues’ concerns about enforcement, we are making sure that local authorities will be able to keep every penny of the fixed penalties they bring in to reinvest in rigorous enforcement. In other words, we are looking not just at national enforcement, but at helping our very important and valuable local trading enforcement officers to keep the proceeds from the fixed penalties they hand out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

First of all, I completely reject my hon. Friend’s suggestion that he is a dinosaur. He brings a great energy and effervescence into the Chamber—or indeed any social situation. He articulates really well the struggle of addiction to nicotine and how tough it can be to give up. That is not a judgment on anyone; the substance is designed to addict. That is how the sales pitch is made. What we are trying to do is stop children being ensnared in that way. He is also right that at the moment the evidence suggests that vaping is a good way to help existing smokers to quit. If you do not smoke, please do not vape. Certainly, children should never vape. What we have tried to do with the Bill is build a balance in, so we are taking powers to look at packaging, flavours and so on. There will be a thorough consultation before any regulations are set, because we want to ensure that we are helping adults to quit, but in a way that is considered and well designed. I am extremely grateful to him for raising that point.

[Alexander Stafford]

I am listening very carefully to what my right hon. Friend is saying. She outlined how the consumption of cigarettes has collapsed over the last couple of decades, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) talked about how the young people she reached out to do not want to smoke any more. Is that not the heart of the matter? That is why I think the Bill is fundamentally wrong and misguided. Young people are not smoking. It is not cool to smoke. The Bill should be focused more on the vape side of things: illegal vapes, supercharged vapes, the colour and flavour of vapes. We are debating cigarettes, which are naturally going out of existence anyway, rather than focusing on the dangerous vapes that are addictive for young children. That is where the Government should put their focus, rather than wasting time talking about something that is dying out anyway.

[Victoria Atkins]

Sadly—I say this genuinely—there is nothing inevitable about a decrease in smoking rates. Indeed, in 2020 the United States saw the first increase in tobacco sales in 20 years, and in Australia in 2022 the proportion of teenagers smoking increased for the first time in 25 years. I am reminded by a Minister that here in the United Kingdom 100,000 children and young people take up smoking every year. We must not be lulled into a sense of inevitability and security, mindful as I am of how very clever the tobacco industry is at lobbying its messages because we are threatening its business model. As Conservatives, we must take into account that this is happening today, so we must ensure we tackle it head on.

Cass Review

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Alexander Stafford

Monday 15th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I refer the hon. Lady to the answer I gave earlier about funding. In relation to the waiting list, we have already removed the Tavistock as the single provider of these services. We have now set up two sets of services in highly respected—world-respected—children’s hospitals, and we will add more. Again, the issue goes back to giving GPs and other practitioners the confidence to look after these children as they would if they were presenting solely with, for example, ADHD symptoms or concerns about mental health. This is about saying that this issue is one part of the patient they must treat, not isolating and siloing it in the way that has happened historically.

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

Providing hormone blockers to children is wrong; encouraging and giving cross-sex hormones to children is wrong; and encouraging breast binding for children is wrong. In the future, I believe we will look back on this scandal—and it is a scandal—with incredulity about how we did this to our children, especially our girls. We should all be embarrassed that this is the situation we are in. It is not just carrying on in our hospitals and the medical profession; this sort of ideology is going on in our schools. Does the Secretary of State share my concerns and those of my constituents, who have raised the issue with me in private because they cannot raise it publicly, that a school in Rother Valley is fundraising for Mermaids, a charity that is accused of encouraging young people to transition simply because they do not confirm to gender stereotypes, even though they are too young to understand the consequences? Does the Secretary of State share my belief that Mermaids and other such charities have no place in our schools, and no place to help to hinder our children?

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend, and I will set out the practical and important steps NHS England has already taken, which I hope other parts of the United Kingdom will follow. NHS England has banned the prescription of puberty blockers for gender dysphoria to children under the age of 18. On the advice of Dr Cass, cross-sex hormones can be prescribed only with extreme caution for those aged 16 and older. No cross-sex hormones may be prescribed to those under 16 for gender dysphoria. There are medical caveats to that for other medical conditions, and we need to be very careful about unintended consequences, which is why this is such a complicated piece of work. We want to ensure that these drugs are prescribed to the right people, if they should be prescribed at all.

On my hon. Friend’s point about campaigning organisations, part of our collective frustration is that our public spaces have become politicised. I would say there is no space for that sort of campaign activity in any of our public institutions. I appreciate that a range of views must be represented. Young people must be helped to discover their path in life, their sexuality and all of the things that are such a wonderful part of growing up, but we have to do so in a way that is fair and rigorous, and does not give way against the evidence into the realms of ideology, which sadly we have seen in some instances.