Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Debate between Wes Streeting and Simon Clarke

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I think that is extraordinary. I do not think that smoking is slightly harmful; I think it is the single biggest cause of cancer, and I think that the costs to people’s health, to our national health service and to our economy are enormous. This sort of argument—that if we ban smoking for young people, we have to ban everything else—is absurd. I think that the Secretary of State just pointed out the absurdity of it when she pointed to a whole range of harmful things in our country that are already banned.

Let me put the question back to the libertarian wing in the corner of the Chamber. Will the new modern Conservative party not ban anything? Will we have a libertarian dystopia in which people are free to do whatever they want in the name of liberty? [Interruption.] I am just trying to help the Secretary of State by taking on the libertarians in the corner. I would be very sad if she wants me to give in to them but, with 187,000 people on the waiting list in the local area of the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford), I think we should do something about it.

[Sir Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

I proudly call myself a libertarian, because I believe in the fundamental value of freedom of decision making. On what we should and should not ban, I would argue there is a very substantial difference between banning class A and class B drugs, which do immense harm in all our communities, and banning tobacco. We already struggle to stop the former, so why on earth would we try to create and police a huge black market in the latter?

[Wes Streeting]

I admire the right hon. Gentleman for sticking to his convictions as a libertarian in making that case, even though I strongly disagree with him, but how far does his commitment to libertarianism go? He is defending the right of our country’s children to become addicted to nicotine for the rest of their life, which is an extraordinary argument. There are 356,000 people in his local area on NHS waiting lists. Does he want a future where that gets worse and the disease burden and cost pressures rise? When he was in government, the low-tax Conservatives crashed our economy and sent people’s mortgages through the roof, and rents, bills and the tax burden rose. That is their record. I wish he would do more to stand up for his low-tax convictions than his libertarian desire that children growing up in our country today should become addicted to nicotine. I have to respectfully disagree with him.

Compared with three years ago, half a million more people are out of work due to long-term sickness. People’s careers are being ruined by illnesses that prevent them from contributing to Britain’s economic success. We cannot build a healthy economy without a healthy society. Not only is there a moral argument for backing this progressive ban, based on the countless lives ruined by smoking and our shared determination to make sure that children growing up in Britain today will not die as a result of smoking, but there is an economic argument, too.

It is certainly true that vaping is less harmful than smoking and is a useful smoking cessation tool, but vapes are harmful products none the less. In the past few years, entirely on the Conservatives’ watch, a new generation of children have become hooked on nicotine. An estimated quarter of a million children vape today, and there is no doubt that this is the result of vaping companies’ decision to target children. On any high street in the country today, people can buy brightly coloured vapes and e-liquids with names such as “Vimto Breeze” and “Mango Ice”. They are designed, packaged, marketed and deliberately sold to children. The effect of this new nicotine addiction on our country’s young people should trouble us all.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Wes Streeting and Simon Clarke

Wednesday 13th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I thank the Solicitor General for clarifying that. It is right that as we move into post-Brexit territory, we show that we want to be an inclusive and welcoming country to those in the world who are most desperately in need.

It seems to me that Brexit is in fact quite a simple concept. My constituents knew that they were voting for three things: to have control of our immigration policy, to leave the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and to determine our trade policy. That is why it is so essential that we leave both the single market and the customs union. Neither institution is compatible with delivering what my constituents and our country voted for.

That is why I stand in frank disbelief at the nature of some of the comments we have heard this afternoon. I always regret what is called blue-on-blue action, but I cannot stand by the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who said that we have to “suck it up”. My constituents voted to leave the European Union precisely because they were not going to suck it up and because they knew what they wanted, which is for us to leave the European Union.

Fidelity to that vote, to our voters and to the promises that are implicit between the governing and the governed is essential to the health of our democracy, not just in the context of this debate but for the years and centuries that stretch ahead. It is clear to me that, as the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) said, if we break faith and ignore their voice we will have created the most almighty problem for ourselves. Indeed, we will have lost the chance to have a more sensible debate about issues such as immigration, which have stirred such passions. We will only ever be able to get to a place where we can have a more balanced and constructive conversation once we have accountability in this House for who comes to our country and on what terms.

With that in mind, we have to recognise, when we hear comments about how this is playing to extremists, that the real danger with extremism in our politics is if we ignore what people voted for. We have seen in Germany, in Italy and even in the United States what happens when people believe that their voice is not being respected. That is the danger here—because, my goodness, we will look back on this as the most cataclysmic mistake if we unleash some of the forces which are all too eager for this House to fail to deliver what the British people voted for. That is my warning to colleagues, and that is why I will categorically not vote for any amendment that fails to deliver the Brexit that this country demands.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

I rise to support Lords amendment 51 and amendment (a) to it. I do so from first principles, because it is the responsibility of every Member of this House to come here and champion, defend and represent the best interests of their constituency and our country. In this generation-defining moment, there is no more important time for us to vote at every opportunity in the way that we think will best protect our constituents. Given the manner of the negotiations, the way the Government are conducting Brexit and the contempt with which they have treated the House at various points as we have sought to influence Brexit, we have to look on the Order Paper for every opportunity to shift the centre of gravity of debate away from a hard Brexit, dictated by a minority group in a minority Government, towards a softer Brexit that delivers the mandate of the referendum to leave the European Union but in a way that protects jobs and livelihoods.

The truth is that there is no such thing as a jobs-first Brexit outside the single market and the customs union. That presents the Labour party and the Conservative party with some political dilemmas, but we were all sent here to make our constituents’ jobs safer, not to make our jobs easier. The evidence is overwhelming that if this country crashes out with a hard Brexit or, worse, if we are outside the single market and without the benefits that the single market provides, that will damage jobs and hamper livelihoods, and we will not be able to solve all the underlying problems creating the swamp of despair and hopelessness that led to people voting for Brexit.