Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the (a) safety and (b) quality of e-cigarettes available to consumers.

The latest assessment on the safety and quality of vapes can be found in the Nicotine vaping in England: 2022 evidence update report, published in September 2022. The report is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nicotine-vaping-in-england-2022-evidence-update

The report found that in the short and medium term, vaping poses a small fraction of the risks of smoking, but that vaping is not risk-free, particularly for people who have never smoked. Vapes are regulated by the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016 (TRPR) requiring notification to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. The TRPR sets product standards on the quality of vapes by limiting the maximum nicotine strength, setting refill bottle and tank size limits, setting requirements on labelling, and also by setting restrictions on advertising which includes mainstream media, TV and radio.