Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made a recent assessment of the potential health risks of e-cigarettes for children.

The Department’s assessment of the risk of vaping is based upon a series of evidence reviews commissioned over the past several years. The latest, ‘Nicotine vaping in England: 2022 evidence main findings’, was published in September 2022.

The report concludes that in the short and medium term, vaping poses a small fraction of the risks of smoking, but that vaping is not risk-free. Nicotine is highly addictive and can be harmful, and there are unanswered questions on the effects of longer-term use.

The Government is clear that vaping should only be used to help adults quit smoking; vapes should not be used by people under 18 or non-smokers.