Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the number of children using (a) e-cigarettes and (b) vaping products.

We have regulations in place for nicotine containing vapes (e-cigarettes) to discourage underage vaping. The law protects children through restricting sales of vapes to over 18 year olds only, limiting nicotine content, refill bottle and tank sizes, labelling requirements and through advertising restrictions.

However, given the changing circumstances surrounding vapes, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) has launched a call for evidence to identify opportunities to reduce the number of children accessing and using vape products.

The call for evidence has now closed. The Government is currently considering a range of options based on the evidence provided, including potential changes to vaping policy and regulations and extending regulations to include non-nicotine vaping products.

In October 2022, we published new content on the potential risks of vaping for young people on the FRANK and Better Health websites and we have provided input to educational resources produced by partners including the PSHE Association. We will shortly be adding new resources for schools on OHID’s Schools Zone web platform.

We are also developing a new resource pack for schools on vaping which will be made available by summer.