Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the implications are for his policies of the evidence from Public Health England and Cancer Research UK that one of the most effective ways to stop smoking is to use vape products.

The Government is committed to reducing public health harms caused by smoking and has consistently highlighted that quitting smoking and nicotine use is the best way to improve health. E-cigarettes are not risk free. However, the evidence is increasingly clear that vaping is significantly less harmful to health than smoking tobacco and can be particularly useful in supporting smokers to quit, especially when combined with stop smoking services.

The most recent evidence report review from Public Health England, published on 6 February 2018, argues that e-cigarette use, alone or in combination with licensed medication and behavioural support from a stop smoking service appears to be helpful in the short-term, and that e-cigarettes have contributed to tens of thousands of additional quitters in England.

The Department will continue to monitor the impact of regulation and policy on e-cigarettes and novel tobacco products in England, including evidence on safety, uptake, health impact and effectiveness of these products as smoking cessation aids, to inform our future policy.