Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to provide additional funding for Trading Standards to help remove from the market disposable e-cigarettes that breach provisions of the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016.

E-cigarettes are regulated under the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016 (TRPR). Local Trading Standards are responsible for the enforcement of these regulations. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities provides central funding to local authorities for local trading standards activity. It is for local decision making how this is allocated across services.

To support local enforcement of TRPR, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency are currently reviewing evidence and assisting in the identification of e-cigarette device seizures across the United Kingdom. It is working with various trading standards organisations, to correctly identify grey, black market and counterfeit devices entering illegally from foreign markets to UK distributors.