Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - North Tyneside)
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 (a) health and (b) economic impact of banning the sale of single-use e-cigarettes on ex-smokers with low incomes.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Government recently ran a call for evidence on youth vaping (using an e-cigarette), which closed on 6 June. This will identify opportunities to reduce the number of children accessing and using vaping products and explore where the Government can go further, including on disposable vapes. As part of this process, we are assessing a range of factors such as the economic impact of any future restrictions including related to disposable vapes. We will respond to the call for evidence shortly.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - North Tyneside)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has had discussions with (a) Trading Standards and (b) other bodies on the practicalities of implementing a ban on single-use e-cigarettes.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Government recently ran a call for evidence on youth vaping (using an e-cigarette), which closed on 6 June. This will identify opportunities to reduce the number of children accessing and using vaping products and explore where the Government can go further, including on disposable vapes. As part of this process, we are assessing a range of factors such as the economic impact of any future restrictions including related to disposable vapes. We will respond to the call for evidence shortly.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - North Tyneside)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of how many vapers will switch to cigarettes if the sale of single-use e-cigarettes is banned.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Government recently ran a call for evidence on youth vaping (using an e-cigarette), which closed on 6 June. This will identify opportunities to reduce the number of children accessing and using vaping products and explore where the Government can go further, including on disposable vapes. As part of this process, we are assessing a range of factors such as the economic impact of any future restrictions including related to disposable vapes. We will respond to the call for evidence shortly.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - North Tyneside)
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 publish a consultation on banning the sale of single-use e-cigarettes.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Government recently ran a call for evidence on youth vaping (using an e-cigarette), which closed on 6 June. This will identify opportunities to reduce the number of children accessing and using vaping products and explore where the Government can go further, including on disposable vapes. As part of this process, we are assessing a range of factors such as the economic impact of any future restrictions including related to disposable vapes. We will respond to the call for evidence shortly.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - North Tyneside)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of (a) the industry proposal to introduce fines of £10,000 to retailers found selling e-cigarettes to children and (b) other alternative strategies to reduce youth access to single use e-cigarettes.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
No assessment has been made of the proposal to introduce fines of £10,000 to retailers found selling vapes (e-cigarettes) to children. The Government recently ran a call for evidence on youth vaping, which closed on 6 June. This will identify opportunities to reduce the number of children accessing and using vaping products and explore where the Government can go further, including on single use vapes. We will respond to the call for evidence shortly.
Asked by: Mark Pawsey (Conservative - Rugby)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of extending the £10,000 penalties for the sale of illicit tobacco products to illicit e-cigarettes.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The current Track and Trace system only covers illicit tobacco. However, we are currently exploring a range of new measures to tackle illicit vapes as part of response to youth vaping call for evidence. We will publish our response to this shortly.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an estimate of the number and proportion of people under the age of 18 who vape.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Data on vaping is available at England level for those aged 11 to 15 through the 'NHS Smoking, Drinking and Drug use among Young People in England' publication. Current vaping prevalence among those aged 11 to 15 was 9% in 2021.
ASH survey data on youth vaping from 2023 shows a similar trend, with 7.6% of children aged 11 to 17 currently vaping. More information on this survey is available at the following link:
https://ash.org.uk/resources/view/use-of-e-cigarettes-among-young-people-in-great-britain
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent guidance she has given to schools on teaching pupils about the dangers of (a) smoking and (b) vaping.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) statutory guidance states that, in both primary and secondary school, pupils should be taught the facts about legal and illegal harmful substances and associated risks, including smoking, alcohol use, and drug taking.
To support schools to deliver this content effectively, the Department has published a suite of teacher training modules, including training on teaching about drugs, alcohol and tobacco, which makes specific reference to e-cigarettes (vaping).
In addition, content on drugs, alcohol and tobacco is taught in compulsory health education. This supplements drug education which is part of the National Curriculum for science in Key Stages 2 and 3.
Schools are required by law to have a behaviour policy that sets out what is expected of all pupils, including what items are banned from school premises. This should be communicated to all pupils, parents and school staff.
Schools have the autonomy to decide which items should be banned from their premises, and these can include vapes. Items banned by the school can be searched for as outlined in the Department’s ‘Searching, Screening and Confiscation’ guidance, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/searching-screening-and-confiscation.
The Department believes that this will help head teachers to manage vaping on school premises and inform young people about the risks of vaping, to reduce the numbers of young people who are currently vaping, or who might be tempted to try it in the future.
The Department has brought forward the review of the RSHE statutory guidance, which commenced in March 2023. On 1 June 2023, the Prime Minister announced an intervention taking steps to prevent children obtaining vapes illegally. As part of this, the Department is planning to include the harms of vaping in the RSHE curriculum.
The Department expects to publish an amended draft of the statutory guidance for consultation in the autumn, with a view to a final version being published in 2024.
Asked by: Karl McCartney (Conservative - Lincoln)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what data his Department holds on the uptake of (a) cigarettes, (b) vapes, (c) HTPs and d) nicotine pouches by young people in each of the last five years.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Department does not hold this information in the format requested. However, we can estimate the change in vape and smoking use amongst young people, between 2018-2021, using the data available in the Smoking, Drinking and Drug use publication, which is available at the following link:
Unfortunately, we cannot estimate this for HTPs or nicotine pouches as we do not hold this data.
The number of children aged 11 to 15 years who currently smoke cigarettes is at 101,189 (3.3%), down from 2018 where 159,240 children were current smokers (5%). The number of children in the same age group who currently use vapes (e-cigarettes) is 288,159, (8.6%), up from 188,332 (5.9%) in 2018.
Survey data from Action on Smoking and Health on youth vaping from 2023 in Great Britain shows similar trends related to youth smoking and youth vaping. The data is available at the following link:
https://ash.org.uk/resources/view/use-of-e-cigarettes-among-young-people-in-great-britain
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an estimate of the number and proportion of school-age children who (a) smoke cigarettes and (b) use (i) vapes and (ii) e-cigarettes.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Data on the number and proportion of school-age children aged 11 to 15 years who are regular vapers is available at the following link:
The latest data available for 2021 shows that the number of children aged 11 to 15 years who currently smoke cigarettes is 101,189, equating to 3%, while the number of children in the same age group who currently use vapes (e-cigarettes) is 288,159, equating to 8.6%.
Survey data from Action on Smoking and Health on youth vaping from 2023 is also available at the following link:
https://ash.org.uk/resources/view/use-of-e-cigarettes-among-young-people-in-great-britain