Caroline Johnson MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Indeed, it does seem contradictory, if not counterintuitive. It also leaves us with a bizarre situation where, were someone to be a bassoon player, for example, and they wished to buy these products to use for the alternative purpose of drying their keys, then they would have to get someone else to buy them because they would not be able to buy them themselves. For a child born after 1 January 2009 and learning to play such an instrument, either the market will need to provide another opportunity to buy such a product, or the child will need someone else to buy the product for them. That does not make sense. The rolling age of sale that we discussed in clause 1 means that, over time, the number of individuals wanting to buy the product for their instruments but not allowed to, compared to the number of people allowed to, would inevitably diminish. We would have a larger group of people trying to find an ever smaller group of people to buy their cigarette papers for them for that purpose. To some extent, it would be more sensible to remove subsection (3) all together because it creates a loophole that will be used almost entirely for illegal uses of these papers. There is a market already providing a reasonably priced alternative for people to use for their instruments—which in practice are better for instruments in any case. The final point is on the burden of proof. As a defence, someone purchasing the product on behalf of another has to prove they have no reason to suspect that the person was born on or after 1 January 2009. What does that really mean? Is that a reversal of the burden of proof? Is it saying a person has to prove their innocence rather than the state having to prove them guilty? In what circumstances would it apply? In what circumstances is it necessary for someone to buy cigarette papers, other than the oboe player or the saxophone player? I guess if someone in his or her 70s attends a corner shop but has forgotten their ID, they could ask somebody older to buy the papers for them; I guess that would be okay. They may find that they have come with a veterans card, thinking that they can use it because it is usable for voter ID, but that particular type of ID is not included; we have discussed widening the scope of those documents.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  rose—

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Amendments 75 and 76 have the same principle behind them, so I will not repeat myself. They relate to clause 69; as hon. Members will recall, clause 69 amends Northern Ireland legislation that is similar to the legislation in clause 2. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I have a quick question for the Minister about some of his answers last week about the clause. He said that tobacco products would include bongs, and was quite passionate about that. But clause 48, which is meant to be read in relation to clause 1, defines “tobacco product” as something that contains tobacco. I have seen bongs made of glass, ceramics and various other things, but I have never seen one that contains tobacco. It is certainly easy to make one that does not contain tobacco. I am therefore interested in why the Minister believes that the Bill equates bongs and tobacco products.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Amendments 58 and 59 go back to the principle of proportionality. I know the Minister gave his views on that last week, so I will not go on at length. But there is a difference between the individual shop assistant who may make an intentional error, and a shop that continues to repeatedly and recklessly sell to children or people who are too young to buy an age-restricted product. That is the principle of the amendments— [ Interruption. ]

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the Minister for engaging in this discussion, because although it is somewhat technical to discuss cigarette papers, it is important. The hon. Member for Worthing West made the key distinction, which is that it is about the ingredients that are in a product. It would be possible for the Minister to devise legislation that sought to ban cigarette papers, without preventing a market in a similar product that would be ineffective as a cigarette paper but useful for the average modeller.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I am going to disagree with my hon. Friend on that point. There will be licensing for tobacco products, and part of the due diligence of setting up to sell such products includes familiarising oneself with the legislation as it stands and thus with the regulations around signage, buying and putting up the appropriate signs, and providing the appropriate training. The challenge occurs if the Government seek to amend the notice, at which point they would need to ensure that they had given adequate notice and information to the company to ensure that it had the time, resources and information to put up the correct signs.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  How would they do that?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  My apologies. I was explaining the principle behind Opposition amendments 58 and 59, which are in my name. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Eastleigh was present on Thursday afternoon. Clause 2 refers to a “person” but does not specify who that person is, and there is as yet no guidance. The Minister said that the person could be the shopkeeper, the shop worker, the chief executive officer or whoever trading standards decided was the right person. The fines to deter or punish illegal behaviour would necessarily need to be significantly larger for a large corporation than for a young chap of 19 working a few hours in the corner shop on a Saturday afternoon, for whom some fines would be quite punitive. The amendments allow for first offences to be treated leniently, in comparison with repeat offences, and their aim is to encourage the Government to think more carefully about guidance. When the previous Bill was introduced last Easter by the Conservative Government, with very similar wording in many cases, that Government produced guidance on how those charges would be applied. I am trying to encourage the Government to do the same thing. That is the purpose of the amendments. I will endeavour to speak a bit louder. I do not know whether the hearing loop is working—

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Gentleman is right, of course, that those selling tobacco products legally now will need to change their signs to have the date of 1 January 2009 on them, as opposed to the age of 18, because that will be the law: that clause has now passed, and I expect that it will continue its passage through the House and the other place, because it has broad support among the public and within Parliament.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. It is of course correct that we have devolution, and the hon. Member for Worthing West is of course right that Welsh Ministers—in the same way as Scottish Ministers, and, as I will come to, Northern Irish Ministers—have the capacity to deal with changes to the signs, but it will be easier to have clarity. I am merely suggesting that the Minister could discuss these details with his devolved counterparts and put such measures on the face of the Bill now, rather than not do so and then require, for example, as I said before, the Scottish Ministers to then introduce an SI for something that could be changed much more cheaply with drafting now. It would require much less time and energy from the civil service in Scotland—and spend less taxpayers’ money—to achieve that. I am interested by the comment from my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon about joint signs. The point I was making was about the display space: if someone has to put a lot of different signs up—particularly given that the Minister has shown reluctance on the principle of a nicotine-free generation, which I suspect is where we will end up—and we need to do that at a later date, we will end up with yet another sign with yet another date on it. There comes a point at which the amount of display space available to retailers starts to become smaller, given the required font size. Before I finish, I have one more quick point, which is just to note that clause 72 is the Northern Irish equivalent added to the Health and Personal Social Services (Northern Ireland) Order 1978, so it is the same as clause 5, with the same effect. Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned .—(Taiwo Owatemi.)

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend is right that the offence of selling a product to a person born on or after 1 January 2009 is something someone could do unintentionally. They could genuinely believe the ID in front of them, or that the person looked so significantly older that it was not even necessary to ask them for ID, whereas selling cigarettes outside the packaging requires the deliberate act of removing them from the packet and selling them individually, in a way that is not normally done. I think my hon. Friend is right, and it is perhaps surprising to have a deliberate act at a lower fine level than a potentially unintentional one.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  As the Minister says, clause 4 makes it against the law to sell cigarettes that are not in their original packaging, so that individual or small amounts of cigarettes cannot be sold separately. That is in part because cigarette packets now have standardised formats, warnings and information designed to alert the smoker to the health problems caused by the smoking habit, and selling cigarettes outside the packets means the smoker avoids that information. I asked the Minister earlier about proposals for warning notices about smoking on the cigarette paper itself, but I did not hear his thoughts. The notices might ensure that, were individual sales to happen despite the law, the warning would still be received by the child or smoker, but there is also the risk of adding additional chemicals to the paper. Where does he think the benefit or balance of risk lies in that respect? Everywhere else the Bill makes it an offence for a “person” to do something, so why does the clause mention a “tobacco retailer” rather than a “person”? If the Minister does not wish cigarettes to be sold individually, why would it be more of an offence for a proper tobacco retailer to sell them individually than it would be for an individual who is not a tobacco retailer? Why the change in wording? I do not understand. If someone is not a tobacco retailer, it would clearly be illegal, because they would have no licence. Why not have this additional offence for the most reckless people, so that they can be dealt with more severely? As the Minister says, the minimum pack size of 20 was brought forward in 2017, because it was felt that packs of 10 were closer to the level of pocket money and were encouraging the uptake of cigarettes by children. When we come to vaping, we will discuss the pocket money nature of some of these products.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Clause 2 makes it an offence for a person aged 18 or over to make a proxy purchase of tobacco products, herbal smoking products or cigarette papers for a person born on or after 1 January 2009. It essentially stops an older person going in and buying those products for a younger person, which we are aware has been happening for many years with both tobacco and alcohol. If found guilty, the person committing the offence faces a level 4 fine on the standard scale, which hon. Members will recall is £2,500. The clause replaces the current offence under section 91 of the Children and Families Act of someone aged over 18 buying or attempting to buy tobacco products or cigarette papers on behalf of someone aged under 18 in England and Wales. In many ways, that seems a sensible consequence to clause 1. If we want it to be illegal for people born after a set date to have tobacco, it makes sense to ensure that people cannot buy it for them. However, I have some questions, particularly in relation to cigarette papers. I did not particularly talk about cigarette papers in our discussion of clause 1 because they are more rightly talked about in relation to clause 2, which treats cigarette papers differently, in so far as it makes them illegal unless a person can prove that they are using them for something else. I looked into what that something else might be. I naively thought that cigarette papers were essentially just bits of paper of a particular thinness that could be rolled up and stuck together with a little gum arabic once somebody had rolled whatever they wanted to roll inside them; in fact, that turns out not to be the case because of the law. The papers contain ethylene-vinyl acetate, which makes them more fire-resistant. The sad situation is that every year people smoke in bed or in their armchair, fall asleep and cause themselves burns, and sometimes even cause death or house fires. The ethylene-vinyl acetate—a sort of plastic—added to cigarette papers helps them to self-extinguish and reduces the risk of fires; we know that some particularly dreadful fires, such as the Kings Cross fire, are believed to have been caused by loose cigarettes. The cigarette papers are essentially made from plant fibre, such as bamboo flax and rice, but they can be flavoured and coloured. In the evidence given to the Committee last Tuesday, we heard about the tobacco industry’s aim of ensuring that younger people are enticed by colours and flavours. A quick look at Amazon—other sellers are, of course, available—reveals that people can buy cigarette papers in a whole range of bright colours. People can also buy cigarette papers with pictures of cherries, apricots, bubbles and all sorts of things on them. I thought it was interesting that that has not been covered in relation to cigarette papers. Why give an exemption allowing them to continue to be sold when the reality is that they will continue to be used for rolling either illegal tobacco or other forms of illegal drug?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Amendments 58 and 59 seek to amend clause 2. Will we get the chance to debate clause 2 later, Mr Dowd?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Thank you, Sir Roger. I am grateful for your guidance as Chair on the order of doing things. It has been, at times, quite confusing. Clauses 13, 14, 61 and 79 regulate the display of products in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It does not take much to realise why that is necessary. Simply take a drive down a high street in any small town across the country, and one will come across a shop with an entire front window blocked out with pictures of sweets, other confectionery and chocolate, usually an energy drink or two thrown in, and a whole host of brightly-coloured vaping devices. The clear message is that these are fun and exciting products—not stop-smoking devices, but recreational products—and is clearly designed to entice children into purchasing them. I had cause to go to a major service station on the A1-M25 junction, and as I came out of the bathroom I noticed that, at the eye level of about a six-year-old, there was a whole pile of coloured vapes in a shop front. Going into a major newsagent to purchase a newspaper, one will also find a whole load of pictures behind the counter. I have even seen electronic video displays advertising a vaping product in WHSmith—I think it was a Lost Mary—so one cannot get away from the advertising of those products even if one wishes to. It is clearly necessary for the display of those products within stores to be regulated to ensure that children are not enticed—the industry would say inadvertently, while others would suggest very deliberately—into wanting to buy them. Clause 13 provides the Secretary of State with powers to regulate the display of tobacco products, herbal smoking products, cigarette papers, vaping products and nicotine products. It also regulates their prices. I wonder if the Minister could comment on what that means, and how the prices of all those products will come under some sort of Government control. Will the Government fix the prices and therefore the profit, or will they apply additional taxation to the product—something that they seem to like to do, although it would not necessarily be as unwelcome in this case as some of the other taxes they have applied recently—so that they create an overall price? How does the Minister intend this price fixing, as it were, to work? Clause 13 also gives the capacity to regulate the display of empty retail packaging or anything else that represents the product, whether that be putting up a video display or large versions of the products at an entrance, so that the products can be kept away from children. Under the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002 and regulations made under it, there are already restrictions on the display in the course of business of tobacco products and pricing, but not specifically nicotine and vaping products. Given all we have heard about the addictive nature of nicotine, the enticement of children into taking such products, and the harm they may cause children particularly in adolescence, this is a welcome change. Clause 13(6) confirms that before making regulations, the Secretary of State must consult who he or she considers it appropriate to consult. I am interested to understand whether the Minister believes that such a consultation should include the tobacco industry and/or the vaping and nicotine product industry, whether that be medical or otherwise, and whether he sees a distinction between the two. Clause 13 creates an offence for failure to comply with the regulations, and anyone convicted of an offence under this clause on indictment can be subject to imprisonment of up to two years, or a fine, or both. If they are convicted of a slightly lesser offence on summary conviction, they can be subject to imprisonment for a term not exceeding a general limit in a magistrates court, or a fine, or both. I refer the Minister to my previous remark that the general limit in a magistrates court is apparently going to double after the Lord Chancellor’s statement in October. As such, is the Minister content to have a fluctuating limit or would he prefer a fixed one? Perhaps that is something to consider before Report. Clearly, deliberately advertising vapes in a way that may be attractive to children requires a reasonably stiff penalty. Under clause 13(1), the legislation explicitly allows for the regulation of physical displays of these products, including empty packaging and pricing information, which are often used to draw attention to them. Subsection (2) defines the “relevant products” pretty comprehensively, encompassing not just tobacco and vaping items but accessories such as cigarette papers and herbal smoking products. The broad definition ensures that the regulations cover a wide array of potentially harmful products. Subsection (3) further strengthens that by extending the rules to include representations of these products, such as promotional materials or images that might signify them at the point of sale, which is again welcome. Currently, vaping products are often displayed prominently in retail settings, frequently at checkout counters or in bright, attention-grabbing displays. That placement encourages impulse purchases and can make those products more appealing to young people. Unlike tobacco products, which have strict display restrictions, vaping and nicotine products remain accessible and visible in shops, and the standard packaging laws for cigarettes do not apply, for example, to their shape and colour. Clause 13 aims to address that disparity by introducing measures to regulate the visibility and presentation of the products. The collaborative approach to the consultation will hopefully strike the right balance between public health objectives and the interests of businesses, but I urge the Minister to give further information on how we can strike that balance while maintaining that the important thing is to protect the health of the public, particularly children, from vaping products. Both nicotine and non-nicotine vaping products, unlike tobacco, are currently allowed to be displayed at the point of sale in shops on countertops, in eye-catching displays on the shop floor, and in the windows. It is somewhat ironic that sweeties and chocolate have been banned at the till because of the pester power of children, only to be replaced in some shops by vapes. I suggest that, if any parent were given the choice, they would rather their children were having sweets than vapes, which are clearly addictive and much more harmful. There is much to be considered on the nature of unintended consequences, as well as the nature of the industry with which we are dealing.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  rose—

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I am grateful to the Minister for providing the extra information. Amendments 63, 64, 81 and 80 were designed once again to provoke debate on the coherency of the penalties across the different clauses of the Bill. Sometimes the penalties are different for the same offence and, inexplicably, sometimes they are the same for different offences that perhaps one would expect them to be different for. However, I will not press those amendments to a vote, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 10 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 11 PURCHASE OF VAPING OR NICOTINE PRODUCTS ON BEHALF OF UNDER 18S

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I think my hon. Friend highlights something common across our party. Many members of our party are uncertain, as I understand my hon. Friend is, about the changes to tobacco legislation for adults with the competency to make risk-based decisions. I understand your points; I do not necessarily share them, but I understand them.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I beg to move amendment 65, in clause 11, page 6, line 5, at end insert “, save if it is a first offence.”. See explanatory statement to Amendment 66.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the importance of managing nicotine dependence for those with mental health conditions. We know that smoking, in particular, is more likely to take place among people with mental health conditions or those who are in mental health in-patient units. I am sure we will go on to discuss the issue of vending machines. Last May, in the previous Bill Committee, we heard evidence from the Mental Health Foundation about the myth that tobacco helps with anxiety, and how that myth needed busting. We also heard about the importance of giving extra support to people with mental health conditions to enable them to kick the habit of nicotine—whether that habit is smoking or vaping—because it will help both their physical and mental health. However, it can be more challenging for them to complete. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that important issue. Returning to clause 10, a study considering the effects in adolescents of nicotine dependence after the initiation of smoking cigarettes found that the symptoms of nicotine dependence can appear only a few days after initiation. Given that oral nicotine pouches contain similar or higher levels of nicotine, similar symptoms may appear following initiation of oral nicotine pouch use, which is why it is particularly important for children that we pass clause 10 and ensure that children are protected from these nicotine products.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  To be clear, I am not suggesting that it should be on the market, as the Minister well knows, because I support both helping people using tobacco to quit and preventing people from starting to use tobacco. I merely want to understand why there is a difference in treatment. On the basis of what the Minister has said, why not make the penalties for cigarette sales the same as the robust penalties that already exist for snus sales? It is his choice.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Amendments 65, 66, 82 and 83 were specifically there to provoke debate on the coherency of the penalty portfolio across the Bill. The Minister has clarified his position on that. It is very important that we see those who are selling vapes to children or, in the case of clause 11, buying vapes for children, appropriately deterred from doing so or appropriately punished. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 11 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 12 Vaping and nicotine product vending machines

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  The regulations will need to be enforced not just in a large supermarket, where the shop assistant has the benefit of a security guard and other—

• 14 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I am sorry, Sir Mark. The regulations will need to be enforced whether one is a shop assistant in a small shop or in a large shop. In a large shop that sells tobacco, such as a large supermarket, one might have the benefit of a security guard, additional staff and many more people around. Alternatively, a 19-year-old might be trying to enforce the regulations on a Saturday evening in a rural shop many miles from the local police station, with no security guard or anyone else around.