Caroline Johnson MP: speeches

Speeches

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

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  Digital ID is not something that I am particularly familiar with, but nevertheless it sounds sensible, where ID is reliable, reproducible, not easily faked and easily identifiable by staff. Broadening the forms of acceptable ID would ensure that when somebody is old enough to legally purchase a product, it is not excessively challenging for them to obtain an ID to do so. Clearly the Minister would want people to be able to buy age-restricted products if they are old enough, so I am interested to hear his view not only on my hon. Friend’s intervention about digital identification, but on veterans cards, bus passes and other cards that demonstrate the age of the user and include a photograph for added reliability. Clause 10(4) states: “A person who commits an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.” On a personal level, selling vapes and nicotine products to children is a dreadful thing to do, as I am sure the chief medical officer has said. I am more than happy for the Minister to increase that fine if he wants to, but I am interested to understand why he has set it at that level. Notwithstanding any changes across the four nations, it is important that we look at the choices that the Minister has made. That is what we are here to scrutinise. The problem that clause 10 seeks to address is vaping among children. Are children vaping? Yes, I am afraid to say that they are, in large quantities. The biggest report of which I am aware that looked specifically at rates of youth vaping was published in 2023 by Healthwatch Blackpool. It looked at over 4,000 children and found that just under a third of them—31%—said that they “currently vape or sometimes vape”. Of those children, 65% “expressed a preference for fruity flavoured vapes”, which we will deal with later in the Bill. There is clearly an issue that vapes are being directly marketed to children with bright, attractive colours. Some of the most popular flavours include bubble gum, cotton candy, strawberry ice cream and unicorn milkshake. What does unicorn milkshake taste like? I have no idea, but it is easy to see the appeal to children. An investigation by The Observer in 2022 found that ElfBar, a company that makes vapes, was promoting its products to kids via TikTok. The TikTok platform is apparently used by half of eight to 11-year-olds and by three quarters of 16 to 17-year-olds. When I found that out, I had a look at the screen time of my own children to establish that they were not getting on it.

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

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  I am grateful to the Minister for making clear that the reason that the text contained within the age of sale notice is not being amended at this stage is because Scottish Ministers have told him they would prefer to amend it themselves at a later date.

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

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  It is catching—it is the time of day, I think. Paragraph 787 of the impact assessment says: “We know that one of the main reasons children take up vaping is due to peer pressure…It is therefore worth considering that instances of vape vending machines in easily accessible areas might be an enabler for those who would not otherwise seek out a vape or who would be deterred by having to speak to an adult”. Children would have to seek out an adult to make a purchase, because they have to go to a till or counter to get the vapes. Under the new legislation, that adult would look for ID, while a vending machine would provide a circumnavigation, so this is a sensible clause. Most of us recognise that the vending machines currently selling disposable vapes have a finite lifetime, because this Government have banned them in the future under a statutory instrument in the competence of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. However, British American Tobacco has already stated that it is working on a product to sell the Velo brand—one of its nicotine pouches—via “age-gated vending machines” and is hiring for the product. Again, that is taken from the impact assessment. That further highlights the need for a blanket ban on vending machines, particularly given that, as things stand, they are clearly advertising tools for vaping. Wherever the machines are placed, they are visible to the consumer, and the consumer needs to know what is in the vending machine in order to choose what to buy. Given the regulations appearing later in the Bill, we will be looking at the display of such products. It therefore seems nonsensical to have restrictions on the display of products, but to allow vending machines, which allow the display of products, in contravention of that. One aim of the Bill is to ensure that non-smokers do not begin vaping and get hooked on nicotine. These provisions strengthen that through age verification and on the marketing front. I will now deal with some of the issues to do with mental health hospitals. My hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire said that the 2,400 vends were evidence of 2,400 positive choices. I am not sure that that is necessarily the case. The evidence is that 2,400 vapes were bought, but not that those individuals had ever smoked. We do not know whether the vending machines are being used by people who smoke or people who do not— [ Interruption. ] My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor comments from a sedentary position; if he wants to intervene, he is welcome to do so. A proportion of people out there smoke, and a proportion do not.

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

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his point. I believe that the Bill specifies somewhere which clauses apply under which jurisdictions, but I cannot remember exactly which page that is on. I am sure the Minister in his summing up will be able to identify where my hon. Friend can look to review that, but some of the clauses will apply to different jurisdictions. Some will apply to the whole of the United Kingdom and others will apply to England and Wales, or England alone, depending on various different factors. My hon. Friend will be able to look at the relevant part of the Bill to find that out. My understanding is that clauses 7, 8 and 9 will apply in England and Wales, and I would be grateful if the Minister clarified that point in his summing up. As my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor has identified, clauses 56, 57 and 58 apply to Scotland; they essentially replicate clauses 7, 8 and 9. Clause 56 prevents the manufacture of snus, clause 57 prevents the sale of snus and clause 58 prevents the possession with intent to supply of snus. Amendments 70, 71 and 72 to clause 58 replicate amendments 60, 61 and 62 and say that there should be proportionality in relation to penalties.

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

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  Amendments 65 and 66 apply to clause 11. In line with other Opposition amendments tabled to various clauses of this Bill, they seek to provoke debate on the coherency of the penalties. They encourage the Minister to look in detail at those penalties before Report—specifically, to consider the differences between the shop worker, the shopkeeper and the shop owner in terms of the level of fine required, and also to consider the individual who inadvertently commits an offence on one occasion versus the person or company that deliberately and repeatedly flouts the law and require different handling. Amendment 65 amends clause 11 to add at the end of page 6, line 5, “, save if it is a first offence.”, while amendment 66 inserts: “A person who has admitted guilt”— that is, a person who has owned up— “of a first offence under this section is liable to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale”. I think I have explained what those are for. Clause 11 makes it a criminal offence for a person aged 18 or over to purchase, or attempt to purchase, a vaping or nicotine product on behalf of someone who is under the age of 18—essentially stopping adults from buying vapes for kids. Clearly, buying things for children that are so potentially harmful to them is not the action of a responsible adult. If a person is charged with this offence, they can defend themselves by saying that they had no reason to suspect that the person they were buying for was under 18. It is not really clear to me when that sort of a situation would occur. If someone is under 18, it should be fairly obvious that they are quite young. Any responsible adult who knew the child would have an idea of how old they were, and any responsible adult who did not know the child would surely guess that there was a risk in buying something for someone who looked young, in case they were under 18 and incriminated themselves. I understand why the defence is there, but I am not really sure how it would be used. The Minister may be able to enlighten us further. A person found guilty in relation to this offence is liable to a fine up to level 4 on the standard scale, which amounts to £2,500. This clause is very important, because we must stop children getting access to vapes. Popular culture tells us that vapes are very accessible to children. For example, we were all glued to our screens—I know we were in the Johnson household—watching Luke Littler, the recent BBC young sports personality of the year, win the PDC world darts championship. It was fabulous to see someone so young achieve such an amazing feat. Luke Littler won half a million pounds, which is a wonderful thing for that young gentleman, but he reportedly said that he would celebrate by vaping. Of course, he is actually a 17-year-old young man, despite his great achievements. He is a sports prodigy, a national hero, and a wonderful example to young people of what can be achieved at a young age, but presumably, until he turns 18 very soon, he will need someone else to buy vapes for him. That will be illegal under the new law. On a more serious note, we know through the various different reports that on county lines, where people are selling drugs, they are often giving vapes to children as a way of enticing them into feeling that they are favoured by those adults. They are using children’s addiction to nicotine and desire for further vapes, and for access to further vapes, as part of a grooming process to get them into dreadful situations with county lines. Clause 11, which prevents children’s access to vaping and nicotine products via a proxy adult, is a very sensible measure that I will support.

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

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  If my hon. Friend has a suggestion, I shall let him back in.

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

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  This group of clauses and amendments all apply to snus, which we are trying to ban, so the first question is: what is snus? Snus is a tobacco product predominantly used in Sweden and, to an extent, in the USA. When the Health and Social Care Committee, which I was a member of in the last Parliament, visited Sweden at around the time the previous Tobacco and Vapes Bill was introduced, we saw shops with massive displays of different types, brands and flavours of snus, which came in small round pots similar to those that we see nicotine pouches in; they were mostly kept in the refrigerator. Snus is produced using tobacco leaves, salt and alkalis such as sodium bicarbonate or sodium carbonate. The alkali is there to help the nicotine to be absorbed more easily into the mouth and therefore into the bloodstream of the person using the product. Producers also potentially add a flavouring. As we have seen in cigarette papers, flavourings are used to improve the palatability of tobacco products. The mixture of tobacco leaf, salt, alkalis and flavouring is ground up, steam-pasteurised to inhibit the growth of bacteria, and then supplied loose or in small pouches. The loose form is a moist, powdery product, which I understand is rolled between one’s fingers to create a sort of cylinder shape known as a pinch. It is placed under the upper lip, where it is held for about 30 minutes while the nicotine is absorbed into the bloodstream. Its moist nature helps to facilitate the absorption of nicotine and makes the nicotine hit faster; it is absorbed more quickly than it would otherwise be. The second way that snus can be supplied is in a small pouch resembling a very little teabag, which comes in two formats: original and white. The original version is a sachet of material that is kept moist and is brown in colour. Again, the moistness allows a quick release, but the tobacco product does not need rolling and pinching; it just needs putting into one’s mouth, and it stays in its little pouch. The white version is not in all cases white, but the genre is known as white snus. It has a milder taste and a slower release because the powder in the pouch is dry. The dryness means that one needs to get it moist in the mouth before it will dissolve across the membrane and give the nicotine hit, which means that the dry snus is a slower-release product than the original. The American snus is a lower moisture product, again provided in a variety of flavours to suit the customer. Why did I and others not know what snus was? I am sure you are familiar with it, Sir Mark. This specific form of tobacco product has been banned in the UK for some time. It was banned by the Tobacco for Oral Use (Safety) Regulations 1992—I was still at school—and then EU tobacco products directive 2014/40 created a European-wide ban, which was incorporated into UK law by the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016. The Committee might be interested to know that Sweden has a derogation specifically for snus under that EU regulation, so snus is still sold there, as I described. Advocates of snus believe it is less harmful and causes less respiratory disease and less cancer than does an inhaled form of tobacco. They try to market it as an alternative to smoking that is less harmful. However, the evidence shows a risk of cancer, particularly of the cheek and gums. Perhaps that is not surprising, given where it is placed to be used. Oral squamous cell carcinoma, a form of cancer of the mouth, often occurs in the site at which snus is commonly placed. It has also been shown that snus causes increased blood pressure, particularly in females, and despite not being inhaled it can contribute to an increased rate of asthma. Aside from all that, snus contains nicotine, which we know is addictive. Regardless of the form in which it is taken, it creates the addiction and cravings that rob people of the choice not to use the product, which the Minister spoke about so powerfully last week. It is important that we consider this carefully, because otherwise people will become addicted to snus as another form of nicotine.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  My intention was to set out what these amendments seek to do and then to discuss the reasons why that might, or might not, be a good idea, and I will come to my hon. Friend’s very important point when I do so. The principle of amendment 56 is to bring in reduced or different penalties for those committing their first offence compared with those committing subsequent or repeated offences. This change acknowledges that businesses or individuals who commit an offence for the first time may not require the full penalty, but may require education or a form of leniency or mitigation. It separates first-time offenders from repeat offenders, offering an opportunity for compliance without the harshest penalties on the first offence. It could incentivise more careful compliance with the law, especially by businesses that are new or small, or are unfamiliar with or unintentionally violating the regulations on selling tobacco, herbal smoking products or cigarette papers. Amendment 57, also within this group, proposes to amend clause 1, page 2, line 9 by adding a new subsection (4A), which specifically addresses the penalties for first-time offenders who admit guilt under the sale of tobacco section. This amendment introduces a more lenient penalty, stipulating that first-time offenders would be “liable to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale or a caution.” Under clause 1(4), as it reads without the amendment, a person who commits an offence under that section is liable to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale, regardless of whether it is their first offence. The addition of proposed subsection (4A), however, distinguishes and separates first-time offenders by offering a potentially reduced fine—level 3 instead of level 4—or alternatively a caution, which is a formal warning and a less severe still form of penalty. The next amendment within this group, amendment 67, proposes an amendment to clause 50, page 25, line 34, adding two new paragraphs to subsection (5) and inserting new subsection (5A). Clause 50 is essentially a read- across of clause 1. There is understandable desire within Government to see the four nations of the United Kingdom having the same policy. That is simpler, it means that we can protect the health of people across the country, and it also makes it easier to enforce and manage the law. In Scottish law, the Tobacco and Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Act 2010 essentially provides Scottish tobacco regulations; clause 50 of the Bill thus alters sections 4, 4B, 6 and 8 of that legislation, so that the legislation in Scotland can essentially follow clause 1 in the rest of the United Kingdom. Amendment 67 is therefore designed to do to clause 50 what amendment 56 does to clause 1, introducing the phrase, “, save if it is a first offence.” to section 4(5) of the 2010 Act. In doing so, it effectively exempts first-time offenders from the usual penalties set out in that section, which typically involve higher fines or penalties. Secondly, amendment 67 introduces proposed new subsection (5A) to section 4 of the 2010 Act, specifying: “A person who has admitted guilt of a first offence under subsection (1)”, related to selling tobacco products to minors, “is liable to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale”— consistent with amendment 57— “or a recorded police warning”, which I understand is the equivalent of a police caution in the rest of England and Wales. This change allows a more lenient treatment of first-time offenders, in line with the approach seen in other amendments aimed at reducing penalties for first offences. The level 3 fine is less severe than the typical penalty under the current system, which could be level 4, and the recorded police warning offers an alternative that serves as an official notice without a financial burden. The amendment applies specifically to Scotland rather than to the rest of the United Kingdom, and its discretionary penalty for first-time offenders is intended to focus on correction, compliance and education rather than simply punishment of offenders. It promotes a more rehabilitative approach for those committing what is, relatively speaking, a minor offence for the first time. Amendment 73 to clause 68, by adding the words “, save if it is a first offence.” is designed to introduce a more lenient approach to individuals committing an offence under the clause for the first time. Again, clause 68 is essentially a read-across of clause 1 into Northern Irish legislation. Northern Ireland has its own legislation on tobacco control, which the clause will amend. It substitutes clauses such that we have the same rules for tobacco purchasing in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, making them harmonious across our country. The amendment would provide in clause 68, and therefore in Northern Ireland, what the Government seek to provide for the rest of the country, which is the rolling smoke-free generation legislation. The exemption would mean that those who commit an offence under the clause would not be subject to the usual penalties if it was their first offence. Amendment 74 would add a new paragraph (4A) to article 3 of the Health and Personal Social Services (Northern Ireland) Order 1978, to specify that a person who has admitted guilt of a first offence under the clause is “is liable to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale or a conditional caution.” My understanding is that a conditional caution in Northern Ireland is similar to a police warning in Scotland and to a caution in England and Wales. The intent behind the amendments is to provide a more lenient penalty for first-time offenders than for those who have committed the offence previously, in particular by allowing a fine capped at level 3 on the standard scale, which is obviously lower than level 4. Alternatively, there would be the option of a conditional caution, which means the opportunity for the offender to avoid a formal criminal conviction by complying with certain conditions, such as attending educational courses or engaging in community service. The original briefing suggested that we would discuss amendments 75 and 76 at this stage, but I understand that we are going to postpone those to the debate on clause 2, so I shall leave them for now. I will talk about the effects of the amendments, but first I will answer the question my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor asked about what the standard scale is and what it means. On the standard scale, a level 3 fine has a maximum of £1,000 and a level 4 fine has a maximum of £2,500. Cautions are given to people over the age of 10 years who admit an offence and agree to be cautioned by the police; they do not amount to a criminal conviction, but they may appear on a Disclosure and Barring Service check, which is required for some forms of employment. The amendments speak to the proportionality and purpose of the penalties, which ought to be set at a level that is both a reasonable punishment and an effective deterrent. It is important to prevent crimes and to maintain the confidence of the public. When we debate clause 1 later today, we will discuss further the challenges faced by shop workers implementing the provisions in the Bill; no doubt, we will also discuss who is liable for the fines. I invite the Minister to consider who he wishes to be responsible for them. Does he wish it to be the shop worker—the chap or lady working in the shop? Does he expect it to be the shop manager, the shift supervisor, the owner of the business or the chief executive of a major company? That is a relevant consideration when thinking about the proportionality of the fine. A fine of £1,000 may not deter a large supermarket chain, but it may well deter and be a substantial penalty for someone who works part time in a shop while working as a student. The size of the fine is a relevant consideration.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  That is not quite what I meant. I guess the question is this: if someone has sold tobacco products to a person of 45 who should not have them because they are now illegal, that is an offence—it is breaking the law as set out in the clause—and would see a penalty applied— [ Interruption. ] Well, it may see them liable for a penalty—let us put it that way. If the retailer sold that same tobacco to a 14-year-old, would the Minister not agree about the difference? Selling it to a 45-year-old and a 14-year-old might be illegal—the same crime on the face of the Bill—but the penalties for selling tobacco to a minor should be greater than those for selling it to an adult.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  My understanding—I am sure I will be corrected if I am wrong—is that New Zealand introduced the ban, but it had not come into force, at which point the Government changed. When the Government changed, the political views of the Government changed—as we have seen happen in our country. Sadly, as a result, the law was rescinded before it came into force in New Zealand.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is right to go back to the evidence. One of the things we were told in the evidence provided by National Trading Standards and the Local Government Association, particularly on Tuesday, was that they want discretion, but also that they want first-time offenders to be treated more leniently. That was a clear ask from our witness, who explained that educating or warning first-time offenders was a better option than fining them. Each of the amendments that I have tabled seeks to make available a police caution that will not count on a criminal record and so means the person will not be criminalised, unlike someone’s being taken to court and given a fine. The amendments would add in a lower level, as well as reduce the overall top fine. What I am trying to get from the Minister before Report is an understanding of whom he is trying to fine and proportionality in the amount of the fine. We need guidance on that issue, so that we can fully understand how a Saturday shop worker will be treated if they inadvertently sold some tobacco to somebody in a first offence versus how a shopkeeper and licence holder will be treated if they repeatedly commit such offences. I want some guidance from the Minister on that.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Minister is shaking his head. So what is a reasonable step? Unless one is to ask everyone for ID, the first step will be to decide whether to ask the customer in front of them for ID. That step will be, in essence, that shopkeeper or shop worker assess the person’s age. Research shows that people are usually off by about eight years in their estimates of people’s ages by face alone. In fact, some research shows that if groups of people are shown a face, and the face that they are shown immediately before was a younger face, they will pick a younger age for that second person. If they are first shown an older face, they will pick an older age for that same person. That suggests that who the customer came in with, or who the previous customer was, may have an effect. At the moment, we are asked to conduct a Challenge 25 check on a customer, but is it as easy to check the age of a 40 or 41-year-old as it is to check the age of someone under 25, or to tell whether someone is young or relatively young? The evidence seems to suggest that people who are close to 25 are quite good at telling whether people are under or over 25, and people who are close to 41 are apparently better at telling whether people are 40 or 41. It depends on age, and there is also an effect of sex and ethnicity. Given that the Minister rejects new clause 3 tabled by the hon. Member for City of Durham on a policy on checking ID, he does not want people to have a policy on when to check, he does not want people to check everybody and he just indicated that he does not want people to rely on what they think based on looking at people, what reasonable steps would he expect to take place? The Government need to provide further guidance on that. In the last Parliament, the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) tabled an amendment for a nicotine-free generation. She made the point that we have a rolling age of tobacco products, herbal smoking products and cigarette papers, so why not have one for all nicotine products? We know that nicotine is addictive and that the industry will evolve to try to get people hooked to a different form of nicotine product—that may be less or more harmful than tobacco, but it will still be addictive. Their choices will still be taken away, and they will still be having something that they do not want, which costs them money and potentially makes them poorer as a result. If it were to become apparent later that these items were particularly harmful, and one wished to do another rolling ban, one could end up in a situation where there is an age for sale of alcohol, fireworks and all sorts of other things, and two rolling ages with two different dates—one for tobacco, herbal products and cigarette papers, and another for vaping and other nicotine products such as nicotine pouches. Many of the amendments to the Conservative Government’s very similar Bill were included by this Government in their Bill, so I wonder whether the Minister could comment on why that particular amendment from a Government Member was not included.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. It brings us to the heart of the next part of my speech, which is the inconsistency between different parts of the United Kingdom. We will come on to other inconsistencies in further amendments to clause 1 relating to age verification processes. As for why there are differences in the legislation as drafted, I am afraid I did not draft it; the Minister did. Perhaps he will say whether that was intentional or whether he wishes to amend it later.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Which page is it?

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I shall try to be clearer. I strongly believe that these products should not be sold to children—I believe that personally; we have a free vote on this in my party. I strongly agree with the vast majority of the Bill, and certainly with the rolling age for tobacco. However, I think we have to be proportional in how we manage fines for individuals who break the law. I will come on to how the measures compare with those for other age-restricted products in a moment. Consistency is important. When we debated this issue in the last Parliament in relation to the previous iteration of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, there was published Government guidance on who would be fined. It may be that this Government have published similar guidance already, but I have not been able to find it; perhaps the Minister can say whether it is available yet. When we debate clause 1 stand part, we will talk about what the clause means by “a person”. The effect of a deterrent or punishment depends on who we are trying to deter or punish: if we are trying to deter or punish a major corporation or a business, the fines may need to be larger than if we are trying to deter a 19-year-old who works in a shop on a Saturday afternoon while attending college. That is the point that I am trying to get to with the amendments.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister therefore clarify something for the record or for anyone listening to proceedings? If one is suspicious that a particular retailer is selling tobacco products to children or, in the fullness of time, to those who should not be receiving it, to whom do they report it?

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend raises two points there, one of which is that the age at which someone can sell a product may not correlate with the age at which they can buy it. That is true for some products already, and I will go back to my story. When I could not get my bottle of champagne, because I looked too young, the young man at the cash desk had to be supervised by an older person in order to sell such products, so he was selling them with permission. Other age-restricted products can be sold—without supervision, in some cases—by people aged 16 to 18 with a specific form of training and when a particular form of paperwork is completed, so this is not unprecedented. I also agree with my hon. Friend’s second point that this is a bit odd and clunky. If one were to make tobacco illegal, however, one would be criminalising people, and if one were to bring in an age limit of 25, suddenly there would be a cohort of criminalised addicts. The rolling pattern helps with that.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister for his clear answers. The purpose of the amendments is to provoke debate on the proportionality of the punishments in place and to encourage the Minister to provide further guidance on who he expects to be punished—the shopkeeper or the shop—and to consider the levels of penalty across the UK. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  If Northern Ireland has decided that it wants higher fines and if, as the Minister has said, he wants to take the idea of a smoke-free generation seriously, why, given that the law as it stands in England and Wales is for him to decide—certainly in England, as he is the Minister with responsibility for public health—does he not want the fines in England to be as high as they are in Northern Ireland?

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I do not want to put words into the mouth of the hon. Member for City of Durham, but I think she is trying to fill a gap with her new clause. The Government have said that businesses need to take reasonable steps and people need to take reasonable steps, but they have not defined those reasonable steps. Even today, it does not seem clear what they might be, although we know what they are not.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Some people talk about celebrating special events with a cigar. My hon. Friend talked about new year’s eve, birthdays, the birth of a child or weddings—people might celebrate those sort of events with a cigar, although it is not as popular as it once was. It is possibly most famously associated with Winston Churchill. I think the expression “close, but no cigar” comes from the practice of giving away cigars as prizes at fairground games, which is thankfully not something we encourage today. Intriguingly, cigars have often evaded smoking bans, as a special exemption remains in place that allows customers of cigar shops to smoke on the premises, the idea being that smokers sample a product before committing to buying an entire box. Just a few hundred metres from where we stand, Members can stroll down St James’s Street and then smoke a cigar indoors, entirely legally, at the establishments that sell them. I think cigars have been given special treatment in the in the past for that reason. The Minister may consider that people who find themselves banned from tobacco, but addicted to it, may decide that they are going to smoke lots of cigars, but I would be interested to understand his thought processes on that.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  May I ask the hon. Lady if there is any evidence that in Scotland, it has reduced aggression towards retailers?

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  In the impact assessment, it says that 95% of people cannot give up through willpower alone. Will the Minister congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden), who told me that over Christmas he has managed to give up smoking using willpower alone? This is the first time that he has not been smoking.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It might be good to get on record some of the figures that appear in the Government’s impact assessment regarding the association between smoking and poverty. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that people who are poor or rich have the same agency and intellectual capacity to make decisions, but the figures show that the number of people in poorer areas who smoke is greater. Figures produced in the Government’s impact assessment show that, in 2023, 20.2% of those in routine and manual work smoked, compared with 7.9% in managerial and professional populations. For those who owned their home outright, smoking rates were only 7%, but for those who rented local authority or housing association properties, smoking prevalence was 25.7%, which shows there is a marked inequality in smoking rates between rich and poor. The health inequalities we see across the population in other forms of ill health will be improved by clause 1, because smoking rates will fall in all populations. The change will be seen most in the poor.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that very helpful intervention. I, too, am not entirely clear what the Bill means by reasonable steps. We seem to have established what some reasonable steps might not be, but I am still not clear what they might be. It would be helpful if the Government elucidated that point further.