Jack Rankin MP: speeches

Speeches

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

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  My hon. Friend is making an eloquent case that we should not be advertising vapes, or their pricing and products, to children. What she is not doing is making a case for banning the display of products or prices of vapes to adults. Does she think it is incongruous to treat tobacco products and vaping products in the same way in this clause?

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

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  At first sight, the clause can appear to follow on naturally from the rest of the Bill, and in some sense it does, but I think it is important. We heard from shopkeepers in the evidence session last week, from the British Retail Consortium, and in the representations to us made in writing that it can be difficult for younger shopkeepers to hold the line on this, and they might be at the wrong end of unacceptable verbal abuse. In my view, the Bill will increase that risk. With younger people often manning retail stands, in the future we might have 18 or 19-year-olds having to refuse to sell tobacco products to people a decade or so older than them. That will be increasingly challenging, even compared with the existing situation. I have spoken about being opposed to the principle of the Bill and finding it somewhat unworkable, but putting that to one side, I think that if we are to proceed with it, we have a particular obligation to make things as easy as possible for shopkeepers. I am sure that everyone agrees. The language used, or proposed to be used, in the age of sale notice in subsection (2) is quite legalistic, being presented as: “It is illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009”. That is a statement of fact. It mirrors what we see today, but it is very legal. I think it would benefit from being a bit more practical. For example—I think my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham made this point—it is illegal to sell herbal smoking products, cigarette papers and not just cigarettes, but cigars. We might help our shopkeepers if we made the list a bit more practical, so that the shopkeeper could turn around to say, “Sorry, guvnor, but this is the law,” whereas with the Bill saying “tobacco products”, the verbal altercation might include, “These are not cigarettes, though.” Perhaps we should move away from legalistic language to help staff, especially younger members of staff. That is particularly necessary, given what seems to be a general coarsening in our society, I am afraid to say.

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

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  It is, Sir Roger. I went to the toilet.

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

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  Perhaps I explained myself ineloquently —or maybe my hon. Friend was being mischievous in her characterisation. I agree with her wholeheartedly, but I would say that raspberry is a perfectly legitimate flavour for an upstanding vape seller to sell to an adult smoker as a cessation device. I would not want to go too hard on that so that we do not cut off that legitimate smoking cessation route.

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

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  I do not think that nicotine products are attractive to children in any way, shape or form today. My concern is that, as the Government are seeking to stop children using them by restricting them in vending machines—I do not think they should be using them—

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

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  I will ask my hon. Friend about this point later.

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

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  I supported clauses 10 and 11 because I agree with the Government that under no circumstances should children be taking up vaping. I was heartened by the Minister’s comments on the principle of clause 10, the general point about evidence and balance when it came to vaping, and treating vaping differently from cigarettes and tobacco products. However, I cannot quite go along with the Government on clause 12, because there they have the balance slightly wrong. I accept that vape vending machines should be prohibited, for the same reason that tobacco and cigarette vending machines were prohibited: vending machines cannot provide for age verification. That balance is well struck. However, I do not support the related measure for nicotine product vending machines. The Minister may seek to correct me, but I am not aware that any of the products described by the shadow Minister, such as nicotine patches and gum, is used recreationally or is attractive to children.

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

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  I have supported the Government so far on the principle of not allowing under-18s to vape, but I am concerned that, as we get to these clauses relating to distribution and discount—we have just talked about display, and I will not talk about flavours and marketing in depth, because I know they will come later—we are at risk of moving away from the evidence, and from the balanced approach that the Minister talked about when he delineated between vaping and tobacco. These clauses give quite wide scope to Ministers on all of these products together, but I think the products should be treated differently. There should be scope for legitimate, responsible vaping companies to offer free distribution and discount of products, in aid of the Government’s stated aim. We do not want to create new vapers, but vaping is a powerful tool to realise the aim of a smoke-free generation. As with most products, it is possible to promote price savings in a responsible way. We have received a huge weight of correspondence on this topic and I cannot say that I have had the time to read everything that has come across our desks, but I read the letter from VPZ, which I understand is a vaping company. It talked about its partnership with the NHS in Essex, which had put out to tender for a process to help people successfully quit. There was a £55 voucher from the NHS associated with that partnership. As I understand the letter—perhaps the Minister knows more about this than I do—VPZ used that voucher to offer a cashback scheme such that that money came off the price of vapes. VPZ did not benefit directly, because it did not think it should be doing so from a public source, but it passed that saving on, and I suppose that counts as a discount on a product. I might contend to the Minister that that is exactly the kind of thing we want responsible, legitimate vaping companies to do. I understand that he wants, through this mechanism, to strictly limit advertising to, and targeting of, children and new vapers, but—

• 13 Jan 2025 · Migration Levels: Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source

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  The mass import of low-skilled workers could cost the taxpayer more than £61 billion—a financial ticking time bomb. Will the Minister commit here and now to extending the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain or bringing in new qualifying criteria?

• 13 Jan 2025 · Migration Levels: Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source

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  16. What estimate her Department has made of the potential impact of levels of net migration on future trends in the number of people who will be granted indefinite leave to remain.

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

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  I thank the Minister for his passionate remarks, which I am obviously not going to take lying down. I agree wholeheartedly that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the greatest country in the world, but before I try to make some progress, I might humbly suggest to him that a lot of that greatness may be based on the primacy of the individual and our rights to get on with our lives.

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

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  My hon. Friend might best be able to provide clarification. Perhaps I have misunderstood, perhaps this is a mistake or perhaps it is deliberate. I understand why each jurisdiction of the United Kingdom has to be taken separately, but do I understand correctly that in clause 68, which covers Northern Ireland, the suggestion is that it should be a level 5 offence, whereas in clause 1, which covers England, the suggestion is it should be a level 4 offence, and my hon. Friend is seeking an amendment to make it a level 3 offence in the first instance? Why would that offence be a different level in different parts of the United Kingdom? The Minister is frowning.

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

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  I take the Minister’s point, but there is the potential throughout the Bill for double standards. He talks about addiction—I disagree with him, but it is a perfectly reasonable point to make—but the same could be true of gambling or alcohol. We allow, for example, gamblers to advertise on football shirts. So if the Minister takes the logic of his argument all the way through to its necessary end conclusion, then this Government must be legislating for all those addictive social things that are incredibly damaging as well.

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

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  I thank the hon. Member for his point. Forgive me if I did say it was easy, but I try to pick my words carefully, and I do not think I did say that. I said they had agency, and that is a different point. Linked to that is the fact that too often—not just on this issue—we talk about waving our magic wand with legislation to make things illegal. But that is not the way that the world works. I am concerned that there is the potential, with draconian legislation such as this, to exacerbate the illicit trade in tobacco, which will reduce the effectiveness of the regulations and the public health messages.

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

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  Does the Minister perhaps not see the difficulty with the fact that we will be out of international lockstep with everybody? My understanding is that both New Zealand and Malaysia introduced a generational ban policy, and both have been repealed.

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

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  It is the top of page 36. As I understand it, clause 68 makes the sale of tobacco a level 5 offence in Northern Ireland, and my hon. Friend is seeking to make the first offence a level 3 offence, but on page 1, clause 1(4) makes the sale of tobacco a level 4 offence. It seems that there is a an inequity there, which perhaps is deliberate or perhaps I have misunderstood. I support her opinion, but it seems that there is a difference between the different nations of the United Kingdom and I do not understand why that is the case.

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

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  I will just expand on that point a little. The United Kingdom is something like the third biggest tourist destination in the world. Forgive my ignorance—there is a lot of paperwork here—but obviously we are trying to make the sale of tobacco and the distribution to others of tobacco illegal in the UK, and I have not seen a clause in the Bill that would make bringing cigarettes into the country for one’s own use illegal. Maybe the Minister will correct me on that. We obviously have a tourism issue in that regard, but I was also thinking about when G7 leaders come to the UK. President Obama was famously a smoker. Will the United Kingdom not be able to host a G7 event, which is obviously of massive significance, if there is a leader of the free world who smokes? Their attendance might be vetoed. There are lots of things that have just not been thought about.

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

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  I take the hon. Member’s point. I understand that cigarettes are obviously incredibly addictive, but I think we can exercise that point too far. People who smoke have agency to stop; it might be difficult, but they can, should they choose to.

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

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  Very simply, in the future, we will create two tiers of adults. Those people are children today, and it is right that in law we prohibit them from smoking, because they cannot make these responsible decisions, but once someone passes the age of 18, we as a society, generally speaking, accept that if they want to make bad choices, they are their bad choices.

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

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  Forgive me for my ignorance, but could my hon. Friend illustrate what levels 3 and 4 mean in practice and how they might read across to similar products, such as alcohol, so we can have some context for what she proposes?

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

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  One thing that will be particularly operationally difficult is the period of time during which those on the shop floor may not be able to use cigarettes themselves, but they will not be prohibited from selling cigarettes. An 18-year-old shop worker might be asked to adjudicate whether someone is 33 or 34. In such instances, training might be really quite important.

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

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  I will just expand the point a little bit. My understanding of heated tobacco, for example—my hon. Friend is a medical professional, so she may take a different view—is that where it has been introduced en masse, such as in Japan, there has been a 70% fall in cigarette sales. If we are talking about a smoke-free generation, and the health benefits that she and Government Members are talking about, is banning all tobacco products necessarily the right way to go about that?

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

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  I sympathise with what the Minister says about the world wanting us to make it work. I will make an analogy that I think is directly relevant. My expertise before joining this House was in renewables development. The United Kingdom, particularly under this Government, has been quite aggressive on renewables; the Conservative party was quite aggressive on them too, and the new Government have come in, continued those policies and been more aggressive. The Government are clear that they want to be world leaders, but in the past week the United Kingdom was incredibly close to blackouts. If you are a leader and you do something successfully, whether on renewables or cigarettes, you may well lead the world forward, and the Minister is right to say that other countries would want to follow us on this issue. However, there is an under-spoken truth about being a leader, and perhaps being first. Clearly, the Minister is passionate about the issue, as is clear in not just what he says, but how he says it; he wants the United Kingdom to lead on this, and I am sure he will be as forceful as possible. But a leader is also a warning if they do not succeed. If we make moves that are too draconian, too quick or over-eager on energy, and we get it wrong, that could mean blackouts. If that happens because we have taken an aggressive approach, no one will follow us. We will be a warning. For leaders, it goes both ways.

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

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  I support my hon. Friend on the principle, which we see in other legislation, but the point about children is important. Shopkeepers are used to the concept of Challenge 25 for people over 18, and this starts in that way, but given how the legislation is designed, we will soon get to the cut-off for smokers being in their early 30s. Shopkeepers will not be used to challenging someone who is 32 in the same way, as part of a Challenge 37 policy or whatever. There needs to be an acceptance. In 10 years’ time, we will not see selling cigarettes to a 32-year-old—I have not got my sums right, but I just want to illustrate the point—in the same way as we see selling cigarettes to a 17-year-old today. There should be a recognition of that when it comes—

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

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  I might make some headway, because I think that was more of a slap-down than a question for me.