Jack Rankin MP: speeches

Speeches

• 24 Feb 2025 · Social Media Use: Minimum Age · Hansard source

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  Mr Stringer, you would struggle to find a Member of this House who is more committed than I am to classical liberal ideas surrounding individual liberty and personal responsibility. I do wish there were more of us. However, when it comes to children, I very much agree with the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) that the Government’s role is very different. Our job is to protect children and give them the skills they need to make decisions for themselves as they grow into adults. That does not mean mollycoddling them or wrapping them in cotton wool: there is a clear difference between a bloody knee or a playground argument and exposure to graphic violence and pornography, which can be easily accessed on social media. As many hon. Members have noted, anxiety levels in children are at an all-time high. In particular, suicide has increased dramatically: since 2012, the rates have doubled in boys and trebled in girls. According to the “Good Childhood Report”, British children are now reporting some of the lowest happiness levels in Europe. In my constituency, a freedom of information request submitted to the royal borough of Windsor and Maidenhead found that mental health referrals in children had doubled since the pandemic. The problems are due in large part to smartphones and social media. As was stated in a recent Select Committee session, the average 12-year-old now spends 21 hours a week on their phone. As well as the obvious direct harms, there are indirect consequences, which is the point that I believe the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) was making. Those are hours in which they are not having formative experiences or interacting with the world around them—experiences that our generation took for granted. I spent my early teens climbing trees and playing rugby, not staring at a screen. Something is being missed today in the healthy development of young people. What sets social media apart is the ability to circumvent the traditional safeguards of parent, family and community, with children now exposed to the weight of the world in their bedroom. Feeling unable to protect their children from the ills of social media, many parents are resorting to banning phones entirely, which I do not think is sustainable. Things need to change. By changing the law to limit under-16s’ access to social media—I take the point from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) that that is easier said than done—we can give parents and children a fighting chance. I believe that changing the law will play a key role in reversing the fortunes of our children, but we also need to make sure that they are prepared for the challenges of modern life. As with many of the great initiatives that have been discussed today, change in Windsor has come from the bottom up. There is already a very active branch of Smartphone Free Childhood in my constituency, and parents have shared awful stories of hardcore pornography being circulated in primary school WhatsApp groups. Separately from the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign, there is a wider movement around children’s mental health. In my constituency, the Well Windsor charity, which I emphasise is neutral on this particular proposition, is unique in what it does. I believe it could be the blueprint for change across the country. It was officially launched late last year by Andy Nuttall, along with seven other parents, who recognised that there was a gap in state services when it came to children’s mental health locally. It is more than a cluster of well-meaning adults; the charity is run by individuals with varied professional backgrounds, including former teachers, ex-CEOs, business leaders and clinical psychologists. They are proactive: they are raising funds, talking to schools and delivering already for students. The data that they have collected on mental health provision in schools in Windsor confirms what we already knew intuitively: parents and teachers feel underprepared for providing the necessary support when facing rising anxieties among children. Well Windsor works with third parties such as myHappymind to provide schools with programmes to help children to check in with themselves, practise mindfulness and improve their resilience, so that they can face the modern world head-on. The NHS, local authorities and the Department for Education can often go round in circles, directing children and parents from one service to another, while children are left to fall by the wayside. Charities such as Well Windsor go directly to the schools that need help and deliver it—not in a month’s time or a year’s time, but within weeks of discussions first taking place. Importantly, Well Windsor’s approach is non-invasive, with a focus on positivity, self-esteem and general mindfulness. We should be careful about raising awareness for the sake of it, because the last thing that suggestible children need is to be bombarded with information about depression, anxiety and mental health. That would be counterproductive. There can also be a tendency to medicate away mental health problems in children. That can sometimes come at the cost of addressing the root causes of those problems in the first place. One of them is clearly social media. I believe that if we in this place can change the law for those in our communities who are taking matters into their own hands, we can help them to turn around some of the trends that we are seeing. The only thing limiting that is political will and time. I think most of us in this House, on a cross-party basis, would encourage the Minister to move in that direction. Communities across this country have had enough of the downward spiral in children’s mental health. Parents, teachers, children and charities such as Well Windsor are taking action. It is time that we in this place did the same.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Although all-digital services are desirable, we should never freeze out those who are not digital savvy, given that over 1 million people in this country do not own a mobile phone, for example. Does the hon. Member agree?

• 6 Feb 2025 · Attorney General's Office: Transparency and Conflicts of Interest · Hansard source

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  4. What steps she is taking to increase transparency in the Attorney General's Office.

• 6 Feb 2025 · Attorney General's Office: Transparency and Conflicts of Interest · Hansard source

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  Three former Law Officers have criticised the Attorney General for not declaring his earnings, labelling it as “irregular” and a break from “normal practice”. Who is in the wrong: the three former Law Officers or the Attorney General?

• 28 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I will come on to the point about the relative effects of second-hand vaping and of smoking, but I will make some progress first. My second point, which I have made throughout our debates on the Bill, is that we are potentially conflating vapes with cigarettes in legislation, which will exacerbate the misinformation that such alternatives are equally harmful to cigarettes. That will further undermine the Government’s goal of helping smokers to quit. Indeed, Action on Smoking and Health found: “Half of all smokers…incorrectly believe vaping is more or equally as harmful as smoking…This is the highest ever proportion with this misconception across all waves of the survey and a significant increase on misperceptions found in 2023. Only one third of smokers understand vaping is less harmful than smoking.” It seems to me that if we group vapes and cigarettes together and treat them in the same way, that misperception will only be exacerbated. That may further reduce the inclination of smokers to switch to vapes.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I think the Minister is teasing me ever so slightly. I just want to say that I did write what I said; it was not given to me by the IEA.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I would not describe myself as libertarian; I would say I was arguing straightforward centre-right classical liberal opinions, rather than libertarian ones, but we might differ on that. An arbitrary line must obviously be drawn. The same argument could be made about someone idling in a car and people on the street. There is obviously a difference between that and smoking, where we have drawn a line. I acknowledge that I know less about heated tobacco products but, from what I have read, the spill-over effect from nearby users does not reach a threshold to merit state intervention—though I agree that that judgment is qualitative. That is the argument I am advancing. I again make the point to the Minister that heated tobacco, while a recent innovation, has been reported to be positively associated with success in quitting. We should therefore be careful and not treat it the same way as cigarettes in an effort to advance the aim of the Bill, which is to get more adult smokers to use this product and move away from smoking.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am afraid to say to Government Members and to the shadow Minister that I am going to break up the cosy consensus. I had lunch at the Institute of Economic Affairs, which has given me some classical liberal vibes. I know that that will warm the Minister’s heart. Part 7 of the Bill will give the Secretary of State powers to designate smoke-free places through secondary legislation; clause 139 will do the same for vape-free places. I have a few concerns about that approach. First, it has the potential to force people who have already switched or are in the process of switching from cigarettes to vapes—or indeed to heated tobacco, which is the subject of the next clause—to use their devices in the same areas as smokers, which runs the risk of their moving back to cigarettes. There is a risk that the places designated for vaping will often be the places designated for smoking. We all agree that even though we do not want people to start vaping, we would rather that people vaped if they are on cigarettes. In my view, the clause will be detrimental to its own aims.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend’s points have been noted for the record. From what I have read and seen in the representations to the Committee and more widely, heated tobacco seems to me to be similar to vaping, in the sense that we do not people to start it as a product, but it is less harmful than cigarettes, so we should try to facilitate a way for people to use those methods as cessation devices.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  As my hon. Friend knows, I am not a doctor as she is, but I will repeat that Cancer Research UK said that there is “no good evidence that second-hand e-cigarette vapour is harmful”. and Public Health England made a similar comment. I understand the point that the hon. Member for Worthing West has made a few times about the precautionary principle, but we could take that to any excess.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is not that people are not going to vape. They will go outside to the designated vaping spot, which in the overwhelming majority of instances will be either the same place that is designated for smoking or immediately adjacent to it. If someone is a recent ex-smoker or is trying to quit, effectively forcing them to vape in an area near cigarette smoke seems incredibly damaging to public health. I do not think that that is a particularly controversial statement.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am not sure there is a question there, but the hon. Member has put a smile on my face. My final point is about the visibility of vaping, because I think the Minister should consider the wisdom of this clause by his own logic. Public Health England guidance says: “while smokefree law protects people from the harm of secondhand smoke, forcing smokers outdoors has increased public visibility of smoking, including to children and young people. Having a more enabling approach to vaping can mitigate this and help make smoking less of a social norm”. Ensuring a differentiation between where people can vape or smoke might assist in encouraging smokers to switch to vaping, which would undoubtedly have a net positive public health benefit. In addition, allowing people to continue vaping indoors in places such as pubs, bars and nightclubs, which are age-gated anyway, would reduce the visibility of vaping in public and keep it away from people who are under age. When it comes to protecting people who are under age from picking up vaping in the first place, I wholeheartedly agree with the Government and the shadow Minister. Those are the five points I wanted to make. First, are we sure that we want to push vapers to vape in the same place as smokers when they might be trying to give up smoking? Secondly, do we really want to conflate vapes with cigarettes, which might undermine the Government’s goal to help smokers to switch? Thirdly, will the Minister commit to consulting on any expansion of vape-free spaces, as he has for tobacco? Fourthly, the evidence is weak that second-hand vaping is a problem, but that is effectively the rationale for smoke-free places. Fifthly, is the Minister not concerned that he could be inadvertently putting vapes on show, particularly to young people, by forcing people out of age-controlled spaces such as pubs?

• 28 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  That is effectively the argument I am advancing. In terms of the quantum of harm as a percentage of a cigarette, I do not know. As I understand it, even though we do not fully know yet the dangers of heated tobacco, it is similar to vaping in that we do not want anybody to take it up, but if someone smokes we would prefer them to use it as a cessation device. I understand that that is the way they are marketed.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is nice to have a fellow freedom fighter on the Committee— [ Interruption. ] I am trying to get the Minister to intervene. My third point is one to which I think the Minister alluded earlier, but I ask him to repeat it in summing up. This part of the Bill will allow the Secretary of State to make decisions without really having the full approval of Parliament. The Minister has said that the Government will consult on the expansion of smoke-free areas, but as I understand it from the drafting, it is not necessary for the Government to consult on expanding vape-free and heated tobacco-free spaces in the same way. I think he might have touched on that point in his remarks, but I would welcome his confirmation. My fourth point relates to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham on second-hand smoke. My understanding is that the rationale for smoke-free places, as initially envisaged, was that the smoker is affected as a result of them having made an informed decision, but people nearby are affected who have not. That is the point of the smoke-free place. Cancer Research UK, however, states that there is “no good evidence that second-hand e-cigarette vapour is harmful”. Public Health England has also found: “Compared with cigarette smoke, heated tobacco products are likely to expose users and bystanders to lower levels of particulate matter and harmful and potentially harmful compounds.” In my view, therefore, the point about second-hand smoke does not make anywhere near the same kind of sense for heated tobacco products as it does with cigarettes. Even the Bill’s impact assessment states: “There are currently no legal restrictions in the UK on where a person may vape. However, many businesses, venues, educational institutions, health service providers and public transport providers have voluntarily introduced their own rules preventing vape usage in these locations.” We all recognise that that is the case. Given that the impact assessment also notes that “There is currently limited evidence of health harm from ‘passive vaping’.” should it not continue to be for the proprietors of such venues to make their own decisions, based on the needs and desires of their customers? That is my position.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Government Members will be glad to know that I do not intend to repeat my points from the previous clause. Like the shadow Minister, I am less familiar with heated tobacco products, but I suspect the arguments I made regarding clause 139 apply to clause 140. I want to make two or three points specific to heated tobacco. As with vaping, designating smoke-free areas as also being heated tobacco-free is dangerous, as it forces consumers to use their less harmful products alongside smokers. The risk is to increase the chance of their moving back to cigarettes. I will quote Public Health England: “Compared with cigarette smoke, heated tobacco products are likely to expose users and bystanders to lower levels of particulate matter and harmful and potential harmful compounds.” It is not clear to me that there is an effect on a bystander of someone using these devices. The Cochrane review cited an earlier review on heated tobacco products that concluded that users and bystanders were exposed to toxicants, “although at substantially lower levels than cigarettes”. Perhaps the Minister could comment on the relative harms, but I am not convinced.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend gets to the nub of the point that I am making. Vapes can be a tool to help the Government in their desire to create a smoke-free generation, and this legislation could be counterproductive to that, by their own measures of success. Members—certainly those on the Opposition Benches—have to engage with not necessarily the law that is written but how it will be implemented in reality. Businesses are likely to respond to this legislation by just putting up a sticker on the smoking shelter that says it is the designated vaping place as well. That is the risk.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Minister is disagreeing, but he can combat that in his speech.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Thirteenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend that this is a step too far. Does he also agree that this would be an enormous waste of police time? The police often get their priorities wrong as it stands, but the idea that they should spend time prosecuting smoking in a private vehicle is clearly a waste of police time.

• 23 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I encourage my hon. Friend not to criticise the Minister for doing something quite sensible in pursuing this evidence-based approach. I have said before that people who have a cigar on new year’s eve and who use specialist tobacconists—that is where I get mine—are the kind of people we should be letting off a little. The Minister is right.

• 23 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  In my home office, I have a wonderful watercolour painting of the Lord’s pavilion that celebrates Lancashire winning the Benson & Hedges cup final sometime in the mid-1990s. I know the Minister is a proud Lancashire man, like me, and I agree with him that although we want to see again the days of Lancashire winning cricket tournaments, none of us would want to go back to the days of Benson & Hedges sponsoring sports competitions, so I will support the Minister and the Government on clause 124. On clause 125, however, I will have to disagree with the Government. As we have already discussed, vaping and nicotine pouches are significantly less harmful than cigarettes. In my view, this clause opens us up to inconsistency across the board. I say that because sponsorship is currently permitted for alcohol and gambling. To me, it makes no sense for vapes to be treated differently. In response to my earlier comments, the point was made that tobacco is uniquely harmful; it is different, in its public health damage, from alcohol and gambling. But I do not fully buy that. I see these things as a spectrum. If people want to say to me that cigarettes are uniquely harmful versus alcohol and gambling, I am prepared to believe that, but I am afraid that when it comes to tobacco and nicotine products and to gambling, these things are a spectrum. I represent Ascot and Royal Windsor racecourses. Ascot racecourse is in effect the Wembley of racing worldwide, and Royal Windsor is very much in the top tier. I find myself having to defend them quite often when people want to legislate on gambling, because having a cash bet at a racecourse event is a healthy thing to do as part of a day out. That should be treated very differently from somebody in an online casino in the early hours of the morning or on a fixed odds betting terminal. Gambling is a spectrum, and I suggest to the Committee that tobacco and nicotine products are also a spectrum. I say this with sincerity. The Labour party’s seats may spread much further than they used to, but certainly Labour’s core seats, which perhaps the Minister and the Chair represent—

• 23 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I will bring my remarks to a close, Mr Dowd, but I will make the point that some of these sponsors are online crypto casinos. I would argue that they are worse than vapes, so I think some inconsistency is being introduced in the law. Let me suggest one way in which we could un-work that inconsistency, which I have seen in the Six Nations. Guinness Zero now sponsors the competition, rather than Guinness. It seems to me that we should allow low or no-alcohol beers to engage in these activities, and I see vaping as analogous. I believe that there is an analogy there, but an inconsistency is being applied by this clause. I will also make a point about the technicality of some of the clauses—I hope that the Minister can point to some of this later. Clause 125(1)(c) mentions sponsorship of “a herbal smoking product…cigarette papers…a vaping product…a nicotine product,” but annex B of the explanatory notes on page 102 mentions “any device which is intended to be used for the consumption of tobacco products or herbal smoking products”. Will the Minister provide clarity on what other devices we are seeking to capture? For instance, will tobacco filters fall under the sponsorship ban? Will his Department propose a Government amendment to update the text of the Bill to provide clarity and remove that potential loophole?

• 23 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am glad to hear that—it sounds like positive news, but I will finish my point and go down the list. Crystal Palace FC is sponsored by Net88, a Vietnamese betting company; Everton FC by Stake, an Australian online casino; Fulham FC by SBOBET, a Philippine gambling company; Leicester FC by BC.Game; Nottingham Forest FC is—

• 23 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for her intervention.

• 23 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I wholeheartedly support the Government on tobacco, but does my hon. Friend agree with me that there might be an inconsistency being applied here? For example, vaping and nicotine products are being outlawed, but sport is awash with gambling and alcohol brand sharing. Does he not think that that is an inconsistent application of the message?

• 23 Jan 2025 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and I will seek to address both interventions in my further remarks. The point I was making to the Labour party is that a lot of its Members have made the case quite eloquently that things such as fixed odds betting terminals, which are often aimed at working-class communities and in particular young men, are like crack cocaine. That is an incredibly dangerous part of gambling. I think online casinos fit in that higher band of harm. I suggest that in the broad sense of tobacco and gambling, online casinos would be more harmful than, for example, the odd cigar that I have had recreationally—I have already made that point—so I think there is very much an inconsistency here. Look at the Premier League, for example. Hon. Members know that there are 20 football teams in the Premier League. Aston Villa FC is sponsored by Betano, and Bournemouth FC is sponsored by bj88; Betano is an online casino, and bj88 is an Asian gambling site. Brentford FC is sponsored by Hollywoodbets.