Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Committee (6th Day)

Clause 113: Publishing advertisements

Amendment 160

160: Clause 113, page 62, line 35, leave out sub-paragraphs (iv) and (v)

My Lords, in moving Amendment 160 in the name of my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister, I also speak to Amendment 173A in my name. I spoke at Second Reading about the infringement of personal liberty and not allowing individuals to take their own decision; I stand by that. My amendment would make it less difficult to vape than to smoke, but without increasing the risk to children.

The National Health Service website says that although vaping is not completely harmless,

“Nicotine vaping is less harmful than smoking. It’s also one of the most effective tools for quitting smoking … The routines and rituals of smoking can be hard to stop, so vaping can help you gradually let go of these while immediately reducing the health risks of smoking cigarettes”.

I also quote Professor Sir Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer for England:

“If you smoke, vaping is much safer”.

Again, I suggest that, by making the purchase of vapes more difficult and reducing the number of shops that they can be brought from, the Government are not helping. Vaping does away with the danger of passive smoking. My amendment would require the Secretary of State to undertake research into the potential effect of fewer smokers switching to vapes and nicotine products, or fewer consumers continuing to use these products instead of cigarettes as a result of these regulations, and of extending the provisions in Part 6 to such products.

The essential point here is that the Government should not proceed with their plans unless they have properly investigated the expected impacts of the Bill on those who are smoking and vaping. As I have already commented, vaping is safer than smoking and the Government’s policy should reflect that fact. Ministers should be required to consult the sector properly when assessing these impacts. We must not allow a situation where well-intentioned, if overbearing, government policy has the effect of worsening health outcomes for individuals.

My Lords, I put my name to Amendment 161 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, and I am interested in the themes in Amendment 173A, about which we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, because I think that an assessment of and research into the impact of any kinds of advertising and sponsorship restrictions is very important moving forward. The reason why I am concerned about any advertising restrictions is that people who currently smoke and are looking to switch to vape can do so only if they know what vapes are and understand the facts around relative harms, where these products can be purchased and so on. Imposing these restrictions as written in the Bill without consultation would have grave unintended consequences. At the very least, there must be clearly defined exemptions.

In this House there is constantly talk about the problem of misinformation. I agree that we do not want people to be making judgments about anything based on misinformation or factual inaccuracy. Yet the difference between vaping and smoking is not well understood. Public Health England and, indeed, Doctor Khan’s independent review concluded that vapes are 95% less harmful than tobacco, yet misperceptions about the harm of vaping have risen at the same time. In 2025, 56% of adults believe that vaping is more harmful than or equally harmful as cigarettes, compared with 33% in 2022. In other words, misinformation is creating ever more misperceptions every year. Opinium research from July 2025 found that 51% of all respondents believe that vapes are equally harmful as or more harmful than smoking, with 48% of current smokers believing that. Certainly, they do not know that vapes and other nicotine products have 99% less toxicants than cigarettes. Curtailing the opportunity to provide public information on the relative benefits of vaping, as this Bill threatens to do, would further exacerbate this lack of understanding.

My Lords, I will speak against all the amendments in this group. They all, in various ways, could restrict or delay action by the Government—action that is urgently needed.

On vaping, I know that the Advertising Standards Authority has expressed concern about product placement on websites such as TikTok. There are concerns and, given the new technology and new media around, further action may well need to be taken on vaping. But I will focus on nicotine pouches; I hope that the Minister will be able to provide me with some information on them.

I note that today, for example, Convenience Store magazine reports that Imperial Tobacco has launched new nicotine pouches

“with five flavour options—Sweet Mint, Cool Mint, Watermelon Ice, Juicy Peach and Berry Blast”.

They apparently have a “better mouthfeel” than previous versions and smaller, slimmer tins that will fit conveniently in your pocket. That does not really sound like a stop smoking aid, does it? You will see these nicotine pouches in convenience stores, as the site of that announcement suggests—colourful tins with colourful labels stacked conveniently right beside the chewing gum. But this is not just about the nature of the product or where it is stored. I invite noble Lords to have a look next time they catch the Tube, where they will almost certainly see adverts for nicotine pouches.

Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.

My Lords, I was saying that, if noble Lords travel home on the Tube tonight, they will see at the side of pretty much every escalator at least one advert for nicotine pouches. Theoretically, these are stop smoking aids, but what does the advert say? It is along the lines of “Make your journey more pleasant; enjoy these favours”. If you are quick and have great eyesight, you might read in the small print as the escalator goes past, “Meant for under-18s for smoking cessation”, but that is not the message presented by the advert. I hope that the Minister will tell us how the Government are planning immediate action on the advertising of nicotine pouches, because it is clearly a huge issue.

It goes further than advertising to promotion. I recently went through Manchester Piccadilly station, where some bouncy young people with very sharp haircuts, in matching sports and leisure wear—that is probably how I should refer to it—were handing out free samples of nicotine pouches, mostly to young people who matched their demographic. That is not appropriate behaviour; it is not good for public health. We need to crack down on this. I come back to the delays and barriers that these amendments would cause to the Government’s action on nicotine products and offer the strongest possible opposition to them.

My Lords, in relation to the amendments in this group, first, I do believe that vaping is safer than smoking. All the evidence is that it is safer, but it is of course not risk-free. Indeed, that was the position under the previous Government: in October 2023 it was stated quite clearly that vaping is safer than smoking but it is not risk-free. If you do not smoke, do not vape.

I am all in favour of the promotion of vaping as a cessation tool for smoking; I think that is permitted under the Bill, and the Minister will no doubt cover that in response. I think we do need some way of promoting vaping, certainly for those who smoke, so that they can give it up. But if, as appears to be the case, everybody regards vaping as powerful for the cessation of smoking but for no other reason, because it is not risk-free, we should not be permitting advertising except in the narrow compass of the promotion of vaping as a cessation tool. For me, that would be the most sensible position, so I am not in favour of the amendments in this group.

My Lords, I have my name to one of the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister, but I will start with the comment by my noble friend Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth that vaping is not risk-free. Well, what is risk-free? I shall go home in the car tonight, as it happens, since the noble Baroness inquired. Is that risk-free? Driving a motor car is certainly not risk-free. Nor is the Tube risk-free. That is why—I remember this from when I was deputy chairman—safety is our first priority. It is only by working terribly hard on safety that a railway actually comes close to being safe—but it is still not risk-free. Even on the escalators, one of our former colleagues, Lord Ribeiro—some noble Lords will remember him—blacked out, fell down, was taken to hospital and eventually retired from the House as a result of the injuries he sustained on the Tube network. So anything that is predicated on the idea that we in society can tolerate only something that is risk-free is frankly barmy. Life would come to an end if that were the case.

On these amendments, I would say: imagine you have a friend who breaks the habit of a lifetime, gives up smoking and adopts vaping. You want to send them a card to congratulate them on this move. We might all pass the card round the office and sign it and send them a card to congratulate them. There can be no such card. Anyone who in the course of business even designs such a card is committing an offence. Anyone who prints it is committing an offence. Any such card that says “Well done” could be held to look like it was promoting vaping: “Well done on giving up cigarettes and taking up vaping”. It could easily be found to be committing an offence. Anyone who publishes it is committing an offence. Anyone who sells it is committing an offence. That is for old-fashioned means of advertisement that are printed on paper. The measures are absolutely draconian. There is no commitment to consult. All I want to say is that the amendment in this group to which I put my name, tabled by my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister, is one that calls on the Government at least to consult.

The Government want us to have that information, but they are terrified that we might have information that encourages us to enjoy what we are doing. It is very much like some sort of puritan regime in the early Americas. You can have what is good for you, but you cannot possibly enjoy it. It is that sort of attitude. The Government both want the information to be available and for it not to be available. They want vapes to be available, but for no one to know about them unless they actually need them. No one is actually going to sustain a business producing vapes on that basis, so the end result will be that there is a state-provided vape. There will be a standard NHS vaping machine, which we will be given access to if we are approved, because nobody will run a vape business if they cannot advertise and communicate.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, is horrified. I do not want to talk about nicotine pouches, which is mainly what she spoke about, but she also spoke earlier about the flavours of vapes. We discussed the flavours and descriptors of vapes. I think she was offering a good illustration that my amendment about descriptors was right; it is the descriptor she found offensive, not the actual taste. In fact, she did not know what the taste was as I assume she never tasted them.

Just to clarify for the noble Lord, everything that I was speaking about on flavours was about pouches, not vapes.