Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Report (1st Day)

Clause 1: Sale of tobacco etc

Amendment 1

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 5, leave out “born on or after 1 January 2009” and insert “under the age of 21” Member’s explanatory statement This amendment seeks to remove the generational ban for tobacco products in England and Wales by raising the age of sale to 21.

My Lords, I will speak to all my amendments in this group, which is all of them barring Amendment 203. I thank my noble friend Lord Naseby, who has signed all my amendments.

The amendments all do the same thing: they would remove from the necessary places in the Bill the generational smoking ban—that is, the prohibition on tobacco sales to all those born after 1 January 2009—and replace it with a fixed age of sale of 21. In my view, this policy was wrong when it was adopted by my party in government, and it is still wrong now.

In asking noble Lords to support this amendment, I will make six points. The first is in relation to prohibition. A generational ban may sound like a progressive step to protect public health, but it is de facto prohibition, and there remains no evidence anywhere in the world that prohibition of a long-standing legal product has ever worked. In time, this policy will result in the termination of a legally controlled, highly regulated, highly taxed industry, which will be replaced by an illegal, uncontrolled, unregulated, untaxed criminal bonanza.

The idea that, because the Government ban a legal product, they will extinguish demand must be pure fantasy. The Government’s impact assessment, Modelling for the Smokefree Generation Policy, clearly presents that scenario 2, increasing the minimum legal age of purchase from 18 to 21, and scenario 4, implementing a generational smoking ban—my amendment and the Government’s policy—will result in the same outcome: that 0% of smoking prevalence will exist among 14 to 30 year-olds by 2050.

It is therefore apparently the Government’s own assessment that an increase in the minimum legal age of purchase for tobacco from 18 to 21 would have the same impact as the generational ban with respect to reducing youth uptake of smoking. If the outcome remains the same, it begs the question: why not adopt the proven and straightforward policy approach of implementing a ban at the age of 21? After all, increasing the minimum purchase age to 21 has been adopted, or is in the process of being adopted, in the United States, Singapore, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Kuwait, Ethiopia, Honduras, Samoa, Uganda—the list goes on.

The Republic of Ireland will adopt the age of 21 threshold from February 2028. It is a very pertinent case study because, in 2024, the Irish Government specifically announced that they would not look to implement a generational smoking ban because of the legal advice they had received that such a ban would conflict with the EU single market rules and the tobacco products directive—a point to which I will return shortly.

New Zealand in 2023 adopted the same generational ban policy as that advanced by the Government today. It was reversed in 2024, before it came into effect. The new New Zealand Government argued that the existing regulatory regime was on track to deliver the same smoke-free results without the profound unintended consequences that would flow from implementing a generational ban. This was sound reasoning.

My second point is that the policy is unnecessary, as smoking rates are declining anyway. According to the ONS, smoking rates among all adults aged 18 and over across the UK have declined from 20% in 2011 to 10% in 2024. In 2019, the then Prime Minister, my noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead, announced the Government’s intention to reach smoke-free—which equates to 5% or less of the adult population—by 2030. Less than five years later, adult smoking rates had declined by a further 4%. Therefore, based on this progress, adult smoking rates will hit the smoke-free target by 2030, or very closely thereafter. This begs the further question: what is the rationale to break from a policy approach that is clearly working to one that is untried and untested and which will have significant unfavourable consequences?

My third point is the black market substitution effect. So long as there is a flourishing alternative market, offering a 20-pack of illicit cigarettes for anywhere between £3.50 and £7, compared with an average of £17 for a legal 20-pack, consumer demand will go in only one direction. People are already switching in huge numbers to buy cheaper, illicit products, which is also resulting in the loss of vital tax revenue to the tune of many billions of pounds a year. It is surely obvious that this trend will only be accelerated if those born after 1 January 2009 can never legally buy cigarettes.

When it comes to illicit tobacco products, Action on Smoking and Health, Trading Standards and the Government themselves maintain that illicit tobacco consumption is declining, repeatedly citing HMRC evidence that the illicit tobacco trade has shrunk by 90% since 2000 and that only 10% of the cigarettes consumed in 2023-24 were illicit, which amounts to some 2 billion illicit cigarettes. However, in giving evidence to the Business and Trade Select Committee in November, the deputy director of illicit finance at the National Crime Agency, Sal Melki, stated that the combined law enforcement agencies’ Operation Machinize had seized 4.5 billion illicit cigarettes in 2024 alone—thereby seizing 2.5 billion illicit cigarettes which, according to HMRC, should not exist. The stark reality is that no one knows the size and scale of the illicit tobacco market, but what has become glaringly apparent is that the Government refuse to waver from the narrative that it is in decline, even when the evidence clearly points in the opposite direction. We must learn the lessons from Australia, where organised criminals have taken control of the illicit tobacco and vapes market and violence and chaos have exploded on to Australia’s streets. The situation will, I fear, be worse here once the generational ban is in effect.

My fourth point is the very significant impact of the ban on retailers. Crimes against retailers are already at epidemic levels, and many independent shopkeepers are scared about the impact that a generational ban will have on their business and the safety of their staff. There is no getting away from the fact that the weight of responsibility for enforcement of the ban will fall entirely on their shoulders. They will have to navigate the new legal-age threshold, which will change every year and be different from the threshold for other age-limited goods—for example, alcohol. One clear potential effect of the proposed ban is that many small local shops will struggle to remain viable in the face of increased competition from the untaxed, unregulated black market. I fear that many neighbourhood shops will close as a result of this policy. I know my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom will make some further points on this issue.

My fifth point is in relation to the Windsor Framework. The Government continue to claim, based on their own legal evidence, that they will be able to implement the generational ban across the whole of the UK, even though they know full well that in Northern Ireland such measures are subject to the Windsor Framework. It is clear that the Bill is contrary to EU law. The ban is a Brexit benefit, although the Minister will not call it that. In spite of legal objections from seven EU member states—Croatia, Czechia, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Slovakia—the implementation of a generational smoking ban would breach the Windsor Framework and the EU products directive. But still the Government intend to press on without ever explaining the basis for their legal confidence. In reality, there must be a strong likelihood that these provisions of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill are likely to be disapplied by the High Court in Northern Ireland.

My final point is on liberty. There is a tendency in modern politics to clamour for a ban to achieve social benefits in preference to seeking other solutions, notwithstanding the impacts on personal liberty and freedom of choice. The generational smoking ban significantly erodes personal freedom and choice—so much for the Government that would tread more lightly on our lives. The ban imposed by this Bill is simply not justified. It will have absurd consequences. Why, a few years hence, should a 42 year-old be able to buy cigarettes but a 41 year-old cannot? If an 18 year-old can drive a car, buy alcohol, join the Army and have already voted for two years if this Government get their way, surely by the age of 21 they can decide whether they wish to buy what will still be a legal product. The state should not remove for ever that freedom to choose simply because a person happens to have been born on or after 1 January 2009. I beg to move.