Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Earl Russell Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 3rd November 2025 Grand Committee

I look forward to this debate and the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 34 in this group, which is on cigarette filters and health warnings. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and my noble friend Lady Walmsley for their support. This amendment would require the Secretary of State to make provision

“prohibiting the manufacture, supply, or sale of … plastic filters intended for use in cigarettes, and … cigarettes containing plastic filters”

through regulations that must be laid before Parliament

“no later than the end of the period of six months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed”.

This amendment is required. It is a practical, necessary and long-overdue measure that I hope to show enjoys widespread public support. Implementing it would strengthen our commitment to environmental sustainability and corporate responsibility while having minimal impacts on those who choose to smoke cigarettes with filters.

As we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, discarded cigarette filters are one of the most common and prevalent forms of public litter. It has been estimated that 90% of all cigarettes smoked in the world contain non-biodegradable filter tips and that, in the UK, some 3.9 million cigarette butts are discarded daily. On a constituency basis, that is 6,000 cigarette butts, or 2.2 million thrown away each year. Every year, billions of cigarette butts are discarded across the UK, which is a staggering amount.

As they degrade very slowly, they release microplastics and many harmful chemicals, which are a danger to nature and to aquatic life in particular. Only one in four smokers even realise that filters are not biodegradable; most assume that they already are. Eighty-six per cent of adults support this change in the law, including 77% of the smokers asked. Cigarette butts are a bit like ants. The power of their pollution is caused by their very small nature, their frequency and the fact that they are discarded so widely. It is very difficult to clear them up, even if we wanted to.

As we have heard, they are made from cellulose acetate—a non-biodegradable form of plastic—and take up to an estimated 10 to 15 years to break down in the natural environment. I question one figure from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, which seemed to be for plastic filters, not biodegradable filters. I do not recognise the figure she gave. Yet, despite this harm, plastic filters continue to be widely used. This and other Governments have made progress on banning other forms of everyday plastic pollution, but no progress has been made here. For these reasons, regulatory action is now required. Fortunately, perfectly workable alternative solutions are available and are widely recognised within the industry as being fit for purpose and working with manufacturing processes.

Across the world, there has been a move to work on these issues. The World Health Organization supports a ban on non-biodegradable cigarettes as part of the global plastics treaty and the EU is also looking at these matters. If the Government accept this amendment, the UK could become the first country in the world to pass legislation on these matters. Biodegradable cigarette filters made from natural fibres such as paper, hemp or bamboo would degrade much more quickly and cause far less harm. They would eliminate unnecessary plastic waste and give people the option of having a filter on a cigarette if they want one.

I do not argue that filters in any shape or form make cigarettes healthier to smoke; they clearly do not. I know that tobacco companies have falsely put them forward in this way in the past. However, they make smoking more pleasant for those who want to smoke. If an alternative exists that would deal with the plastic pollution, we should not unnecessarily ban these items. My amendment is about trying to find a way between having the plastic pollution we see now and a complete ban.

Turning to the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, I suggest that banning filters would not resolve the problem because people will continue to smoke. They will smoke cigarettes without filters. They will dispose of the butts of those cigarettes without filters on the ground. Indeed, in many cases, they will end up burning their fingers and dropping them in places they do not want to, which could become an increased cause of wildfires, which are becoming an ever more prevalent problem. The litter will still exist and the nicotine in the cigarette butts will still exist. I do not buy the argument that removing filters would improve health outcomes in any way at all. I find it hard to see that a cigarette without a filter is in any way healthier than a cigarette with a filter. It may not make any difference, but I certainly cannot see how it can be argued to be in any way better.

My amendment is well argued and supported. I am open to working with the Government around the timelines that I would put in place. It might be that the Government feel that those timelines are too short. On reflection, maybe I should have allowed for a bit more time for it to take place.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, Amendments 141 and 143 would require the Government to consult on introducing health warnings on each individual cigarette by printing them on the cigarette papers. These amendments are necessary because the Government have not yet committed to consulting about these warnings, let alone insisting on them, as I believe that they should.

Warnings on individual cigarettes, also known as dissuasive cigarettes, were recommended by the APPG on Smoking and Health in 2021 and in The Khan Review—Making Smoking Obsolete in 2022. The Government should take heed of Dr Javed Khan’s report in particular, which was commissioned by the previous Government to examine how we could get to our smoke-free target by 2030. Canada has already seen remarkable success with this approach and Australia has just followed suit with regulations coming into effect in July this year.

Research commissioned by Health Canada into the appeal and attractiveness of cigarettes with health warnings showed that these cigarettes were perceived as less appealing than cigarettes without health warnings. The converse is, of course, also true. Cigarettes that did not have health warnings on were viewed as being less harmful. The impact was particularly notable among young people, who reported that when they were offered single cigarettes in social situations, they were not exposed to the warnings on the cigarette pack. With warnings visible on every cigarette, this would no longer be the case. Cigarettes may not be able to be sold individually, but they certainly can be handed out individually to others at parties and social events.

It is very welcome that the Government are introducing pack inserts, for which I have long argued and which signpost smokers to quitting information inside the packets. But I find it ironic that it is the tobacco industry, which of course shortens the lives of half its customers, that warns that there may be dangers from the ink printed on the cigarette papers. These papers would, of course, be printed with non-toxic ink and would discourage people from taking up this habit, which proves fatal and damaging to so many people.

We do not want to make smoking any more harmful. We want fewer people to take up the habit, and we want to help the majority of smokers, who are struggling to quit as most are. So, I urge the Minister to consider this additional complementary and necessary measure. It may help those people who need to be deterred from accepting a cigarette offered from someone else’s packet and who may then begin a habit that shortens the lives of half the people who take up that invitation to become a smoker.

Some people, particularly those in the tobacco industry, still suggest that, at this point, we all know all about the harms of smoking. However, the evidence is clear: the more strategies we use to inform consumers, the more chance we have of preventing people starting smoking or of helping people quit, as most smokers try to do repeatedly. My late noble friend Lord Ashdown frequently told me that he gave up smoking three times a day. He found it, as most smokers do, highly addictive and very hard to give up. We need to know that what is compelling for one potential smoker may not be workable for another smoker. So, given how lethal tobacco is, we need to use every tool at our disposal to deter smoking and to help people quit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

Before the Minister moves on, can I ask a question that I asked earlier? If she recognises that 75% of smokers think that filters reduce the risk—indeed, they may increase it—does she not think the Government should be doing something to counter that belief, perhaps more actively than they are doing at the moment?

[Earl Russell (LD)]

Before the Minister rises, I welcome the response to this amendment, but the point is that most people still litter their fag butts in any case and believe that they are already biodegradable, so I press the Government to take further action in this area.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I say to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, that the issue is about depth of evidence and how action, if it is to be taken, gets the right result. I went over the unintended consequences several times for my own benefit and I can see the potential for this not producing what we want. I take his point, but it is about how, when and what the evidence and the effects are. That is why it is not possible to accept the amendment.

I note what the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, said about the 75%. I am not in a position to comment on that, but I refer back to what I said—it is about getting the right evidence. The challenge in this group of amendments is that the evidence is not complete and taking us to the right place, but we will certainly keep this under review. I say that in respect of some of the other amendments too. Noble Lords will be aware that there are various powers in the Bill that allow changes to be made as things develop.

Amendment 155, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Mott, would add cigarette filters to the scope of Parts 5 and 6. Those parts apply to tobacco products, herbal smoking products, cigarette papers, vaping products and nicotine products. Those products have been included in the scope of the Bill as they cause harm in and of themselves. “Tobacco related devices” are also included in the scope of Part 5, so that we have the ability to regulate them in a similar way to vape devices. We are not convinced that the position with filters is the same. 

While we agree that filters should not be advertised in a way that promotes smoking, which is partly the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, the Bill’s ban on advertising and sponsorship already covers any advertisement with the purpose or effect of promoting a tobacco product, restating existing provisions. The Advertising Standards Authority has rules on filters which state that marketing communications for filters should not encourage people to start smoking or to increase their consumption.