Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Johnson of Lainston Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Udny-Lister (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to a number of the amendments laid in my name, starting with Amendments 24 and 25. Noble Lords will note that Amendment 24 seeks to establish a national register of tobacco and vape retailers. The reason I am pushing this so strongly is that the national register would strengthen traceability and support our trading standards officers and, importantly, could become a mechanism to strengthen consumer confidence and public reporting of rogue traders, by providing the general public with the means to distinguish legitimate retailers from rogue operators.

As for Amendment 25, noble Lords will hopefully understand the significant challenges that small businesses in this country are facing at this time. Yet here we are, through the Bill, finding yet more ways to strangle our small, legitimate traders with more red tape and more bureaucracy. I, like several people, I am sure, have heard directly from small retailers that many of them do not even bother to report people who carry out smash and grab thefts to the police, due to the time it takes out of their working day.

With these themes in mind, we should be mindful of passing legislation that places new and undue burdens on these small businesses. If we get this wrong, I fear that this legislation unamended would push many small and currently legally trading businesses into the hands of criminal enterprises that are fuelling illicit tobacco and vape trading across the UK. That is why, through Amendment 25, I am asking for the creation of a single digital portal for licence applications and renewals. This digital portal would lessen the burden on businesses, while also enabling greater oversight from enforcement agencies, all the while reducing the risk of administrative errors.

Amendment 31 would enable licensing authorities to suspend or revoke alcohol licences in cases where tobacco or vape licence conditions are persistently breached. Beyond the fact that, in breaching tobacco and vape licensing requirements, the person would fail to meet the definition of a “fit and proper person”, if the Bill is to succeed, it must be based on meaningful economic consequences that hurt and impact illicit trading. Alcohol represents a very significant proportion of convenience store turnover. Linking the two regimes creates a deterrent and uses existing powers under the Licensing Act 2003. If everybody is serious and genuine in their endeavours to protect children through this legislation, we must close this enforcement gap and send a message to those who breach tobacco and vape conditions by deeming them unfit to sell alcohol.

Finally, Amendment 44 seeks to ensure fairness and avoid regulatory arbitrage by ensuring that there is consistency across England and Wales. I seek your Lordships’ consent to apply the same alcohol licence linkage principle in Wales to that which I have proposed for England. That principle is that serious and persistent breaches of tobacco retail conditions should carry real commercial consequences, hitting rogue traders in a way that seeks to gravely disrupt and deter rogue trading.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

My Lords, we have had a very valuable debate so far on the practicalities of a generational ban on smoking. I have been particularly intrigued by the journey we have taken. In that journey, a number of people have come to me, and I thank them for the enormous amount of information and support we have received from the specialist cigar industry. I was particularly delighted, noble Lords may be interested to hear, that my noble friend Lord Parkinson alerted me to a brand of cigars that sadly no longer exists called the House of Lords Cigar Range. I am sure we could sell that in the gift shop if things changed.

I also thank the Minister for her assurances over sampling rooms. I know this was debated, but I would be grateful for further clarification relating to her correct assertion that plain packaging will be difficult for specialist tobacconists to comply with, and thus extra care will be taken to ensure that they can carry on their business within the law, and that their specific needs will be met, as they are already in relation to the display of tobacco products.

However, these amendments, to which I have added my name, go further in protecting this important if niche industry of specialist tobacconists. The purveyors of these handmade, hand-rolled cigars, as my noble friend Lord Lindsay said, employ hundreds of people. They are largely family-owned or small businesses. They have been trading in some cases for hundreds of years and, importantly, provide delight to thousands of tourists and enthusiasts every day.

Regarding compliance with local licensing regulations, I do not believe that these shops have ever had any form of enforcement or issue around their compliance. I believe their behaviour to be exemplary. If we do not acknowledge the difference of these specialist tobacco shops but simply lump them in with the hordes of vape shops that are a blight on our high streets, we will end up in the worse situation that is causing the sorts of problems that we see today and that have just been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister.