Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 17th November 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)]

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.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

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.

To conclude, the Government are in a terrible state of mental confusion. They want the public to know about vapes. I want to repeat from my own experience something very similar to what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, said: it is not that easy to take up vaping. You need to know something about it; you need to know how the kit works and what it is you like. I was not quite as assiduous as her in reading the internet, going to the local vape shop and going to the convenience store as she did. I stumbled in a less systematic way through a similar sort of process until I found something that worked for me.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

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

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I beg the noble Baroness’s pardon, but I will still make my point about what she said about flavours. She was not describing the flavours; she does not know what the flavours are. She never bought them or consumed them as far as I imagine. She is talking about the descriptors—the rather lurid descriptors—just as my amendment is saying. That is what the Government should focus on, rather than flavours, which is what the Bill refers to. That is a digression back to an earlier group.

I simply want to say that the Government are in a state of tremendous confusion. They want us to have the information, but they do not want us to have too much information. What they have is a regime that is astonishingly oppressive and amazingly draconian, and which really ought not to stand as it does.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

My Lords, I will briefly follow my noble friend’s comments. We are in danger, with an understandable zealotry to extinguish all types of access to all types of tobacco-related products, of missing the reality of the point that there are millions of people in this country who could be occasional smokers and/or smokers who, like my noble friend and like the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, are keen to move from smoking cigarettes to other alternatives which are frankly better. It is often the perfect that becomes the enemy of the good; my recommendation is that the Government try to avoid that being the case.

The point here is that we should not have a zealotry-based attempt to ban something because an individual does not like it—a natural and understandable prejudice. The point must be about public health and giving people longer, happier lives and being practical about how to apply the laws to ensure that they function effectively. These amendments illustrate the opportunity for the Government to have a proper consultation to work out how they can ensure we do not end up, as my noble friend Lord Moylan might suggest, with an NHS-approved vape. It would be similar to those spectacles that you got on the NHS when I was a child; you could have either tortoiseshell or black. That strikes me as exactly what we will end up with in this scenario.

We should be proud of ourselves if we move to a regime where many people use vapes as a practical alternative to smoking and as a route to the ultimate cessation of smoking cigarettes. That should be the aim, and I am extremely concerned that, through the meticulousness and overfocus on a desire for perfection and completeness, we will end up causing the exact opposite effect and not increasing people’s health outcomes. Surely the Committee and the Minister would suggest that that should be the priority, and we need some common sense to prevail in this discussion.

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[Lord Moylan (Con)]

Since the noble Baroness has said so clearly that the purpose of the advertising ban is to prevent information being communicated to children and young people, and that that was a manifesto commitment, why does the ban have to be drawn so widely? Clause 119 has a list of defences that can be advanced for those who are accused of breaching the various preceding clauses on advertising, but none of them says that it is a different matter if the communication is with adults. Is this not drawn far too widely to be justified by her laudable ambition?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I am glad that the noble Lord regards it as a laudable ambition. We will come to exemptions in the next group, and I look forward to doing so.

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[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 171 in my name, which contains some echoes of Amendment 167 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe; I thank my noble friend Lady Walmsley and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for their support.

Noble Lords will not be surprised, I think, to hear that I fully support the restrictions on the marketing of vapes, nicotine pouches and other nicotine products. We urgently need to put an end to the relentless and irresponsible advertising to which we are currently subjected; the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, described this in our debate on the previous group. You cannot travel on the London Underground without seeing adverts for pouches saying things such as, “Hi, London. Your commute just got tastier”—not, noble Lords will note, “Hello, London smokers. Did you know that there are less harmful alternatives to smoking?”

This kind of indiscriminate marketing works to expose children to these products, which have been criticised by trading standards as mimicking sweets. As the Minister pointed out, awareness of nicotine pouches among under-18s has risen from 38% in 2024 to 43% in 2025. My amendment seeks to probe the Government on how they will ensure that public health authorities, NHS bodies and smoking cessation services can communicate effectively with smokers to make it clear that these products, while not risk-free, are significantly less harmful than smoking and can help smokers quit.

Such bodies have been impeded by the vaping industry. As we all know, vaping and addiction to nicotine is, in turn, leading to young people smoking, something that all of us, it seems, want to reduce. To put it bluntly, we have the wrong people using these products. Uptake among children, young people and never-smokers is far too high. Some 20% of 11 to 17 year-olds have tried vaping. Conversely, the people whom we most want to switch—they were addressed in our debate on the previous group: adult smokers—are not doing so. More than one-quarter of adults who currently smoke have never tried vaping, and misperceptions about harm are most acute among these smokers; the proportion who believe that vapes are as harmful or more harmful than cigarettes has increased. Had the vaping industry not promoted its wares to young people, we would not be in this situation.

This Bill currently makes provisions for public health bodies to promote these products but, of course, there are major challenges. The industry is responsible for the situation that we are in. I have heard from smoking cessation services that some online platforms make it practically impossible to promote vaping, even from bona fide health organisations; any post with a budget on these issues gets blocked and could have an impact on the Government’s messaging on this topic. Will the Minister explain how she feels this Bill will steer a proper course here, so that we put forward the public health benefits to which noble Lords referred in our debate on the previous group? In a similar way, different radio stations have different policies on vaping adverts, with some not allowing them at all even if it is clear that the public health messaging is from professional services. How will the Government steer through that?

As noble Lords indicated in our debate on the previous group, there clearly needs to be differentiation between commercial promotion and public health messaging if these vapes are to be used for what they were supposedly there to do in the first place. The problem here is that the vaping industry has not proved trustworthy, as children and young people are targeted. Many of the amendments here will simply allow more loopholes and are, therefore, likely to muddy the waters yet again.

We should not soften the approach that the Bill takes towards commercial companies. Just this year, we have seen heated tobacco advertising in supermarkets—Sainsbury’s and Morrisons—despite the Government telling them that this is currently illegal. If they are willing to flout the current law, why should we consider creating further loopholes for them to stretch in future? Once again, I will show an advert, which I have shown before, which is clearly not targeting smokers—if only it were. It says:

“Claim your free sample today”.


In tiny writing, it says that it is “not risk-free”. This is how loopholes have been exploited. That is what this Bill is seeking to address.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 168 and 170 in my name. At the end of the previous group, the Minister expressed a little gratified surprise that I thought the ambition of trying to end vaping by children was laudable. I am disappointed that she was surprised because I hoped that I had made it clear from the outset of my participation in this Bill that I entirely understand and support the Government’s wish to do everything possible to prevent the uptake of vaping and other nicotine products by children. My remarks were entirely about adults, as they will be on this group.

I do not wish to be impertinent, but I have a question for the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, who spoke of the vape industry as if it were a monolithic thing. There are several different characterisations of the vape industry, but the key one is that some of it is the work of respectable, accountable companies that are based in the UK and similar countries and conduct their affairs in one way, and some of it is the huge flood of vapes that have entered the market without proper regulation or control, I understand, although I do not know, very often produced by Chinese companies.

I ask the noble Baroness please to stop pointing at that piece of paper that nobody can actually see. Even if we were allowed to see it, we cannot read it at that distance.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

You can see the colour.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

It is blue. Is there something wicked about blue?

There is a distinction between the one and the other. The truth is that respectable companies will comply with the law, as they do with the law on smoking advertising, and disreputable ones will find ways of getting around it, as so many currently do.

I return to the two amendments in my name. Amendment 168 addresses Clause 119, which, as I mentioned in the previous group, contains certain defences that can be used by those charged with offences laid out in the previous clauses, such as distributing or designing advertising. I propose that an additional defence be added to it that,

“it is, when in relation to the advertising of vaping products or nicotine products, in a location in which it would be reasonable to expect that everyone present is aged 18”.

This is an attempt to try to fit in with what the Minister said earlier about the aim of the Bill, that we are meant to be trying to address young people, which I agree with, and help ensure that they are not induced into taking up vaping and other nicotine-based products.

Amendment 170 would create an exemption, not by amending Clause 119 but by adding a new clause, for a specialist vaping retailer making communications online in an age-verified environment. We have robust age verification now as a result of the Online Safety Act. There are many sites, I believe, which you are required to verify your age to access. That is what Ofcom has increasingly rolled out under the provisions of that Act. It is perfectly possible to have age-verified sites and to ensure that people can access them only if they can demonstrate they are above a certain age. That is what this is trying to do. It is trying to create some sort of balance for those adults—those above the age of 18—who wish to have access to information about vaping in a way that ensures it does not get to children. On the basis of what the noble Baroness has said is her purpose, I really cannot see how she should object to this. I hope that Amendment 170 and possibly even Amendment 168 might find favour with her.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendments 167 and 171 in the names of my noble friend Lord Kamall and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover. They seek a carve-out from the ban on advertising for smoking cessation purposes.

In Part 6, which is about advertising, I cannot see any exemption for those services. It may be tucked away somewhere else in the Bill. My enquiries about this led me to believe that the qualification that you have to act in the course of business before the ban applies is an exemption for the health service, local government and any other public health agencies. I wonder whether that is good enough. Pharmacies are businesses, and many GP practices are limited companies. If I went into a pharmacy or to my medical centre and asked for help to give up smoking, it seems that they might commit an offence because they are a business. I think there is some merit in those two amendments, unless there is something somewhere else in the Bill that provides a specific exemption for smoking cessation services.

I have looked at the defence in Clause 199, “Advertising: defences”, and there is a defence, but it can be exercised only by somebody “in a relevant trade”—in other words, selling tobacco products, herbal smoking and the rest. If the only exemption is for business purposes, it seems to me that there are some grey areas. Surely there is a case for making it clear that we want these products to be promoted as smoking cessation services and people should not run the risk of getting caught by what I think is rather vague drafting of the Bill as it stands.

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[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I am most grateful to noble Lords for bringing forward this group of amendments, which reference Part 6 provisions, and for the contributions that have been made.

I will start with Amendments 161A and 161B, which are tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister. The current drafting of Clause 114 makes it an offence, when acting in the course of business, to design an advert that would promote a relevant product and be published in the UK. If an organisation knows or has reason to suspect their advert has a promotional purpose or effect and will be published in the UK, it has committed an offence by designing the advert.

I say to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, that the inclusion of “has reason to suspect” is deliberate, not least because it mirrors the approach taken in the existing Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act. This wording is designed to avoid loopholes and to ensure that those who are involved in the design of ads cannot evade responsibility by claiming ignorance where it is clear from the evidence that they had reason to suspect what they were designing an advert for. I hope the noble Earl will understand that we will, therefore, not seek to weaken existing legislation or allow any uncertainty that could be exploited.

I turn to Amendment 161B. I sympathise with the intention to align penalties across the UK but, of course, it is important that we respect Scotland has a separate criminal justice system. There are maximum penalties for this type of offence; they are fixed in line with the criminal justice system in each jurisdiction. I hope that that is helpful to the noble Earl, Lord Howe.

I turn to Amendment 172A, which was also tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister. It seeks to restrict the scope of the offence of brand sharing. Brand sharing, also known as brand stretching, is a form of indirect advertising and should be seen as such, not least because it promotes the use of a service or product by putting its branding on other products or services or vice versa. The clause is drafted in a manner that already limits the offence that could be created under this power to cases where the purpose or effect is to promote a relevant product. Brand sharing, as defined in the Bill, would be unlikely to capture the types of case about which the noble Lord is concerned in his amendment; it is our view, therefore, that this amendment, as it stands, would introduce unnecessary complexity.

I turn to Amendment 168 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. The Bill as drafted takes decisive action to ban the advertising and sponsorship of all vapes and nicotine products, delivering on our clear manifesto commitment to stop vapes being advertised to children—something on which the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, spoke. The ban is essential to creating what we seek: a strong, consistent regulatory environment; and to provide clarity for businesses and enforcement bodies. I can say to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that guidance will be produced on advertising.

This Bill already includes defences for the limited circumstances in which advertising would be appropriate. As I have said in our debates on earlier groups, we are not considering any other exemptions for adult-only spaces, not least because of the risk of loopholes; these were referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover. However, I take this opportunity to correct a statement that was made in the other place: this prohibition will apply to all advertisements for relevant products, not just those for specific products. In practice, this means that anyone acting in the course of business could commit an offence if they promote a relevant product, whether that is a generic product, a category of products or a specific branded product.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I think the noble Baroness has addressed Amendment 170. Does she therefore not share the view of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, which was, as I understood it, that my Amendment 170 is unnecessary because there is nothing in the Bill that prohibits specialist vape retailers communicating on the internet? I would like clarity on that.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 13th November 2025 Grand Committee

Unless Ministers have the power to regulate the design and interoperability of devices, the industry will continue to outpace regulation. Amendment 142 is how we stop this. It is urgent. It would enable Ministers to remove regulation-bending products from sale to stop manufacturers redesigning devices faster than the law can react. As an evidence-driven measure to protect children and uphold the integrity of the disposable vape ban, I hope that it will have the support of noble Lords. I beg to move.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 144 in this group. Before I do so, I express my support for the argument made so eloquently by my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister on behalf of my noble friend Lord Mott. The amendments in this group should be relatively uncontroversial because we are all, I think, pushing in the same direction, and one of the key features of where we are going is the protection of children, on which we are all united.

My amendment relates to an area where the Government have misfired slightly in drafting the Bill. They seek to regulate the flavours of vapes. There is a most intriguing further amendment in this group, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, which seeks to tease out what the Government mean by the “flavour” of a vape. Both he and I are trying, I think, to come at the question of flavour as distinct from the description applied to that flavour. My amendment would substitute the word “descriptors” for the word “flavour”.

I speak as a vaper. I have vaped—not smoked—vapes that are described on the packet as “blueberry ice”, “mango ice”, and things of that sort. I can say immediately from my experience that none of them tastes like what they say. I can assure the Committee that the vape called “mango ice” does not bear any resemblance to anything that you could describe as a mango, and very much the same can be said of blueberries and so forth. I like eating blueberries—they are very good if you keep them in the fridge—so I know what they taste like. I like mangoes as well, but they do not taste like these vapes.

I think it fair to say that what we really want to control is the description applied. I will take this in two parts: first in relation to children and then in relation to adults. It is obviously the case that a descriptor can be applied to a vape that is designed to induce—if not seduce—a child to smoke a vape. If I saw something on the shelf described as “bubblegum mango”—I am not a marketing man, so I may not have chosen the best example—I would think that that descriptor was designed to appeal to a child. The Government should be able to regulate the descriptor on those vapes so as to eliminate descriptions which are designed to—or may inadvertently—appeal to a child. But that is not the power taken in this clause; it is a power to regulate the flavour, which, as I say, is both subjective and often at some distance from the descriptor that is applied.

The Minister may say, “I take your point on that, but I still want the power to regulate flavours because I am thinking now about adults”. Adults can, of course, see past descriptors. Most adults are not likely to find much appeal in something describing itself as bubblegum ice, bubblegum mango or whatever; none the less, there might be flavours that adults who do not like the taste of tobacco are seduced by, in the same way as menthol cigarettes were used to appeal to adults who did not like tobacco, and so on. I can see that.

However, it is also important to remember that vapes are a very important smoking cessation tool. It is clear from evidence from the industry that having a range of different flavours available makes them attractive to adults—not in a way that seduces them into wickedness, but that makes it easier for them to use vapes to give up smoking. I am trying to be helpful, and I am sure that the noble Earl is seeking to be helpful as well. We both agree on the protection of children, but we think that the Government have—rather lazily, perhaps—aimed at the wrong thing here with regard to flavours. It is about the marketing. It is the descriptor, rather than the flavour, at which the Government should be aiming.

I hope the Minister will accept my amendment in the spirit in which it is intended: that of being helpful. I also hope that she will agree to look more closely at this matter and perhaps come back with a more subtle and nuanced amendment on Report.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 146 on vaping devices, and I thank my noble friend Lady Walmsley and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for adding their names in support of it. I have been slightly outed already but, to be clear, this is a probing amendment. However, it touches on an important and genuine issue: regulation and the Government’s intention to define “flavour” in a vaping product.

Before I speak to my amendment, I want to be clear: I fully recognise the need to prevent young people vaping. I support age restrictions; changing names; making sure that vaping products are not appealing; ensuring that such products are not marketed; ensuring that they are hidden in shops and counter displays; descriptors; and every other tool in the toolbox to make sure that every trick big tobacco can come up with to put these products in the hands of young people is restricted. However, I firmly believe that, if this Government or a future one used these powers to ban or severely restrict vape flavours, it would be a retrograde step in the fight to stop smoking. As the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said, it is the flavour in vapes that reminds ex-smokers just how nasty cigarettes really are when they lapse—and ex-smokers surely do lapse.

As we have heard throughout the passage of this Bill, there are strong and legitimate concerns about the rise of vaping among young people. We have just passed a crossover point whereby more young people are now vaping than smoking, so I absolutely share those concerns. Nobody in this Room wants to see young people taking up vaping; nor do they want big tobacco to be able to start a whole new industry for a whole new generation, through which vaping is marketed at our young people.

However, if the Government are genuinely serious about taking this problem on, they need to do so through effective regulation, and that must start with clear definitions. My amendment is tongue-in-cheek in its approach, but it highlights a serious issue: the Government have created a bit of a heffalump trap for themselves here. I remind noble Lords that, as drafted, the legislation says that the Secretary of State may, through regulations, make provisions about the flavour of relevant products, and that the regulations may make

“provision for a determination to be made by a person authorised”.

My proposed new clause does not prejudge what those definitions should be. It simply asks a very reasonable question: by what criteria will the Government determine that a vaping product has a flavour? Once we start looking at this, the situation becomes absurdly complicated. This might be the philosophical background in my ancestry, but many vapes on the market today use a combination of chemicals that exist not to add fruit or sweet flavours but to mask the harsh taste of nicotine. Some add traces of methanol or cooling agents that are technically flavourless, but they change the sensory experience of those who vape. I do not know whether those will count as flavours. Under what threshold would they be counted? Which chemical compositions or flavours in these products would not be? Then there is the question of packaging, as we have heard, which brings up the descriptor point. Flavour is as much about perception as what might be contained in the product. If a vape has “mango ice” or “blueberry ice” on the package, but has no flavour, is that a flavour?

These are major complications, and I believe fundamentally that the route the Government are going down will end up in poorly drafted law, which will be hard to enforce. It will not work or do what the Government set out to do. It will lead to legal complication and challenges, and that is not good for the aims of the Bill, which I support. There really could be practical consequences and they go quite far. Concerning manufacturers, how will they comply with this when the Government are not clear? How will small retailers ensure that they are compliant with the terms of the legislation? Trading standard officers who have to enforce this stuff will find it complicated to do so.

I say again that for many adult smokers who turn to vapes to give up, as I think we have heard, the flavour element in the vapes is the thing that keeps them from going back to tobacco. There is strong evidence on this point, from Public Health England and numerous international studies, that it is about the wide availability of these flavours so that people can make a personal choice. None of them taste like their descriptor, but people can find a flavour that works for them personally. I just do not want the Government to act too harshly and crudely in this area and end up by creating perverse consequences, which are completely contrary to the stated intentions of the Bill.

I absolutely want to keep this stuff out of children’s hands. I support every other measure that the Government are taking in the Bill, but I come out strongly against this issue of controlling and restricting flavour. My amendment is really a tongue-in-cheek way of asking the Government to think again on it.

Turning briefly to the other amendments, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mott, for his Amendment 142. I now understand what his amendment is about: that despite the ban, it is still basically a disposable vape. It is used once and chucked away but it has 1,600 puffs in it. These things are cheap; again, they are marketed at children and disposable, so they are e-waste. I had an amendment earlier about creating minimum pricing for vapes but I think that, fundamentally, the Minister misunderstood what I was doing in that amendment. She said that it would make vaping more expensive than smoking, whereas that is fundamentally not true, because it is about buying a base unit that might last for three or four years. Although you would be paying £25, that base unit would stay with you for a long time and by doing it in that way, you are not needlessly generating e-waste. I would like to revisit that with the Minister prior to Report, but I basically support that amendment. These devices should not be in the hands of our children; they are absolutely designed to get children addicted to nicotine. They are not good for the environment, so let us get rid of them.

I absolutely agree with Amendment 144 on descriptors; I think we are on the same page and speaking about the same thing. My amendment might be a bit nuanced and tongue in cheek but we share an opinion.

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[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I am sure that I will be able to do that, if the noble Lord will allow me to continue in the meantime.

What we do not yet know is the long-term harms of certain ingredients or flavours. This is why we need to be able to limit the flavours themselves, with the ability to respond to emerging evidence or scientific advances in the future, as well as how flavours are described. I can refer the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, on the point that he raised to Clause 91, which says:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about—”


et cetera. I hope that will be helpful to him.

I understand the concerns that were raised about how restrictions on flavours can impact former smokers who have switched to vaping. We absolutely recognise that vape flavours are an important consideration for adult smokers, and we will carefully consider restrictions to avoid any unintended consequences for those who seek to quit smoking. Our aims for future regulations on vape flavours, as well as for the wider regulations on vapes, are to reduce the appeal of vapes to young people while ensuring that they remain a viable quit aid for adult smokers. I heard the concern of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, about ensuring that the legislation is right. I am sure that all noble Lords share that view.

The published call for evidence includes flavours of tobacco, vape and nicotine products, to ensure that we are considering the best available evidence. We will also review the approaches taken by other countries, to learn the lessons and to consider whether they are appropriate for the UK. I give an assurance, as I have done before, that we will then consult on specific proposals before making regulations.

On the point about international comparisons—the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, raised a certain aspect of them—there are varied determinations on what a flavour is. For example, in the Netherlands, there is a specified list, and, in Finland, there is a restriction on all characterising flavours. That is why the call for evidence and the subsequent consultation are so important.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

The Minister refers to “characterising flavours” in Finland. That sounds to me like a descriptor, rather than anything about the composition. I know that these appear to be subtle distinctions but they are not—how something tastes and how it is described are two very different things. The question of characterisation seems to fall into the same confusion that the Government are in.

Perhaps this is an appropriate moment, so that I do not interrupt again later, to add that the confusion is evidenced by what my noble friend Lord Lansley and I have found in reviewing Clause 91; I am not very good at these things, but my noble friend is a former Secretary of State for Health and, as I have seen on many occasions since joining your Lordships’ House, a consummate legal draftsman. I suggest that the Minister’s support team does the same, because there is absolutely nothing in the clause that does what the Minister thinks it does. There is no reference to the description of flavours. There is reference to the flavour itself and to determining what the flavour is, but there is nothing about descriptors in that clause. I would have felt rather foolish tabling an amendment to the clause if the content of my amendment was already there.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

Perhaps I might assist by referring noble Lords to Clause 89, which obviously precedes Clause 91 and covers descriptors. I am very happy to review the points made by noble Lords in this regard; I will of course write to them in order to provide clarity.

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[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I say again that my noble friend Lord Lansley and I have scanned Clause 89 as far as we can. It appears to give the power to regulate almost anything to do with the packaging of vapes other than the description of what is inside it. Brand differentiators, but not flavour differentiators, are covered—that is,

“the markings on packaging (including the use of branding, trademarks or logos)”—

but a mango is not a brand, trademark or logo. The Minister is doughtily defending the text that has been given to her, but it deserves more careful thought before Report. I am grateful that she will write.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I agree that it needs more careful thought, which is exactly why, rather than discussing the merits of a mango, a raspberry or any other matter, I will be pleased to look at the points about which noble Lords are concerned; I want to assist in this regard. I am grateful for the reflections of noble Lords in looking at the Bill, as I have done. However, the best thing at this stage would be to commit this to writing.

I hope that noble Lords feel able to withdraw or not move their amendments.

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Moved by

[Lord Moylan]

147: Clause 92, page 52, line 19, at end insert—
“(5) The Secretary of State may, through guidelines, make provision about the nature and amount of the substances that may be released into the body of a person using government funded stop smoking services which entail—(a) vaping products;(b) nicotine products.”

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I want to dispose of this very quickly. I must start with an apology because I am trespassing greatly on the indulgence of the Committee; I must also declare a non-interest by making clear that I do not have an interest.

This amendment is very awkwardly and almost misleadingly worded, as it is limited by scope and reasons; I am perhaps trespassing beyond the scope of the Bill in raising this matter at all. That is the first thing I have to say. The second is that I am advancing this argument on behalf of a firm, Allen Carr’s Easyway, which is deeply involved in the smoking cessation business. I have no financial or other interest in the firm; in fact, apart from email exchanges, I have never met the people involved, as far as I am aware.

I wish my noble friend Lord Bethell were here—he does apologise. As a former Health Minister, his experience is that Allen Carr’s Easyway is a firm that does tremendous work in the field of smoking cessation. It produces books and booklets that encourage and inspire people and facilitate them, psychologically, to stop smoking. It also runs seminars and other in-person group sessions. When I gave up smoking three years ago, it was partly with the help of a copy of one of its books, which was given to me as a present by my sister.

It is also—this is perhaps the crucial factor—one of the four different smoking cessation methods recommended by NICE. It is not only recommended: the guidelines for local smoking cessation services which receive government funding say that there are four different smoking cessation methods that local stop smoking services must ensure are accessible to adults who smoke. They are behavioural interventions; medicinally licensed products, including nicotine replacements; nicotine-containing e-cigarettes; and Allen Carr’s Easyway in-person group seminars. However, it is the case that, throughout the country, most stop smoking services do not offer Allen Carr’s support as one of those options; they go for the easy options, if you like, of nicotine replacements and e-cigarettes.

The crucial difference is that, if one stops smoking in the old-fashioned way, one gives up not only cigarettes but nicotine. If, as some of us have found, you move from cigarettes to vapes or other nicotine-replacement devices, you may give up smoking, which may be very good for you, but you do not break the habit or the addiction to nicotine. It is much easier for the local stop smoking services to encourage that path, and so very often they do not follow the NICE guidelines, despite the fact that they are required to.

The Government provide, I believe, about £150 million a year in grant funding for local smoking cessation services. My request is that the Government make it a condition of those grants that all the NICE-recommended methods be supplied by the local smoking cessation service before it receives a grant. I do not expect the Minister to give that commitment at the Dispatch Box today, because of a lack of preparation—I have given her no warning of what I was going to say—but I hope she will be able to write to me and say that that will be a course that the Government will want to follow. If necessary, I am very happy to facilitate a meeting between her and the people from Allen Carr’s Easyway, so that they can describe the good work they do and explain the difficulty they have in reaching smokers through local smoking cessation services, despite the requirement placed on them to facilitate that. I beg to move.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I shall say a few words in support of Amendment 147 from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. I think his intention is quite correct for the following reason. Many of those who wish to stop smoking want to be released from the addiction to nicotine altogether, as they did in the old-fashioned way, as he has just said. They do not just want a less harmful nicotine hit. It is an expensive and harmful addiction, particularly for the developing young brain, yet we are told that many young people are becoming addicted to nicotine through vapes and tobacco pouches, and there is no help for them to quit in many places. As the noble Lord said, NICE guidelines list four services that should be available, including behavioural interventions and in-person group sessions, to help people quit, as well as nicotine-containing replacements for tobacco, which are available in most local stop smoking services. I have received a briefing from Allen Carr’s Easyway, although I have never come across the company before.

There is some evidence that some people who manage to stop smoking tobacco by using a nicotine replacement go back to smoking tobacco in the end. Quitting nicotine altogether has been shown to be more sustainable; people go back to smoking less often when they have managed to kick the nicotine habit as well. I assume that that is why NICE has recommended that services to get off nicotine addiction must be offered as well as vapes and patches. I note that, in its guidelines, NICE does not say “should” or “could”; it says “must”.

The ultimate role of NICE is to ensure that people across the UK have access to the most effective and cost-effective treatments and services; that is why it says that all four methods of quitting should be available. It may be much easier, quicker and even cheaper just to hand out patches and vapes—it is certainly much more difficult to arrange behavioural therapies and group therapies—but, for some people who want to quit smoking, it is more effective for them to have behavioural therapy, group therapy and the help of Allen Carr’s Easyway. That company must be good, authentic and of a high quality if it is recommended by NICE.

I certainly support the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, in his amendment.

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I have heard the request for a meeting with the Allen Carr service. I cannot agree to it from the Dispatch Box because of concerns over commercial advantage, but I am very happy to write to noble Lords further on that point. I hope that, with that, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment, and I thank him for it.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the support for my amendment from all parties. I am grateful for the sympathetic tone expressed by the Minister as well. Obviously I was not expecting a very full answer at this stage, having sprung it on her to some extent in the way that I did. I just remind her that, although there may be commercial advantage—I do not know about that—she could meet Allen Carr in its capacity as a NICE-recommended service. She also has considerable power over the local stop smoking services, not simply through regulation but also through the conditions that she can attach to funding. I think I heard her say that she will reflect a little bit further on this and possibly write, but, in the meantime, I am grateful for what she says.

I do not think the subject will necessarily stop today, but I think we could take it out of the Bill if she wanted to or we could possibly bring it back later. I think it would be helpful if she was given the space now to give some further thought to it and see whether the department felt that there was an opportunity here for it to do something. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 147 withdrawn.

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[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I hope noble Lords will forgive me: I have tabled an amendment to my own amendment, just for the purpose of making it clear that it became apparent that, in relation to brand sharing, for example, it might be appropriate for this to apply in Part 6 as well as Part 5. All the arguments similarly apply.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I think I am correct in saying that all of the amendments I have proposed so far have generally been met with a buoyant response and a good level of engagement. I suspect that Amendment 198 will be less welcome; I will speak to it briefly, partly because my noble friend Lord Lansley has already explained what the amendment says and made a comment with which I do not, in essence, disagree.

The amendment seeks to establish a vaping and nicotine industry forum so that the Government can engage with the industry properly. It would disapply the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which Ministers treat as if it were binding but which has not been the subject of a parliamentary statute imposing it on Ministers. My noble friend Lord Lansley says that this should not be necessary—I rather agree with him—but, in fact, it is necessary in practice because Ministers are treating the framework convention as binding. They are, therefore, excluding from their consultation vaping industry firms that are part of tobacco groups. They will engage with those firms that are involved exclusively in producing vapes—or are at least involved in producing vapes without being tobacco firms—but they will not engage with the others. Obviously, that leads to a very fragmented level of engagement with the industry.

We must be practical and realistic about this. As the tobacco companies transition—they clearly are transitioning—away from cigarettes and into vaping and e-cigarette products, the Government should start to engage with them differently as to their background. That is what Amendment 198 proposes; I do not have to say very much more about it.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendment 198. This vaping and nicotine industry forum is very important; I am also very sympathetic to exploring different kinds of self-regulation, as is suggested in Amendment 154.

It is interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, was forced to put down that there would be a disregard of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control because it speaks to the problem. I have been concerned about, in our discussions in Committee, the conflation of nicotine with tobacco; the conflation of vaping with smoking cigarettes; and, sometimes, the conflation of industries. The industries are distinct. I am pleased whenever I hear that the Government are prepared to acknowledge and meet members of the independent vaping industry and so on; they often represent small SMEs and so on.

I want to mention something that I genuinely do not understand. A lot of tobacco companies have now moved into anti-cigarette mode. It is a bit like how BP went beyond petroleum. If you ever go to an event with anyone from a tobacco company, you will be more likely to get a lecture on the dangers of cigarettes than on anything else. They have been forced, by being treated like pariahs, to adopt a different method and different products. I wonder whether the Government might acknowledge that this is going on; personally, I think that treating even tobacco companies as pariahs is not helpful.

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The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, asked why Ministers abide by the FCTC if it is not law. It sets the framework for effective tobacco control, there are 168 signatures to that treaty and the UK was one of the first to sign it. I would add that we have a proud history of tobacco control in this country, and we fund the FCTC 2030 to help low and middle-income countries to strengthen their own tobacco controls.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

May I just gently correct the Minister? I did not ask why the Government adhered to their international obligations; I understand why a Government will, in general, want to adhere to their international obligations. The dilemma I raised was why the Government would continue to adhere to international obligations when the practical necessities of engaging with the industry would suggest that there is a case here for not doing so. It would be legal in domestic terms not to do so; indeed, this amendment would give sufficient warrant to anyone who doubted it would be legal not to do so. The question is, in a sense: how long will the Government go on ignoring reality because they prefer to adhere to a non-binding international obligation?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I appreciate the clarification from the noble Lord and am grateful for his question. In my language, it does not give us a problem to abide by these obligations; they chime with our experience, with the evidence and, as the noble Lord is aware, with all previous practice. I will come on to the point from the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, about my ministerial colleagues in this regard, but this is also our government approach.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan—I hope that I am quoting him correctly; I know that he will correct me if not—asked about the treatment of vaping firms with tobacco industry links in respect of the consultation. When responding to the call for evidence, and with regard to any future consultations, we ask that respondents declare any direct or indirect links to, or funding received from, the tobacco industry. Input from those vaping companies that have links to the tobacco industry will be summarised with regard to the requirements of Article 5.3, and responses from those parts of the vaping industry that are independent of the tobacco industry will be considered alongside the contributions and evidence of other regulations.

Turning to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, about the DBT Minister, Sir Chris Bryant, I can tell her that the award ceremony to which she referred followed the historic signing of the UK-India trade deal. It has previously been attended by Ministers to celebrate the small businesses that are, as we have spoken about regularly, the backbone of our high streets and are delivering economic growth. We are acutely conscious of government guidance; I assure the noble Baroness that no bilateral or brush-by meetings with representatives of the tobacco industry were held.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th November 2025 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Liverpool (Con)]

My Lords, as this is the first time that I have risen to speak on this Bill, I should immediately declare an interest, as shown in the register: I am a member of the Commons and Lords Pipe and Cigar Club. It may be no surprise to the Grand Committee that I strongly support the amendments that have so far been spoken to.

This is an industry that goes back 6,000 years—some people would say 6,000 but maybe 1,000 years will do. It is a very specialised business and, as my noble friend Lord Johnson said, cigar consumption and the purchase of cigars in this country is of great benefit to our tourist industry. People really do come to look at what we have to offer in St James’s Street and elsewhere. It is a wonderful thing, and I offer my full support to these amendments.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I put my name to some of these amendments, but so much has been said, and so eloquently, that I will speak only briefly in their support. I have no personal interest in this. I used to smoke, but I stopped three years ago. I have never smoked cigars or pipes, and I never took snuff. I probably experimented with all of them at some stage, but they were not for me. So I have no personal interest in this—but I was moved to take an interest in it because of being approached by a neighbour, recently retired from the family business of Hunters & Frankau, which specialises almost exclusively in cigars and is a successful British business that has been around for a long time, bringing pleasure with very little harm to its customers and giving jobs to people in the economy. He and his colleagues pointed out to me that the way in which this Bill operates will be absolutely destructive to their business; they will no longer be able to continue in business as a result of this Bill, for reasons that have been explained by my noble friend Lord Lindsay and other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I really do not think that that is what the Government intend.

This measure does not mean that the business will be destroyed. The businesses will be destroyed but not the commerce, because it will still be perfectly legal to buy these things in foreign countries and import them into this country. One can never imagine the French to be so idiotic as to clamp down on a luxury trade that brings custom to their capital—nor the Germans, for that matter. These products will always be available, but the businesses in this country that have operated for such a long time will be reduced to cinders and ashes if the Government do not step back at this stage—I hope the Minister will say that she is willing to do this—and say that they will reconsider this whole question before coming back to the Bill at a later stage.

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[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

We can bandy all sorts of statistics around, but my noble friend is right that it is important to be absolutely accurate. I say to him that my reference was to sales of other tobacco products, which is a broader reference than to just cigars; I am happy to clarify that. I will also be pleased to write to the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, to be crystal-clear and to add anything else that I can in respect of the statistics.

The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, talked about the tobacco industry being incredibly—this is not a direct quote—innovative. He said that the industry is likely to adjust its business model as it has done before—for example, when the menthol flavour ban was introduced. That legislation did not cover cigars so, in response, as the noble Lord said, the industry produced cigarettes in a tobacco wrap, which are available in branded menthol packs of 10. Now, in the United States, a whole new category of small cigars has emerged to exploit the tax advantages over cigarettes, so I listen to the point that the noble Lord makes about the creativity and determination of the industry. I just ask noble Lords to hold that point in their head when we are talking about loopholes.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

May I just say to the Minister that the tobacco industry, as normally understood and which is suspected of such nefarious innovation, is not involved in the business of hand-rolled cigars at all? The industry consists, on one end, of artisans working with their hands in Caribbean countries, and, on the other end, of small specialist shops and other distributors in the UK supplying these products to a very narrow customer base. They never go through the hands of BAT or any of the other big tobacco companies, so I think that the Minister needs to be a little more aware that the main topic of our discussion today is not one in which the tobacco industry, understood in its normal sense, has any interest.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I should clarify that I was picking up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bethell. I was saying that, when cigars were not included, this is what happened, as an example. I also refer noble Lords back to the point that I made some minutes ago about looking at the core of the Bill and loopholes; that was one such example.

I apologise to my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn: I will come on to the matter of impact assessments, and I should have mentioned that earlier.

The noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, has also tabled Amendments 102, 104, 105 and 201, all of which seek to require an impact assessment be published before any provisions in the Bill relating to cigars, pipe tobacco and nasal tobacco come into force. The impact assessment would look specifically at the impact on small businesses and specialist retailers, which a number of noble Lords mentioned. An impact assessment for the Tobacco and Vapes Bill was published on 5 November 2024, and it included assessment of small and micro-businesses. The Regulatory Policy Committee published an opinion on the impact assessment and provided a rating of “fit for purpose”; this included a green rating for amendments relating to small and micro-businesses.

Going back to the point about the tobacco industry, the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, asked whether the Government would engage with the industry to avoid such loopholes. In line with Article 5.3 of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the Government will not accept, support or endorse partnerships and non-binding or non-enforceable agreements. There will not be any voluntary arrangement with the tobacco industry, nor with any entity or person working to further its interests. To summarise, then, the answer is no, but I am grateful that the noble Lord raised this issue.

The noble Lord, Lord Johnson, and other noble Lords raised the fact that the impact assessment notes that the Government are aware of a limited number of small and micro tobacco product manufacturers, based in the UK, which mainly produce tobacconist products and which may be affected by the policy, including through lost profits. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, observed in her comments, any impact on retailers will be gradual over time as the number of people captured by the smoke-free generation policy increases.

I accept exactly what the impact assessment says. I know that noble Lords do not welcome that, but we have been honest and transparent.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 30th October 2025 Grand Committee

Cancer Research UK—would you believe it?—also opposes this approach, saying that the price of vaping products and liquids is already set to increase with the UK Government’s vaping products duty. It believes that the increase could reduce rates of vaping, saying that there is no significant evidence that it would encourage cessation. It suggests incentivising vaping of all sorts and that low pricing can be a vital part of that. Therefore, I do not support that amendment, although I understand where it is coming from.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 18 in this group.

There is merit in thinking about the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, which was so effectively moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley. We send very confusing messages generally to young people in society about the age of responsibility. Voting has one age. We recently changed the marriage age. Other things are allowed or prohibited at the age of 16. There is a proposal that the voting age should be reduced to 16, as it has been already in either Scotland or Wales. These are very confusing messages about the age of responsibility. We should not carry on arbitrarily creating bans for young people without some coherence. The amendment tabled by my noble friend certainly brings that to the fore and should be used by the Government to encourage serious thought about this.

Turning to my own Amendment 18, I will take in with it the two amendments in this group in the name of my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising, though glancingly only, as I have not prepared anything to say about them. I rope them in with mine as all three have in common that whenever one introduces a sweeping ban or a blunt instrument, there are cases where unintended consequences arise that should be addressed through some careful attention to what exceptions should be allowed. My amendment focuses on healthcare settings, particularly mental healthcare settings, which will include establishments where people are detained. They may be voluntarily detained, in a sense. I am familiar with these, for reasons which I do not need to go into, having had cause to visit such settings in the past. Even those who are voluntarily detained are gently voluntarily detained. Wandering outside the building is not encouraged, even for voluntary patients, and is not allowed for those who are detained under the Mental Health Act.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, said, such people are very often smokers, and hospital settings are an appropriate place to encourage smoking cessation programmes. That is what many mental health settings actually do.

The essential point I want to make is that we are discussing vaping, and the Bill does not ban vaping. Around this Committee, we have an unclear mental attitude towards vaping. There are those who see it as something almost as bad as smoking, and there are others who see it as a positive solution—as it has been for me personally—for those who want to give up smoking. We need to realise that vaping has a very important place in smoking cessation—it is the Government’s policy to recognise that—and that there are places, such as institutions, where vending machines might be the only means by which people can have access to vape products, which would be beneficial as an alternative to smoking.

My amendment, and I think those of my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising, are intended to probe this issue, to ask the Government whether they recognise that a general ban on vaping machines might have unintended consequences, and to test whether they are willing to listen to arguments and representations about where exceptions might be appropriate.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 21, and I thank my noble friend Lady Walmsley for adding her name in support of it. The amendment would establish a £30 minimum retail price for vaping products. This vital proposal is a means of addressing the mounting environmental crisis from disposable vapes, which are still so cheap that they are used as a one-time product. It is also an effective means of ensuring that these products are out of the range of pocket money prices and are kept out of the hands of our young people.

I support the use of vapes as a smoking cessation aid, and my amendment is in no way intended to stop that purpose. Vaping is a good and proven means of smoking cessation. However, big tobacco has been allowed a free hand to move beyond smoking cessation towards a new business model, and it has free rein to create a whole new generation of young people who are now addicted to vaping products and are future customers, supplying it with profits.

While we support the aim of smoking cessation, big tobacco must not be allowed to continue to put vaping products into the hands of young people. Vaping has exploded in popularity with children and teens across the UK, and these products are deliberately targeted and marketed towards them. In 2025, around 1.1 million 11 to 17 year-olds—20% of young people in this age group—admitted to having tried vapes, with approximately 400,000 currently using vapes and 160,000 vaping on a daily basis.

Alarmingly, nearly one in 10 secondary school pupils are now regular or occasional vapers, a figure that has almost doubled since 2018. Children as young as eight have been found to be using vapes in school, and one-quarter of 11 to 15 year-olds have experimented with these products. Anyone with a teenage child will know the true scale of the problem, and I suspect that the true scale is larger than the statistics bear out.

The aim of the Bill is to create a smoke-free generation. We support that, but the Bill could and should go further by creating a nicotine-free generation. The epidemic of vape use has been fuelled by disposable vapes. They are brightly coloured, child focused, flavoured and available for less than the cost of a sandwich. Marketing and pocket money prices put nicotine firmly within the reach of our children. Despite sales law prohibiting sales to 18 year-olds, the truth is that you can go to any corner store and probably get one.

Vaping can act as a gateway to smoking. Studies have shown that teens who vape are 22 times more likely to take up cigarettes and 33% of vaping teens move on to smoking, compared to just 1.5% of non-vapers. Who said big tobacco could have carte blanche to an ever-growing number of nicotine addicts—new generations for new profits?

Turning to the environmental impacts, the numbers are staggering. Before the supposed ban, 8 million single-use vapes were discarded every week—13 devices every second—resulting in 260 million devices being thrown away annually. Each vape contains plastics and lithium. It has been estimated that, collectively, the lithium lost each year could be enough to power 5,000 electric vehicles. The scale of the waste is enough to fill 22 football pitches. The real consequences are big, with over 1,200 fires at waste sites and bin lorries catching fire. Lithium batteries are dangerous. The plastic and toxic materials spend hundreds of years in our landfill sites, leaching into the environment and polluting our soils and waterways. I do not believe that any device should be made where it is not possible to remove and recycle the battery.

Defra has plans, and those introduced to ban disposable vapes have helped, but they do not go far enough, and the problem has not gone away. Cheap products continue to be bought and used on an ad hoc basis. With a quick look online or a trip to my corner store, I can still get a perfectly compliant vape for £4.99. They are fully compliant, but they will be used once and then discarded. They create waste that we do not need to create.

If we are serious about our environmental responsibilities—the Government are very much championing the circular economy; I welcome and support them in that—we need to take further steps. My view is that minimum pricing is the best way to do that. If we have a higher price for these products, we get better quality products that last longer. The batteries will have longer cycling times, and they will be used regularly by their users.

I recognise the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, made. However, the figures I have seen show that although there is a £30 entry point—which is not much more than a packet of fags—if you refill a vape with liquid the saving can be up to £750 a year. I have another associated amendment that seeks to ban pods. This is not about making vaping more expensive. It will save regular vapers considerable amounts of money; it will give them a better product; and they will be able to vape knowing they are not destroying the planet and environment needlessly.

Price controls are the only effective means of keeping these products out of teenage hands. The truth is that the regulatory systems do not work—they are not enforced and they never will be—and our children will continue to vape. I do not see another way of doing this. I will be honest that £30 was plucked out of the air; I am happy to reduce that amount. A good quality vape probably costs £20 to £25. It could be that the Government will work with me on that, and we can look at setting a lower figure. I do not want to ban entry into this market, but that kind of price range is where it needs to be. It could be that this price has a free bottle of liquid, or something else, to go with it.

I want the Government to look at this seriously. If this Government are serious about the circular economy and about making sure that these vapes do not end up in our children’s hands, they really need to consider these things and take them seriously. I stand ready to work with the Government between now and Report. This is a serious amendment, and I would like the Government to make progress on these matters.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

May I ask for some clarification? There seems to be a contradiction between the idea, on the one hand, that these products save you money in the long run and, on the other, that they price young people out of the market. I cannot see how something that saves you money in the long run prices you out of the market at the same time. I leave that to the noble Earl.

We are discussing a ban on advertising, but I have never actually heard of these products. It is only by virtue of my membership of the House of Lords—which is a restricted market—that I have come to hear about it. From what she said, that is also the case for the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley. The noble Earl made a very good advertisement for these products as money-saving devices. Where do I get hold of them?

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[Lord Moylan (Con)]

May I probe a little on the noble Baroness’s response to my Amendment 18? On the one hand, she seemed to take a hard and unrelenting line on vending machines, particularly in enclosed mental health premises. On the other, the noble Baroness said towards the end that she was still working on it, and I wondered to what extent one could look for hope. I am sure the noble Baroness said that she was still working on these issues. I appreciate that she has consulted the National Health Service, but I think she probably means NHS England, a vast organisation at some distance removed from patient contact. In fact, it has no patient contact at all. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, said that representations have been made by a certain number of mental health trusts on just this issue. Their views need to be considered, because they are very much closer to real life. May we hope that the Minister will come back at a later stage with something that modifies the severity and comprehensiveness of the ban that is, as she says, in a Bill that we are here to change?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I will be happy to check exactly what I said but, to be clear, we are not continuing discussions about vapes in hospital and mental health settings, in respect of vending machines. As I said, that is in the Bill. I hope I was making the point that discussions are continuing in respect of vape-free places, and that will be a matter for regulations. I assure the noble Lord that NHS England was in full consultation with the relevant parts of the services. It does provide services and it is the right organisation. As the noble Lord knows, we are bringing NHSE into the department in any case in the future. I am sure he will welcome that, as I certainly do.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th October 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, it is an honour to open Committee on this significant Bill. I have Amendments 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 126, which relates to Northern Ireland, 127, 128, 130, 131 and 217. These amendments seek to remove, from every place in the Bill, the generational element of the smoking prohibition to be brought in.

Let us not mess around. A generational ban is de facto prohibition, and there is no evidence anywhere in the world that prohibition of a long-standing legal product has ever worked. In time, it will result in the termination of a legally controlled, highly regulated and heavily taxed industry. It will be replaced by an illegal, uncontrolled, unregulated and untaxed criminal market. The idea that because the Government ban a product, they extinguish demand for it, is pure fantasy.

The Government’s policy approach of exceptionally high taxation on tobacco is already failing. A generational ban will only cement their failure. The representation of that failure can be found in the flourishing black market. So long as there is a flourishing alternative market, consumer demand will always be met with cheaper, illicit tobacco. Taxes on tobacco have become so expensive that people are switching in huge numbers to buy cheaper, illicit products. Not only does this result in a decline in vital tax revenue to the tune of about £1 billion a year, but it is doing nothing to bring down smoking rates, which have stalled since 2020, according to Action on Smoking and Health. The Government desperately need to rethink their policy towards tax and banning tobacco, as it is not working and is the single biggest driver of the expansion of the illicit tobacco market controlled by organised criminal groups.

That takes me to the second consequence of driving cigarettes underground: the susceptible purchaser of cigarettes will then be offered the other, illegal products available on the black market. Action on Smoking and Health and the Government maintain that illicit tobacco consumption is in decline, but all the evidence from law enforcement and retailers tells a different story. The Government need to pay attention to what is happening in Australia, where organised criminals have taken over control of the illicit tobacco and vapes market and violence and chaos have exploded across the streets. Retailers are facing the full force of the impact of this violence, with more than 290 arson attacks taking place in the last two years. Even Ministers in the Australian Government are calling out the tobacco black market as the biggest threat to public health in Australia, with organised crime taking a stranglehold over the illicit market.

If the Government are serious about reducing smoking rates, they need to execute a twin-track strategy of pursuing stronger zero-tolerance enforcement action against those criminals trading illicit tobacco along with prioritising more investment in targeted education programmes, youth access prevention, smoking support services and campaigns to educate smokers on less harmful alternative nicotine products.

Implementing a generational ban will be unenforceable. It will only drive more consumers into the hands of the criminally controlled illicit market. It makes absolutely no sense at all. Further, it will deprive the Treasury of much-needed revenue, which will be redirected instead into the pockets of organised criminals. Smoking rates will not decline any further, given the exceptionally low price point for a packet of illicit cigarettes—apparently between £3 and £6 for a 20-cigarette pack—and for hand-rolling tobacco, which is between £5 and £8 for 50 grams. In contrast, a packet of 20 cigarettes in a shop apparently costs about £17. One can see immediately the incentive for purchasing black-market cigarettes.

My final point by way of introduction is that this Government purport to be a keen proponent of adherence to the provisions of international law, but, as reported in the Sunday papers, it is now clear that a generational ban would not be permissible in the European Union. The ability to impose this ban is therefore a Brexit benefit—something that noble Lords will perhaps not hear from the Minister. More importantly, it would be unlawful to introduce it in Northern Ireland.

There is now clear and careful legal opinion, from the former Advocate-General for Northern Ireland, John Larkin King’s Counsel, that a generational ban would be contrary to the provisions of the Windsor Framework. I ask the Minister, in respect of the applicability of this measure across the United Kingdom, whether the Government accept that that is the case, and if not, why not? Are they content to proceed in the face of contrary legal evidence and take their chances before the courts of Northern Ireland? In the event that the law is found incompatible by the courts of Northern Ireland, do they intend to disapply these measures in Northern Ireland, thus creating an imbalance whereby 21 year-olds in Northern Ireland are able to buy cigarettes but their compatriots in Wales, Scotland and England are not?

By way of further background to these amendments, noble Lords will note that the method by which my amendments would take effect is by raising the age of purchase from 18 to 21. This would be much more practicable and manageable and a more straightforward way for retailers to enforce a stricter regime on the purchase of tobacco than a generational ban, which would be complicated, impractical, unworkable and unenforceable. Furthermore, the Government’s own modelling in preparation for the last tobacco and vapes Bill showed that raising the age to 21 would have an identical effect on UK smoking rates as the introduction of a generational ban. Moreover, the Government’s own modelling in preparation for the last tobacco and vapes Bill showed that increasing the age of purchase from 18 to 21 would result in exactly the same outcome as a generational ban, achieving 0% smoking rates among 14 to 30 year-olds by 2050.

One further aspect that I wish to touch on is the impact of the proposed generational ban on retailers. For retailers, especially small independent ones, the introduction of the generational ban presents a number of very profound challenges. Crimes against retailers are already at epidemic levels. Many independent shopkeepers are scared of the impact that a generational ban will have on their businesses and the safety of their staff. There is no getting away from the fact that the weight of responsibility for enforcing the ban falls entirely on the shoulders of retailers, who will have to navigate a new legal age threshold that will change every year and with every customer. Already, the British Retail Consortium records that violent acts of abuse and intimidation towards Britain’s retailers have leapt to an unprecedented 2,000 incidents a day, up from 1,300 incidents a day in 2024. This is a staggering increase. Retailers have consistently tried to engage with the Government throughout the passage of the Bill, but the Government have ignored that audience and their concerns at every stage.

Shopkeepers could not be clearer: the end result of the implementation of a generational ban is that they will close their businesses, with all the loss of jobs and convenience that that will entail. Tobacco and vape sales make up 20% of the annual revenues of many of these shops. With the inevitable escalation of further violence and intimidation towards themselves and their staff, it does not make economic sense in the long term to carry on. We also know that organised criminal gangs are keen to dominate the illicit tobacco market, as they have been in Australia, and, as I mentioned earlier in my remarks, have sought revenge on those who are not participating in their illegal schemes.

This Government tell us that they wish to introduce ID cards. If that is right, would it not be better—if they insist on persisting with a generational ban—to await the introduction of those measures prior to introducing a measure such as this, to avoid the absurd situation when you have potentially an 18 year-old shopkeeper having to ask a 46 year-old to prove that they are in fact 46 and not 45, with no obvious basis on which to ask for that and with all the attendant risks of aggression and difficulty that that would give rise to?

For all those reasons, I beg to move Amendment 1 and commend all my amendments in the group.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 5 and 205 in this group, which, although there has been no prior discussion between myself and my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth, point in a very similar direction. I propose in Amendment 5 that the permitted age of sale be raised in the interim to 21—Amendment 205 is purely consequential, so I do not intend to say anything about that separately; I will focus on Amendment 5—so that there would be an immediate introduction on the passing of the Bill of a ban on sales to persons under the age of 21, with a view to replacing the generational ban.

The arguments against the generational ban that have been made by my noble friend are compelling and comprehensive, so there is not a great deal that I can add. But I can bring some experience, which perhaps my noble friend does not have, of having had political responsibility in the past for the enforcement of underage tobacco sales in a local authority through a trading standards department and having myself been out in disguise in a fairly clandestine way, because that is how they operate on such excursions—I will not call them “raids”, because that makes them sound very dramatic; I shall just say “excursions”—in order to test sales at various premises to see whether they are complying with the law. So I have some experience of that.

I think that, in the minds of those promoting the generational ban, there is an expectation that it is going to be self-enforcing. After all, the ban on smoking in offices and in shops, which was introduced some years ago, is self-enforcing. I have never seen anybody attempt to enforce it, because there has not been any necessity. When was the last time one saw somebody smoking in a shop so that enforcement might be required, or wandering around their office with a cigarette or a pipe? It is self-enforcing.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Moylan]

3: Clause 1, page 2, line 3, leave out “negative” and insert “affirmative”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment provides that regulations to specify methods of customer age verification must be made by the affirmative resolution procedure.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 3 and 17. The bulk of the amendments in this group are to do with age verification, but mine are not, and I do not intend to speak about age verification. However, the process of numerical determinism that governs our actions and procedures means that I have the privilege of speaking first in this group.

My amendments are to do with the question of whether certain regulations should be approved and made by the affirmative or negative process, which I hope is a relatively uncontroversial topic. Indeed, I hope that it will find support across the Committee, because I wish to move from the current arrangement whereby these regulations are made under the negative process to the affirmative process, which generally finds favour among your Lordships.

Both amendments require certain specific regulations—not all regulations—to be approved by the affirmative process. Amendment 3 relates to tobacco sales and Amendment 17 relates to vape sales. The activities subject to these regulations are what constitute a defence by the retailer if charged with an offence under the Bill. In other words, these regulations state how a retailer must operate if they are to have a defence under the Bill from the charge of making illicit sales. To be effective, these must be highly technical and challenging regulations which will require the broadest consultation with representative bodies, including those representing not only retailers but trading standards and enforcement officers, which I think would benefit greatly from parliamentary scrutiny.

This would involve issues such as—we will come on to this—what sort of age verification would be acceptable and other matters of that sort. As I say, they are likely to be very technical and they will have to work. If they are going to work, the greater the scrutiny they are given, the better. In that sense, the argument makes itself.

I hope that the Government see that there is nothing mischievous about these amendments; the Bill and the operation of it would benefit by accepting them, and there should be little difficulty in doing so. I am not proposing to speak on the broader question of age verification that will come up in the course of this debate, but I wish to move Amendment 3.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 9, tabled in my name, would create an offence of selling tobacco products online. This is a probing amendment.

If the generational ban policy is to be effective, or the alternative policy of an age limit of 21, there would be a clear loophole if tobacco could be bought online, as roughly 9% of sales are at the moment, without any form of age verification. Such a policy would be unusual for the UK, as there is not currently a product that is available for sale in a bricks and mortar shop that you cannot legally purchase online. However, we would by no means be the first country in the world to introduce this measure: Brazil, Mexico, Finland, France and Greece, to name a few, have all banned the sale of tobacco products via the internet, so there are some clear international precedents.

Banning the online sale of tobacco was recommended by the Khan review in 2022 and the World Health Organization, which argued that internet sales constitute

“display at points of sale”

and

“inherently involve advertising and promotion”.

Today you can look up tobacco products on any of the major supermarket websites or shopping apps and see reviews, such as:

“Quite nice for relaxing on a summers day, beside a bubbling brook perhaps or at a test match”,


as one purchaser of Pall Mall Flow Red Superkings commented. Last time I went to a test match, smoking was prohibited.

Separately from the point about the delivery of smoking products, are these the messages that we want smokers to see about such a lethal product, given that such advertising was banned on television some 60 years ago? When retailers sell tobacco products, they are not permitted to display them, yet there are pictures of products online. This seems inconsistent. Products such as heated tobacco and cigarillos have colourful packaging, as they are not captured by plain-pack laws, which seems to be a regulatory oversight. I appreciate that the Government may be doing something about this, so perhaps the Minister can give us some details—but it feels like the online world is somewhere where rules are often bent with little repercussion, and the amendment would address that.

At the moment, online sales are not heavily exploited by underage individuals attempting to circumvent the law. However, we should be mindful of that possibility in the future. If the Government are minded to resist the amendment, I hope that the Minister will explain how age verification will be secured at the point of delivery. Someone born after 2009 can order their groceries online and include tobacco, but they could not buy it in the shop. How might this be enforced without the amendment? Does the Minister plan to go down the route that we have taken for the delivery of knives? Since 2022, a retailer has to verify the age of the purchaser before he or she sells a knife and, if that knife is delivered after an online order, it has to be checked at the point of delivery. Does the Minister have that in mind for tobacco sales? Who will be responsible for ensuring the implementation of the policy if tobacco products are available online? I look forward to her reply in due course.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I understand the point the noble Lord makes. I believe I said that it potentially risks making vapes less accessible. I know that that is not a view that he shares. I also agree that, where there is evidence, we need to be focused on it in the measures we are taking. But the position I have outlined is the case. I will reflect on the comments that he and other noble Lords have made, which I have heard very well. I understand the concerns of retailers and I am very aware of them; that is why we continue to work so closely with their trade associations to overcome difficulties. We do not want retailers to be put in a position where they cannot do the job that they want to do. We will continue in our work in that way.

With that, I hope the noble Lord will feel about to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her concluding remarks and for the sensitive and attentive way that she commented on the debate; she has clearly listened to what noble Lords said and sought to respond within the limits of government policy. As far as my own amendments are concerned, I heard what she said with just a hint of encouragement; there was not a slamming of the door at least, so I look forward to seeing what the Government come forward with on Report.

Concerning the other amendments in this group, I refer to the fact that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, used the words unintended consequences. The Bill potentially has quite a lot of unintended consequences. Some of them relate to age verification and the role of retailers in the architecture created by the Bill. There are potential lacunae in the Bill.

I simply say that the sooner the Government come forward with draft regulations and a clear idea of what is being required, the happier noble Lords will be and, more importantly, the happier the retailers—including online retailers—will be with the Bill as it goes forward. I hope that the Minister recognises that and feels that the Government can act on it. Perhaps we might even see some draft regulations before the Bill completes its passage through your Lordships’ House. In the meantime, with that hopeful and optimistic wish on my lips, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 3 withdrawn.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, so much has been said about the principle and the technicalities of the Bill that I thought I would use my few moments to return to the language used in the Bill. I realise that that is a controversial thing to do, because I have seen the reaction to the speech of my noble friend Lady May. I wish to express some solidarity with her, because the argument against her has been that people wishing to access an assisted death do not actually want to die, but suicides presumably do. I think that is a mistake. In the case of suicides, most of them do not want to die. Most of them want their girlfriends or their families back, their fortunes restored or their pain taken away. The distinction collapses when you look at it closely. They are very much in the same position as people who are trying to avoid pain at the end of their life. So I express my solidarity with my noble friend.

There are other points about the language. It is notable that the words “death” and “dying” hardly appear. The poison to be used is described as an “approved substance”, and the still mysterious contraption by which it is to be administered is called an “approved device”. The business itself, when you get to Clause 25, is headed “Provision of assistance”. “Assistance” is the term used throughout the Bill. Is this something that is going to become part of our daily language? “Have you considered ‘assistance’, Mrs Smith?”

We know what this is: it is euphemism, an ancient Greek device for hiding from the gods, through the use of flowery language, something of which you are ashamed. That is what the language of this Bill is constantly expressing at every turn. I think we are right to be ashamed of what is in this Bill. I think we should take the opportunity not only to scrutinise it but, if we see fit, to give the Commons an opportunity to consider it in a second parliamentary Session to see whether its view remains as firm as it is now—which after all is not very firm, purely on the numbers.

I will make one final point in response to an argument that I have heard several times in the course of this debate: that it is somehow discriminatory that some well-off people can afford to go abroad to evade the law and that this is a discrimination that needs to be addressed by giving everybody the opportunity to evade the current law. We never use that argument on anything else, do we? Have I ever heard that argument used when it comes to tax evasion, for example? It is a very strange argument indeed, and one that I think does no credit to those who promote it.

I think this Bill indeed deserves scrutiny, but we are not in any way committed or obliged to pass it. It is a Private Member’s Bill and, if it is the view of the House that it should not pass, that is the view the House should take.

Complications from Abortions (Annual Report) Bill [HL]

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 6th June 2025 Lords Chamber

I will not divide the Committee, but I will return to it on Report if the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, is not convinced by my argument that this is not a necessary Bill.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, it might be helpful if I spoke next so I could update the House on various developments that have taken place since Second Reading. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for her remarks about the importance of improving data and the importance of that data for women’s health. Nearly all of the other points she made were dealt with and debated at Second Reading, which the noble Baroness was unable to attend.

However, the fact is that there is nothing in the Bill which exceptionalises abortion, because the statistics on abortion complications already have to be collected under the existing abortion regulations using a system that relies on data provided by the abortion provider. That might have been sensible when the regulations were put in place, but currently the majority of abortions take place by the use of pills at home. Therefore, if there are complications, they are presented, in most cases, at hospitals in A&E and they are not part of the abortion notification system, so the majority of those complications are no longer captured by the current system.

The royal college says it is impossible to capture the complication statistics, but it seems to be completely unaware that, in November 2023, the Office for Health Improvements and Disparities produced a report that, with some labour, did actually capture them and showed that it could be done. All that is in this Bill is a requirement that that report, which is being treated by the department as a one-off and not to be repeated, should be repeated. It is wrong to suggest that this cannot be done; it has been done, and it can be done again.

I want to be brief, as I am conscious of the words of the Chief Whip before we started. I will move on to some developments that have occurred since Second Reading, because at the end of Second Reading, thinking that perhaps the Bill would not proceed to Committee, I tabled some Written Questions on this matter. I had one reply from the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, on behalf of the Cabinet Office, which effectively introduced me to Mr Ed Humpherson, the director-general for the Office for Statistics Regulation, with whom I have since had correspondence.

Before I read from his letter to me of 20 February, I will remark that, as was mentioned at Second Reading, these statistics are referred to as national statistics and they are required to comply with the statistics code. In that light, the last compliance check was carried out in 2012 and because of that, Mr Humpherson says: “We have agreed with DHSC that a compliance check of the statistics would be beneficial”. A great deal of what the Bill seeks to achieve is likely now to be pursued by the Office for Statistics Regulation in consultation with the DHSC. Since it is very unlikely that any compliance check would consider that the current system was successfully capturing complications arising from abortions, I am therefore very pleased with what Mr Humpherson said.

I will continue with his letter a little bit, because my pleasure at his agreement to carry out a compliance check is slightly modified by his timetable and approach. He goes on to say: “We plan to carry out this review in the first quarter of 2026/27, giving DHSC time to undertake its planned developments. These include supporting data providers to move to DHSC’s digital submission system and working with digital experts and system users to improve the design of the Abortion Notification System”. I am certain that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and I would agree that that work would be very welcome. My only quibble with Mr Humpherson—and I have written to him to say this—is that I would have thought the sensible thing would be to have the compliance check first, in order to identify the deficiencies and agree between DHSC and the regulator what the deficiencies are, and then for the department to invest in the digitisation of the collection of the statistics in such a way that they will comply with the regulator’s requirements.

When the Minister comes to reply, I am sure she will say that she will collaborate fully with the Office for Statistics Regulation and its work, because I fully expect the department to do that—it is the responsible thing to do. Can she agree that she will consider whether this is being done in quite the right order? Would it not be sensible to bring the compliance check forward so that the developments being carried out, which will involve investment and time, are not wasted but achieve what the regulator will be satisfied with at the end of the day?

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise for not being able to attend Second Reading. I begin with the observation that, as a healthcare service, abortion is highly regulated and subject to the same oversight as any other care. As a result of the Abortion Act 1967, it is also subject to additional oversight which predates many of the regulatory and monitoring systems in place across the health service today.

This context is relevant to the Bill before us, which seeks to build on this 58 year-old framework. I am wholly in favour of monitoring all forms of healthcare provision and entirely agree that further work needs to be done on the collection and analysis of large datasets relating to women’s reproductive health. However, I have concerns that this Bill in primary legislation is not the best way to approach this important work.

I am aware that both the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists—the RCOG—and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service have shared with noble Lords their concerns that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, has said, singling out abortion for new legislation in this way exceptionalises it and fails to treat it like other forms of healthcare. This would potentially stigmatise abortion care for both women and the medical professionals who provide the care. It would also indicate that abortion is considered to be such a high-risk intervention that it is in need of particular oversight.

The RCOG points out that abortion is a “safe and effective procedure”. Some one in three women in the UK will have had an abortion before the age of 45 and international studies have repeatedly found that abortion is of less risk to women than complications that can arise from continuing a pregnancy to term and giving birth. As a result, I am concerned by any indication that this House considers abortion to require increased monitoring and oversight, over and above that of comparable healthcare, and indeed the message that it would send to the nearly 300,000 women who access abortion services across the UK every year.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Moylan that we need to improve collection of data, but this must be done across women’s healthcare more broadly, and I would be interested to hear from the Minister about what plans the Government have to achieve this. We know that in many areas, women wait a disproportionately long time for diagnoses of devastating conditions, such as endometriosis, and in that time often suffer complications that come from lack of treatment.

It was for this reason that the previous Government published the widely welcomed, first ever women’s health strategy for England, to take a holistic approach to women’s healthcare. I pay particular tribute to my former colleague, Emma Dean, for her tireless and excellent work to make this happen. We also appointed the brilliant Dame Lesley Regan as the first women’s health ambassador to support the implementation of this strategy. I was pleased to note that the Minister for Secondary Care confirmed in the other place the Government’s commitment to the women’s health strategy, though I am concerned about the lack of progress against the strategy’s widely welcomed commitments, especially the Government dropping targets for ICBs around the creation of women’s health hubs. The RCOG has said that the existing hubs have reduced unnecessary referrals, provided training opportunities for professionals and enabled women to access support quickly.

The NHS 10-year plan and monitoring of the women’s health strategy would, I hope, offer an opportunity to address the challenge of good monitoring without adding unnecessary legal burdens to the healthcare system. I hope that we can all agree that the purpose of this monitoring has to be to improve information and care for women, and that singling out abortion is unfortunately likely to do more harm than good.

Before I close, I want to touch on the practicality and operability of this legislation. I understand that the information currently used by the department to produce abortion statistics, such as the type of abortion, gestational age, and information about women accessing care, is separate in the majority of cases from a woman’s broader healthcare record. It seems incredibly important to protect this right to privacy for women accessing abortion care, particularly for women at risk of domestic abuse, honour-based abuse or reproductive coercion. I know that my noble friend will not want to place women at risk as a result of this legislation, so I wonder if the Minister can confirm that the department is able to link abortion records with wider healthcare records in the way this legislation would require, and if so, whether that would mean that abortion care would appear on a woman’s medical record, whether or not she had given consent.

Given my concerns about the impact of the proposals in the Bill on women and the wider healthcare system, I am not able to support it in its current form and support the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, in her opposition to the clause standing part.

--- Later in debate ---

On the points that have been directed to the Government—the ones I am able to refer to—the noble Lords, Lord Moylan and Lord Sandhurst, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, asked about improving the design of the abortion notification system and whether it would be sensible to change the order to ensure a review by the Office for Statistics Regulation before investing in improvements. The department is engaging with digital experts and reviewing the design of the HSA4 form. We are also conducting research among system users in order to redesign the system. On the ordering of work, I confirm that the department is developing work with the OSR on improvements to the system that are required irrespective of the statistical impact. The reason for that is to improve the user experience for clinicians. However, the Bill is not required to make such an improvement.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

For clarification, is the Minister saying that the digitising and adapting of the abortion notification system that her department plans to carry out will be done in collaboration with the Office for Statistics Regulation? Or is the intention that the department does the work in its own box, so to speak, and then the Office for Statistics Regulation comes in and checks it? She seemed to hint that, for the first time, it might be the former, which would be quite encouraging.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

As I said, we are developing work with the OSR. As with all ways of developing work, that means working in a way that will get us to the place we wish to get to. I do not quite recognise the latter way forward that the noble Lord referred to, but I will be happy to write him further on this matter.

I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, that our focus in the women’s health strategy is on turning those commitments into action. I draw the noble Baroness’s attention to the provision of free of charge emergency hormonal contraception at pharmacies from October this year. We are also setting out how we will eliminate cervical cancer by 2040 through the new cervical cancer plan, we are and taking urgent action to tackle gynaecology waiting lists through the elective reform plan. Those are all tangible improvements to women’s health. I assure the noble Baroness that the women’s health strategy is very much kept under review to see how and where it can be improved.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, asked about the linking of records. It is not currently possible to link the abortion notification system with wider health records data, because of the unique identifiers on the abortion notification system data. However, as I said earlier, we are reviewing the wording of the form so that it will be easier for clinicians to complete, which will, I hope, bring about some improvements.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Freeman, that the Government are focused on moving the NHS from analogue to digital across all areas of healthcare, in order to provide the improved data collection that many noble Lords have called for during the debate.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, called on the Government seriously to consider the implications of money flowing in from the USA with a view to obtaining influence—a point also referred to by the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Barker. I can confirm that this matter is being considered more widely across government.

As noble Lords may remember, the Government have expressed reservations about the Bill as legislation is not required to produce an annual report. We believe that the aims of the Bill can be achieved through existing routes, thereby rendering further legislation unnecessary. In 2023, the department published a report on abortion complications and could choose to do so again. However, it has no plans to publish ongoing separate additional annual reports on abortion complications as there is no operational need to do so. I hope noble Lords will understand—some have made this point—that we have to uphold a duty of care not to legislate when other reasonable processes are available, as there are in this case.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a great privilege to speak after the noble Baroness, Lady Grey- Thompson. Perhaps noble Lords will not be surprised to hear that I do not entirely welcome this Bill, for a number of reasons.

The first is that it has been described as bold on the basis of the advice given by the late Viscount Nelson. But there is a fine line, even he would have acknowledged, between being bold and being reckless. I regard this as essentially a reckless Bill, because it invites us to set out on a wholly untested course of a generational ban, with all the difficulties of enforcement, when the Government’s own impact assessment, or their modelling, shows that a very similar effect on the trajectory to a smoke-free future would be achieved by raising from 18 to 21 the age at which cigarettes and tobacco can be sold. That would be an incremental approach, much more easily understood by the public and much more easily enforceable by shopkeepers. But no, we choose the reckless course, because there is something exciting, brilliant and brand new about it, but we do not ask whether it is going to work.

Given the large expertise in local government in your Lordships’ House, I am surprised to be the first speaker who is saying that I have had experience of political responsibility for trading standards in a local authority. I know how very difficult it is to manage test purchases, especially with younger people who need to be protected, briefed and counselled before they are put in a situation that could turn violent. That is one of the reasons why there are so few enforcement activities. According to the Explanatory Notes that accompany the Bill:

“In 2023 to 2024, Trading Standards conducted over 650 tobacco test purchases in England and Wales”.


That is approximately one, or one and a bit, per local authority in an entire year.

Anyone who thinks there is going to be effective enforcement of a generational smoking ban has to understand that that is the base of enforcement from which you are starting, and it is going to have to be huge if it is to be effective. Part of the explanation for that low number is that it is clear that trading standards has switched its focus to vaping—I will come to vapes in a moment—because there were 3,400 test purchases of vapes. But even 3,400 divided by the number of local trading standards departments is a very small number indeed.

There is also the effect on crime. I was really struck by the wonderfully optimistic figures cited by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Birmingham, on the basis of Treasury figures, about the number of smuggled cigarettes falling. What world does the Treasury live in? If asked, it would probably say that the amount of marijuana being smoked on the streets is falling, because it has not properly measured it. Only two weeks ago the BBC news was filled with some very interesting reporting, basically saying that for many of our high streets up and down the country, the sale of illicit cigarettes is now the principal economic activity and is closely associated with money laundering and foreign drugs dealing. Who cannot imagine that this is going to expand?

I come also to vapes. In the Government there is clearly a state of confusion about vapes. On the one hand, vaping is a core part of the Government’s and the National Health Service’s smoking cessation approach. On the other hand, it is obvious that the Government do not really approve of it and are not terribly in favour of it. What we can all agree on is that vapes should not be sold or marketed to children. One of the best ways of doing that would be to stop the importation into this country of a large number of illicit vapes deliberately designed to be marketed to children. I suspect from his description of it that the one rather naughtily waved around earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, may have been in that category.

Finally, the question of flavours is a mistake on the part of the Government. It is not flavours that are marketed to children; it is the descriptors. It is the fact that something is called bubblegum, say, that makes it attractive to children, not that it tastes like bubblegum. What does bubblegum taste like anyway? It is not flavours that the Government should be aiming at but descriptors, and I think that is something we should see an amendment on in Committee.

International Health Regulations: Amendments

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness. All Members of the House, when we had a good Question on the take-up of Covid vaccines, agreed that information supporting the take-up is a vital health message to get across. To any detractors, I say very firmly that it is not the view of the Government, and I know that it is not the view of nearly all noble Lords.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, returning to the treaty, am I right in thinking that it contains provision that envisages a role for the WHO in vaccine certification? If that is the case, how would that have played out when we wished to roll out our own vaccine very speedily? Would we have had to wait for WHO certification?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Again, my noble friend will agree with me that our ability to assess the vaccine more quickly than any other country and roll it out very quickly was a key asset for the UK. Clearly, we will not do anything that will put that at risk.

Foetal Sentience Committee Bill [HL]

Lord Moylan Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd March 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Moylan]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I propose that the Bill be read a second time with some trepidation, not because this is a momentous Bill but, on the contrary, because it is a very modest measure indeed.

I shall go through its clauses, which are very few. The first requires the Secretary of State to establish a committee and allows the Secretary of State to appoint the members of that committee. I have not chosen to specify who they should be or how many they should be, because I trust the Secretary of State in whatever Government, of whatever political colour, to make sensible decisions about that and appoint appropriate and skilled people. The clause also states what the purpose of the committee is, which bears reading out. It is

“to be a source of evidence-based, scientific expertise on the sentience of the human foetus in the light of developments in scientific and medical knowledge, and to advise the government on the formulation of relevant policy and legislation”.

The second clause requires the committee to publish reports. It actually requires the committee to publish only one report per annum, for the purposes of transparency, saying what the committee has done and giving an account of any income or expenditure it has had, as well as who its members are—a normal sort of annual report. The Government are not required to respond to that, but the committee is then free to publish further reports of a more scientific character. Clause 3—I shall come to this—requires the Government to respond to reports of that character. The other part of Clause 2 is language that ensures that the Bill is consistent with devolution legislation.

Clause 3 refers to the response that the Government have to make to those reports. There is nothing to stop the Government responding by simply saying that they have noted the report, if that is as far as they wish to go.

Finally, Clauses 4 and 5 are supplementary and general clauses, which I have been advised are appropriate for this Bill.

Why would such a committee be needed, and what value would it have? The question of human foetal sentience has been addressed by a number of bodies, but principally by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. As the very helpful note from the Library makes clear, the current conclusion—because, of course, this is a shifting and developing scientific field—is that, to date, evidence indicates that the possibility of pain perception before 28 weeks of gestation is unlikely. However, one of the members who formed the committee that reached that view has now changed his mind and takes the view that the perception of pain could arise as low as 12 weeks.

The British Association of Perinatal Medicine takes the view that foetuses born as early as 22 weeks’ gestation show physical and physiological responses to pain, and there is no reason to think that foetuses at this gestation are any different. In addition, it might be said that the NHS recommends the use of analgesia for the foetus in the case of operations in utero for spina bifida from 20 weeks onwards.

So it is fair to say that there is considerable breadth of view on the question of human foetal sentience and when it kicks in. We would all benefit—government and all the relevant professions—from having a forum in which a clearer and more determined view, and one which developed over time, could be thrashed out between different medical professions. It would also have the advantage that the Government generally, in responding to questions on this issue, have tended to rely on the work of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which places a heavy burden on it. The advantage of having a committee such as I propose would mean that there are opportunities to bring together other royal colleges, including those representing paediatricians, midwives and others, so that their view could be contributed on an equal basis.

This all brings me to the question of advances in medicine and medical science, and rapid advances in surgery. I have referred to the rare but important cases of operations in utero for spina bifida, but there are other reasons why operations may need to be carried out on the human foetus while still in the womb. There are also, of course, cases where it is necessary to operate on a pregnant woman for her own sake, and in those circumstances consideration should also be given to what consequences might arise in relation to the sentience of the foetus that she is carrying in her womb.

All of this, at the moment, is being conducted against a background of inconsistency of professional opinion. If one says, as one could, that this should all be left, as a matter of clinical judgment, to the medical practitioner, I am all in favour of medical practitioners being able to exercise clinical judgment freely and professionally, but in fact it is very difficult to do that without some sort of agreed guidance. We do not, as a matter of practice, leave practitioners free of guidance—there is a great deal of guidance on a range of topics, which they follow when carrying out their necessary and valuable work—so I do not think it impinges on the freedom of the medical practitioner to exercise their professional judgment that there should be a better-informed agreement on the time at which foetal sentience arises than currently exists, given the inconsistencies that I have drawn attention to.

There are also inconsistencies with the way in which we treat sentient animals. The then Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill 2022, which came through your Lordships’ House, established a precedent for this Bill by requiring the Government to set up and maintain a committee precisely to give them advice on policy in relation to animal sentience. That Act, noble Lords may recall, declares mammals and certain categories of shellfish to be sentient. I would be surprised if my noble friend the Minister wanted to say that a human foetus should be denied the same esteem as a lobster, but in fact that is the current position. We have legal protections for lobsters and decapod crustaceans—I remember the discussions during the passage of that Bill about those animals—as well as all mammals, but we have no view, let alone protection, for the human foetus.

There is also an inconsistency with the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, which defines protected animals and protects their foetuses from a point two-thirds through the gestation period. We have legal protection for canine foetuses from seven weeks onwards, but we do not even have informal policy advice for the human foetus and its own sentience. This Bill would open a path to correcting that, by allowing scientists to come together and reach an agreed view and a developing view, in the light of new discoveries.

Finally, I come somewhat reluctantly to the question of abortion, which I have not mentioned until now because the Bill is not about abortion. The question of sentience is much broader than that and relates to foetuses where the mother is extremely keen, devoted and committed—as indeed are her professional carers—to the healthy birth of that child.

The Bill does nothing to change abortion law or the way in which any proposed future changes to abortion law are carried out. It has no implications, other than to provide a focus for scientific knowledge, on the course of legal developments relating to abortion. It does nothing to impinge on the legal rights of women to terminate a pregnancy. Anyone who argues that it does is implicitly arguing that those rights are defensible only if scientific knowledge is somehow suppressed and dispersed.

This is a modest Bill intended to provide scientific knowledge and inform public debate. It is also based on a clear precedent advanced by the Government; the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act was a government Bill. It is hard to see on what grounds the Government or noble Lords would object to it. I beg to move.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, when I saw this Bill on our prospectus I was immediately suspicious. It follows close on the heels of an effort during the Public Order Bill to enable protests on the doorstep of abortion clinics. Happily, that effort failed and it was agreed that buffer zones were necessary. The amendment would have allowed people who totally opposed the termination of a pregnancy to harass women as they entered clinics for medical attention.

Why would an independent committee be needed to respond to the issue before us today? The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists updated its research and guidance less than two years ago, in 2022. The royal colleges—I am a fellow of three of them—are the seats of high-level monitoring of global developments in research and conduct of medical matters. They do it with great care and their research relates to what happens not just in the United Kingdom but around the world.

Why am I concerned? The politics of the United States of America is riven with divisions on the issue of abortion. For many decades it has been weaponised by far-right, deeply misogynistic organisations calling themselves Christian, which oppose women’s right to reproductive freedom. I always say, “Follow the money”. Dark money has surged into the United Kingdom’s anti-abortion groups in recent years. We should be concerned about overseas political influence inside our country. Sadly, many far-right organisations are being funded by such sources. Shadowy funds whose sources are obscured or not fully disclosed play an alarming part in enabling think tanks and far-right political groups to distort our politics.

One group, the Alliance Defending Freedom, has doubled its activities in this country in the last couple of years. Founded in the United States in 1993, the Alliance Defending Freedom—the freedom of only some—is an influential conservative group that aims to promote Christian principles and ethics. It is behind legal efforts to roll back abortion rights, remove LGBT+ protections and demonise trans people—that is not very Christian, and I count myself as one. It claims that its tireless work—

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

Is the noble Baroness suggesting that I have been in receipt of dark money or any money at all, or would she like to take the opportunity to state that she is not making such an allegation?

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

I am perfectly happy to say that some innocent dupes are used by some of the organisations funded in this way.

This organisation claims that its tireless work helped the United States Supreme Court overturn Roe v Wade, which guaranteed the right to abortion. The ADF has supported controversial anti-abortion activity in this country, including supporting and funding protesters outside clinics. We are seeing the ramping up of spending to bring US-style abortion politics into our country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer noble Lords across the House to the Companion at 4.18, where it states clearly that we address each other as “noble Lord”. We do not use the word “you”, and there is a good reason for that, which is that that actually makes us a politer House. Standing up, even in impassioned debates on subjects about which people feel strongly, and saying “you” will lead to people pointing, which is not acceptable, and there is a reason for this. I have been in this House for 26 years, and there are some things that are wise, and this is one of those.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I heartily endorse what the noble Baroness has just said about how we address each other. Does she think that stating quite clearly that those who disagree with you are either in receipt of “dark money” or are “innocent dupes” meets the standards of the House?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to those who have spoken in the debate. I am not proposing to answer them individually, but I shall make some comments, if I may, about the extraordinary speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws. The first thing is that nobody, certainly not I, made any deprecatory remarks about the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. The idea that we were, or I was, holding it in institutional contempt is simply not borne out by anything that was said. All that was said was that other professional bodies of equal reputation have reached different views, and that a forum for bringing them together so that something could be worked out that might have a more robust character was something that could be recommended. It was complete fantasy and totally unfair to claim that we had said, or I had said, anything deprecatory about the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

The second thing that I feel I have to say is that, given an opportunity, as the noble Baroness was, to state that she did not think that I was in receipt of dark money, or any money, in relation to this, her only answer was to accuse me of being some dupe. Without making any judgment, I will say that I have never heard anything like that said in your Lordships’ House, in the admittedly short time I have been here.

I shall only repeat, in a way, what I said earlier, in response to the noble Baroness, that the right to an abortion—any right that depends on blanking out developing scientific knowledge—cannot be regarded as a very robust right.

The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, suggested that somehow the evidence before this committee was going to be selected. I have really no idea where this idea comes from or who it is she thinks is going to do the selection. But that brings me to another point—one, I am sure, of genuine misunderstanding—the fault for which I have to attribute to myself.

There was a suggestion by some noble Lords, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, that the committee would be full of politicians or politically appointed persons. That was never my intention. I thought that I had made it clear, and perhaps it should have been made clear in the Bill—that is something that could happily be addressed by an amendment—that the membership of the committee was to be made up of experts with scientific knowledge. That is how it would generate scientific knowledge and examine the research. Of course, leading among those experts, I would expect appropriately chosen representatives of the relevant royal colleges and other professional bodies, not politicians at all. I do not think that the Animal Sentience Committee, to take an example that provides a parallel, is stuffed with politicians or political appointees. I think that it has members who know something about animals and how they respond to pain. But that point may be a genuine misunderstanding, and one that I would be happy to address, as I say, in Committee.

As for the Minister’s response, I am grateful for his tone but very sorry to hear his content and the fact that he feels that he cannot agree. In effect, as another noble Lord pointed out—I think that it was the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham—he is rejecting an opportunity to make policy-making more robust and evidence-based. There were some very clever but totally unpersuasive words about the Animal Sentience Committee. The Minister said, in effect, that the Government’s view was that crustaceans deserve higher esteem and regard than the human foetus. Neither position, in my view, is sustainable. With that, I beg to move.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.