Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to thank my noble friend the Minister for her very clear introduction to this Bill. I also thank many people for the briefings we have been sent, particularly ASH, of whom I am very fond, because it supported me at various times as we have dealt with this issue over many years.

I have to confess to a feeling of déjà vu; indeed, my noble friend the Minister and others, including the noble Earl, may also have feelings of déjà vu, because today we start the next stage to allow our children, and certainly our grandchildren, to live in a tobacco and smoke-free world. I thought it might take longer to get to this point, so I am delighted. I also register the importance of taking powers to deal with vaping, because I agree with many noble Lords that we need to recognise that nicotine is an addictive poison too and one about which we do not know as much as we need to.

I was a Back-Bencher supporting the ground-breaking legislation in 2006 to make all workplaces and enclosed public places smoke-free. I confess I was proud when England went smoke-free in 2007. Early results showed that, within the first two weeks of the smoke-free law, compliance rates were 97%. I was the Health Minister when the Health Act 2009 received Royal Assent: from April 2012, large shops in England, Wales and Northern Ireland were prevented from displaying tobacco products, and cigarette sales from vending machines were also prohibited; and, in 2015, small shops had to do likewise. I supported the noble Earl, Lord Howe, as the new Health Minister, in carrying through the necessary regulations.

I have had the great privilege of working with many noble Lords across the House to deliver these crucial public health reforms. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Patel, is not with us today because I know his wise words would have helped us take this Bill through the House over the next few months. There has developed a cross-party support, which saw this legislation start its life during the last Government. That signals to me that there is broad recognition that smoking is addictive and not a choice. It is not a result of freedom of choice, except perhaps for the first cigarette. There is no freedom in addiction. Most smokers want to quit but cannot, and it takes an average of 30 attempts to stay smoke-free. Often the choice to start is made at a young age, therefore locking smokers in for a lifetime, leading to early disability and death.

For many of us, this is not just a huge public health prevention initiative with savings for our NHS, but it is also a rather personal matter too. My mother, Jean Thornton, spent the last 10 years or so of her life with COPD. It was only after severe illness, and when she was initially diagnosed, that she actually ceased smoking, which she had started at the age of 14. She was the eldest of 11 children; all those working-class men and women were smokers; all of them ended their lives with smoking-related disease. That is why this is personal to me indeed.

The smoke-free generation is a long-term investment in the good health of our nation. This Government have an explicit aim at the heart of the health mission to halve the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and the poorest. Smoking is responsible for half of that gap. According to government modelling, gradually raising the age of sale year by year could prevent nearly 500,000 cases of stroke, heart disease, lung cancer and other serious illnesses by the end of the century. This is not only a public health victory; it is also a major economic victory, with total societal benefits projected at £77.3 billion.

There are those who will undoubtedly seek to amend this Bill, as happened in the other place, to remove the rising age of sale and replace it with a static age of sale. We must resist that. By increasing the age of sale every year, we prevent the tobacco industry targeting new audiences and recruiting the next generation of smokers. Two out of three people who try cigarettes become daily smokers, regardless of when they start. I look forward to working across the House to make sure this Bill gets on to the statute book.