Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting)

Jim Dickson Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 9th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Andrew Gwynne]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Anyone who heard the evidence on Tuesday cannot but have been shocked at what medical professionals see with their own eyes—not just the procedures they have to use, such as amputations, but the people who are so addicted to that product that they have to light up, even having lost both legs. That was a powerful contribution, and he is right to labour the point that there is no freedom in addiction. We are seeking to free the next generation from ever being in the situation that, as he reminds us, was outlined in detail by professionals in the evidence session.

That leads me to the amendments. Simply raising the age of sale to 25 will only raise the age at which people start smoking; it will not meet this Government’s, or indeed the previous Government’s, ambition to make the United Kingdom smoke-free. We also know—and we heard this from the four chief medical officers of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, in unison—that whenever there has been a change in tobacco control legislation, the tobacco industry is clever; it is smart; it sees that one road has been blocked, so it finds another. The industry has been swift to refocus its tactics. For example, when flavoured cigarettes, including menthol, were banned in the UK, the industry used product innovation to exploit loopholes in the ban. It created new products, such as menthol filter tips and cigarette-like menthol cigarillos.

Those examples demonstrate how the tobacco industry will always regroup and refocus its efforts to respond to whatever regulations are in place. If we raised the age of sale to 25, the industry would likely change its business model to target older age groups.

Let us be clear here about what we are seeking to do. We are not criminalising current smokers; people who are legally able to purchase tobacco products and consume them will always be able to do that. However, we are having a cut-off point. We are saying to the tobacco industry, “This is your customer base now. That’s it. Game over. What you have got is all you have got. You can’t kill two thirds of your customer base and expect other people to come along the conveyor belt. We’re stopping the conveyor belt. What you have got is it.” We will do all we can to make that customer base even smaller through smoking cessation services and effective targeting of existing smokers to help them to quit. But this is it—this is the customer base, and it will shrink rapidly over the next few years, so that no child born after 1 January 2009 can ever legally be sold tobacco products.

That means that the examples we have heard from Members in this debate about a 45-year-old being asked to show ID are an irrelevance. They miss the point. The impact assessment that accompanies the Bill says really clearly that in 25 years’ time—in 2050, which is not that far away—we expect smoking prevalence among people aged 30 and below to be near zero. The logical consequence of that is that there will be very few people of middle adult age going into shops to purchase tobacco. The reality is that there probably will not be a market for tobacco products by then. Retailers will have diversified into selling something else, because there will not be a market of sufficient scale for tobacco to be sold.

All the arguments that we have heard—they have actually been pursued by the tobacco industry—as to why these things are not workable are for the birds. They are for the clouds. They are for another world that does not exist, because the measures in the Bill will ensure that we are smoke-free, and I find that really exciting.

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

The Minister is making an extremely eloquent case. He referred to the impact assessment for the Bill. I wonder whether he has spotted that on page 61, the likely societal benefits of having a smoke-free generation are estimated at something like £73 billion by the end of the century. I wonder whether he believes, as I do, that the amendment that we are considering puts that societal benefit hugely at risk.

[Andrew Gwynne]

It does, for the reasons that I have set out. I thank my hon. Friend for pointing to the impact assessment, because it sets out a very clear reversal of the current situation, in which the costs of tobacco to society, the individual, the economy and our health and care services are massive. In the future, that situation will be reversed—it will become a positive, not a negative—because people will be healthier and living longer. They will not be living with the comorbidities that are a direct consequence of tobacco use. They will be free from addiction. They will actively participate in the economy. That is why we are moving to smoke-free, rather than just shifting the age of sale to a fixed point and continuing to give tobacco companies that conveyor belt. If we did so, people would eventually reach 25 and the tobacco companies would be able to target them again—maybe not in as great a number, but we would have switched the conveyor belt back on.

I want that conveyor belt stopped for the next generation. That is what the last Bill did, to be fair, and it is what this one does. It is about protecting future generations from becoming addicted to nicotine and carrying the horrible burden of disease that is a direct consequence of all tobacco products. Breaking the cycle of addiction and disadvantage and allowing people to live healthier lives—that is true freedom. Let us be clear: there is no freedom in addiction. There is freedom in never being able to be sold tobacco and having a genuinely smoke-free UK. For that reason, I ask the shadow Minister not to press these Liberal Democrat amendments.