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?

--- Later in debate ---

[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.