Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 17th November 2025 Grand Committee

[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.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, much has been said on this. It might be worth noting—I appreciate this is the wrong place to note it—that the ultimate virtue in life and the bottom line of every single decision we make does not have to be public health. If you think that other things are important, it does not make you beyond the pale, evil or somebody who can be cast out of society. Public health is one of the balancing things we have to consider in society, but there is a range of things we need to discuss.

I say that because when we are talking about these exemptions, which I think are very sensible, moderate and proportionate, one of the things that is interesting is that the plethora of specialist vape shops—I appreciate that people in this Room might not be familiar with them—are full of geeky people who understand the wide variety of vapes that are available legally on the market in this country. They are not somewhere that young people hang out; I mean young in the sense of being under 18. They are often frequented by people who are interested in the different types of vaping you can choose to indulge in. I do not think there is anything wrong with that. The point that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has made is that they are not places for children.

It is interesting that many of the people who work in those establishments see themselves as being in the smoking-cessation business; they actively see themselves that way. Many go on training courses in smoking cessation and are therefore almost zealots. So, in some ways, I would much rather buy my vapes from a convenience store than go into a vape shop, because they give you a lecture in all things related to vaping, very often to do with public health.