Under-age Vaping

Maggie Throup Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

If I may, I would like to ask Members to visualise the following scenario. The world is emerging from a period of economic uncertainty and there is a war in Europe. Young people are being given products that contain nicotine and becoming addicted to nicotine. Unbeknown to them, the products are doing irreversible damage to their young bodies, creating ill health and, indeed, killing more of them than the war in which they are fighting. There is not only the addiction to nicotine but lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other conditions that have blighted so many lives and taken too many loved ones far too early.

The times that I just described were the times that my father experienced. That was my dad’s experience during the second world war. He was given cigarettes as part of his rations as a radar operator in the RAF serving in India and Burma. Through the magical world of time travel, colleagues are now in the 21st century, 80 years on in 2023, looking at the same type of young person, aged 18 and younger, and what do we find? The world is struggling with economic uncertainty and there is a war in Europe. Yet again, we find that many young people are being given free samples of products that contain nicotine—vaping products. Vapes are causing addiction to nicotine, and I dread to think of the other detrimental impacts on young people’s health. We have not learned the lessons of 80 years ago.

Vapes should not be used as a recreational product or, as I described them yesterday, as confectionery. Vapes should only ever be used as an aid to stop smoking. I remind the House that it is illegal to sell cigarettes to under-18s. As I just indicated, vapes are an aid to quit smoking for adults and should never be seen in the hands of children, yet that is not the case. Like others, time and again I see children—and yes, they are children—with a variety of multicoloured vapes in their hands as they leave school at the end of the day. They are leaving schools that do not have sixth forms, so they are definitely not 18. Legally, they should not be able to access vapes, yet they can and regularly do.

What is going wrong? Why have vapes become a fashionable accessory that contains what I believe to be one of the most addictive and dangerous substances known to man? I would now like Members to visualise their high streets. We may have lost many of our corner shops and the traditional tobacconists with packs and packs of cigarettes stacked up behind the counter and, as we have heard, where they do still exist they are heavily regulated, with cigarettes hidden behind screens and in plain packaging, yet they have been replaced with brightly lit shops stacked full of multicoloured vaping products. The product placement and design is second to none, with modern interiors and the minimalistic look that is so attractive to youngsters. It is like candy to the eyes of young people as they walk past on their way to school.

What does this situation say about us? How have we allowed this to happen again? The tobacco industry, starved of its traditional revenue, is now seeking new victims by ploughing billions of pounds into the vaping industry, and it is doing that without clear, long-term scientific evidence of what vaping is doing to the young people who have been influenced by the tobacco industry’s sleek marketing. This must stop, and it must stop now. We cannot allow vaping to become the new cigarettes. Far too many of us have seen the consequences of smoking and we must not allow history to repeat itself.

For that reason, I have five requests of my hon. Friend the Minister. First, we should update both the Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations 2015 and the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion (Brandsharing) Regulations 2004 to cover vaping products. Secondly, we should amend the Tobacco Products and Nicotine Inhaling Products (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 to prohibit the sale of flavoured vaping liquid. Thirdly, will my hon. Friend look carefully at the case for outlawing the sale of tobacco and vaping products within a defined radius of schools? Fourthly, we should ensure that the ban on the sale of vaping products to those under the age of 18 is properly and rigorously enforced by trading standards. Finally, I urge my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to specifically target vaping products in his next Budget statement, to disincentivise the recreational habit through the tax system. Only then can we truly claim to be a world leader in protecting the health of our nation.

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[Helen Hayes]

The hon. Member speaks from her experience on this issue. We have set out a motion containing some immediate actions that the Government can take, which are well-evidenced, particularly from the approach taken to combat smoking. I agree that the Government should look urgently at other aspects of the regulatory framework on vaping, some of which we have heard about today.

Vaping products are marketed directly to children, named after sweets such as gummy bears, Skittles and tutti frutti, in brightly coloured packaging decorated with cartoon characters. There is also evidence, including from research undertaken by one of my constituents who I met during evidence week last week, of the burgeoning growth in vaping among 18 to 25-year-olds, almost entirely unrelated to smoking cessation. A new generation of vaping products has been designed to be desirable objects in their own right. If action is not taken to tackle the accessibility of vaping to children, we can only expect vaping among young adults to continue to grow.

[Maggie Throup]

The hon. Member talks about children and 18 to 25-year-olds. What age does she think is appropriate to ban vaping—16, 18 or 25?

[Helen Hayes]

The current law prohibits the sale of vapes to under-18-year-olds. We are not proposing a change in the law on the prohibition of sale. I was simply highlighting that young people grow, and those who become addicted to vaping under the age of 18 are much more likely to carry that addiction into young adulthood. That was the point that I was seeking to make. We can expect a pipeline of young people becoming addicted to vaping, which may stay with some of them for the rest of their lives.

This Government have been asleep at the wheel on children and vaping. They had the opportunity to vote for measures to protect children from vaping last year but failed to do so. The measures that the Minister has announced most recently are better late than never, but are simply inadequate to the task. ASH is clear that while educating young people on the risks of vaping through a new resource pack for schools is welcome, the evidence suggests that education alone will not stop children from vaping.

There is substantial evidence on what worked in reducing smoking rates among children. In 1982, when England first started monitoring smoking rates among children, just one in five children was a current smoker. Eighteen years later in 2000, the proportion was exactly the same—not because children were not educated about the dangers, but because adolescents are risk takers. Between 2000 and 2021, smoking rates among children fell from 19% to just 3%—not because of better education or enforcement but because the regulatory framework during that time ratcheted up year by year. Under the last Labour Government, all point of sale advertising and display of tobacco was prohibited. A comprehensive anti-smuggling strategy was implemented by HMRC and the UK Border Force, which dramatically reduced sales of illicit tobacco, and cigarettes were put in standardised packaging, with all the brightly coloured glamourised packaging removed.

What is true for the strategy to tackle smoking is true for the challenge of vaping. Without much tougher regulation, we will not succeed in driving down vaping among children and young people. Regulations on packaging, advertising and labelling are essential. Labour is calling on the Government to ban vapes from being branded and advertised to appeal to children, and to work with local councils—