Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Trudy Harrison and Bambos Charalambous

Committee stage
Wednesday 1st May 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

Q Sir Chris, you mentioned tobacco-related diseases. I want to focus on the impact that that has on the NHS. How would the Bill help the NHS in the short term and then in the long term?

Professor Sir Chris Whitty: In the interests of brevity—the medical director of the NHS is one of your next witnesses—there would be an immediate effect on the NHS because things like asthma attacks in children would be affected almost immediately. Over time there will be a growing positive impact on the NHS as people do not prematurely become unwell with chronic diseases that are extremely difficult to treat and consume enormous resources, in addition to the much more important thing of the extraordinary impact on individuals and their families, their social life, their work life and so on. So there will be a positive and growing impact. If you look forward 30, 40, 50 years, the impact of the Bill on the NHS will be substantial, but we will start to see the effects rapidly, particularly at the paediatric end of the spectrum.

[Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con)]

Q Bearing in mind what the Chair just said about being brief, can the panel explain the stages of addiction—the physiological, psychological, biological impacts of addiction—and perhaps comment on the frequently heard statement that this is a free country, people should have choice and then use discipline?

Professor Sir Chris Whitty: I will reiterate my point and then hand over to Sir Frank for a longer answer. Cigarettes are a product designed to take choice away. That is the whole basis of the industry. If you are pro-choice you are anti-cigarette—absolutely, straightforwardly, no question.

Sir Francis Atherton: As I have said, nicotine is an incredibly addictive substance and it does not take long to become addicted, so it is not really a stage; it is almost instantaneous. People smoke a few cigarettes and the nicotine addiction kicks in. Obviously, it varies from person to person, but by and large it is highly addictive to young people. The younger you start, the more addictive it is, but it is addictive across the whole of the lifecycle, so nobody is immune to that addiction. Breaking that cycle of addiction and getting out of it gets you into psychological dependencies and repeated attempts to quit—the things that many smokers have been through, which cost them so much time, energy and effort, in terms of money and their personal effort and wellbeing. That is all I can say about the status of addiction. Was there anything more specific that you wanted to know?

Tobacco and Vapes Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Trudy Harrison and Bambos Charalambous

Committee stage
Wednesday 1st May 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Bambos Charalambous]

Q So there is no obligation on the vape manufacturers to come to you to check the vape?

Dr Squire: Not if they are putting a product on the market that is not making any medical claims. If they are putting it on the market and not making medical claims, it is a consumer product and they do not have to come to us. If they start to make medical claims, including that it will help you to give up smoking, they need to come and talk to us. They should not be making medical claims without having it as a licensed product.

[Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con)]

Q We have heard various accounts of the impacts of vapes on children and young people—that there are limited direct consequences of vaping on children and young people’s bodies, but plentiful and multiple different indirect impacts of that behaviour in schools and such like. I am starting to hear that it almost feels like an unbearable choice between whether we protect children and young people from vaping, or prevent older people from being able to stop smoking through the use of vapes. I am struggling with making that choice; I can see both sides of the argument. Do you have a view? Could you help the parliamentarians here to understand the choice we are faced with?

Dr Squire: The Bill helps in all ways. The Bill is very clear on tobacco and, as I say, we do not have a role on that, but the proposal is to put more requirements on vapes, and in our experience more requirements add to the barrier to something getting on to the market, which is helpful. One of the problems we have with e-cigarettes is their availability.

I am not sure I see the choice between the two. We are seeing here a Bill that, as people have said before, is balanced. It recognises that vapes are useful for people who already smoke, and it puts in some very big restrictions on people who already smoke, but it also tightens the rules around vapes. I think that is what gives it the balance, which is helpful. The problem, which others are more qualified than I am to talk about, is: if we did not have vapes at all, where would people who smoke go? It is not a good answer, but if you do not smoke, don’t vape. That has been said a number of times, and we definitely agree with it.