Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent discussions her Department has had with representatives from (a) Amazon and (b) Facebook on the recreational consumption of nitrous oxide sold on their online marketplace and community forum platforms.

The Government takes the supply of substances for their psychoactive effect very seriously. There are legitimate uses for nitrous oxide, such as in medicine, dentistry and as a propellant for whipped cream canisters, but those who supply nitrous oxide who know, or who are reckless as to whether, it will be used for its psychoactive effect may be subject to a maximum sentence of seven years’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine, or both under the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016.

There have been no recent discussions with Amazon or Facebook regarding sales of nitrous oxide for recreational consumption. However, government guidance is available on the gov.uk website to all retailers to satisfy themselves that they comply with the law. The guidance recommends that retailers, including those operating online, should pay particular attention to the potential for abuse of nitrous oxide, especially where customers seek to buy in bulk or large volumes, and suggests that retailers may wish to carry out age checks to prevent those at highest risk from gaining access to psychoactive substances.

With regard to the online sale of nitrous oxide, in the Queen’s Speech on 19 December 2019, the Government committed to develop legislation to improve internet safety for all. We have published the Full Government Response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation, which sets out the new expectations on companies to keep their users safe online. The new regulatory framework will establish a duty of care on companies to improve the safety of their users online, overseen and enforced by an independent regulator. The Full Government Response will be followed by legislation, which we are working on at pace, and will be ready this year.