Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential long-term effects of vaping on the health of people (a) under and (b) over the age of 18 in (i) Wirral and (ii) England.

The Department has not made a specific assessment of this in the Wirral and England. However, in general the Department’s assessment of the safety of vaping is based upon a series of independent evidence reviews commissioned over the past several years. The most recent and final in the series, the 2022 Nicotine Vaping in England report, was published in September 2022.

The latest report focuses predominantly on the potential health risks of vaping, and concludes that in the short and medium term, vaping poses a small fraction of the risks of smoking, but that vaping is not risk-free, particularly for people who have never smoked.

The Government only recommends regulated vaping products to help adult smokers to quit smoking and vapes should not be used by people under 18 or people who have never smoked.